136 TRAVELS IN 
stifle feelings of tenderness and benevolence. In fact the 
rigour of justice is rarely softened with the balm of mercy. 
All criminals, condemned to suffer the punishment of death, 
are afterwards hung in chains close to the public road, to be 
eaten by the crows and vultures. And, under the old govern- 
ment, when a slave had been guilty of murdering a colonist, 
implacable rancour, not satisfied with putting in practice 
every species of torture that malignant and diabolical inge- 
nuity could invent, as long as any signs of life remained in 
the criminal, sentenced him to be torn limb from limb, and 
the several parts to be hung upon posts erected for the pur- 
pose in the most public parts of the high road. Many of 
such posts still remain, rather as deplorable memorials of 
what vindictive malice could invent, than as examples for 
preventing similar crimes. 
As it was our intention to examine the mouth of the Great 
Fish river, the boundary of the colony to the eastward, it was 
thought advisable to send forward, in the mean time, two inter- 
preters to the Kaffer king, carrying with them a small present 
in the name of the governor of the Cape, in order to obtain 
permission, as embassadors from the said governor, to enter his 
territories, and to pay our respects to him. By this step we 
were not only more likely to secure his protection, but it would 
also shew him that the treaty made with them in the time of 
the governor Van Plettenberg, and renewed in the year 1793, 
was held sacred by the English government. The distance 
from the place where we now were to that of his residence Avas 
calculated to be a journey of five days ; the eighth day there- 
fore was fixed on for the interpreters to meet us in Kaffer-iand 
