414 TRAVELS IN 
^vho had been plundered by the Hottentots, with their cattle 
and ^vaggons and the remains of their property, waiting our ar- 
rival ; in ortler, as they said, to claim protection againft the 
heathens. It was a painful situation to be thus placed be- 
tween two parties, each claiming protection, and each vowing 
vengeance against the other, without possessing the means of 
keeping them asunder. My whole strength consisted in about 
a dozen dragoons ; the Hottentots, great and small, amounted 
to upwards of live hundred ; and the boors, with their families, 
to about one hundred and fifty. Fortunately the Rattlesnake was 
still in the bay, and I obtained from Captain Goocli twenty 
armed seamen ; and, the more effectually to keep the contend- 
ing parties in order, I caused a swivel gun to be mounted on 
a post immediately between the boors and the Hotten^ 
tots. 
In this state, after many days of anxiety, in which none 
passed without quarrels and bickerings between the boors and 
Hottentots, I received a letter from General Vandeleur, stating, 
that the Kaffers, instigated by the rebel boors, had been led. 
to the bold measure of attacking his camp near Bosjesman's 
River, for the sake, as he supposed, of obtaining a supply of 
gunpowder; that the latter had kept up a pretty brisk fire 
from behind the bushes, but that the Kaffers, finding it useless 
to oppose their long missile weapons against musquetry, re- 
tired for a moment but soon appeared again, rushing forward 
upon the open plain, with the iron part only of the Has- 
sagai in their hands. That, however, after several rounds 
cf grape from the field-pieces, and the fire of the infantry, 
by which numbers were killed, th^y retreated into the 
thickets. 
