SOUTHERN AFRICA, 419 
His little village soon became an asylum for the poor fugi- 
tives, wlio, after their skirmishes with the boors, had con- 
cealed themselves among the rocks and thickets. They now 
fled to Mr. Vander Kemp as to a place of security, and to 
one on whom, being, as they considered him to be, in the 
service of the British government, they could place un- 
bounded confidence. Among others, one poor fellow with 
his wife and child, in his way to the asylum, called at a 
boor's house in Lange Kloof of the name of Van Roy, a re- 
lation of the man who shot the three deserters, to ask for a 
little milk for his wife and child, who were nearly exhausted 
with hunger. The unfeeling monster seized the man, and 
bringing a loaded musquet, ordered a Hottentot in his ser- 
vice to shoot him ; the Hottentot obstinately persisting to 
refuse, the exasperated boor snatched the gun and shot his 
own servant dead upon the spot, and then caused the other 
Hottentot with his wife and child to be murdered ! If, 
observes Mr. Vander Kem.p, atrocious deeds like these are 
to pass with impunity, the unfortunate Hottentots, not know- 
ing whom to trust, will be driven to desperation, and a gene- 
ral insurrection will be the consequence. 
It is, indeed, much less surprising that this nation should, 
at length, be roused to a spirit of vengeance, than that it 
should so long and so patiently have endured every species of 
injury. As pretended friends, and masters, the boors have 
always treated them with injustice and oppression ; as ene- 
mies, with barbarous inhumanity. In their expeditions 
against the Bosjesmans, of which I have spoken at large in 
a former chapter, their chief aim is to murder the men, and 
3h2 
