326 TRAVELS IN 
ftrength or dexterity ; and if the reader calls 
to mind my adventure with them in the Bay 
of Saldanha, it may be eafily feen that it tends 
ftrongly to corroborate what I have here ad- 
vanced. The fame thing cannot be faid of 
the greater part of the women. Courageous 
with reflection, their dehberate coolnefs knows 
neither obflacles nor fear ; being equally fkil- 
ful as their hufbands in managing their horfes, 
and in the ufe of fire arms, they are much 
more indefatigable, and never retreat on the 
appearance of danger : they are real Amazons. 
I was acquainted with a widow who ma- 
naged her own plantation ; and when the 
wild beafls came to alarm her flocks, fhe 
mounted her horfe, followed them in clofe 
purfuit, and never left them till fhe had either 
deftroyed them, or obliged them to quit her 
polTelEons. 
In one of my excurfions two years after to 
the great Nimiqua Land, I faw upon a very 
folitary plantation a young girl of twenty, 
^?vho always accompanied her father on horfe- 
back, when he took the field, at the head of 
his pecr)ie, to repel the Bofhmen who came 
to difturb his repofe. In defiance of their 
poifoned 
