SOUTHERN AFRICA. 135 
his oxen in this kloof, till an entire piece of a foot square did 
not remain in the whole hide, he stabbed him to the heart ; 
and the same person is said, at another time, to have kindled 
a fire under the belly of an ox, because it could not draw the 
waggon up the same kloof. 
If, indeed, after lashing these poor creatures with to 
enormous whip, the phlegm of a Dutch boor so far gets the bet- 
ter of his passion, on seeing that his beast is completely 
exhausted, that instead of drawing his knife, or kindling a 
fire under in its belly, he unyokes it^ the chances are still ten 
to one the animal never rises more. The moment it is left 
alone a flock of the Egyptian vultures, and the still more 
voracious vuUurine crows, are sure to tear it in pieces, making 
it undergo a most cruel and protracted death, I saw an instance 
of this kind that was really shocking to the feelings of huma- 
nity. On the only great and public road, leading from Cape 
Town towards Rondebosch, a road that at least a thousand 
people, of one description or another, pass in the course of 
the day, I observed an ox lying, in the midst of the way, 
and within two miles of the town, with part of the bowels torn 
out of the belly. The third day after this I passed the same 
way, and the ox was still alive with its head erect, and the 
bowels lying on the ground beside it; and thus it might have 
lain to linger away with pain and hunger, perhaps as many 
days more, had I not requested the chief ofiicer of the police 
to send a person and dispatch it. The habitude which the 
people of this colony necessarily acquire in witnessing in- 
stances of cruelty on human as well as brute creatures, can- 
not fail to produce a tendency to hardness of heart, and ta 
