34 
JOURNEY FROM BEAUFORT 
[1820. 
several fires, and at least a score of dogs came 
rushing towards us with frightful fury, making the 
hills to resound with their noise. The boor him- 
self was from home, on a journey to the Cape, but' 
we found residing in the place his two sons, with a 
German schoolmaster, and a considerable number 
of Bush people. They had many thousand 
sheep, in three kraals, or enclosures. These 
sheep having eaten up all the grass for many 
miles round, we were obliged to proceed to 
the next water, where we arrived at midnight, 
and found some cattle, belonging to the same 
boor, under the care of a party of Bush people. 
The boor's son came, on horseback, in the 
morning, to examine the state of his father's 
cattle. He attended our morning worship in the 
tent, after which we walked to the Bushmen 
huts : two of the women persevered in attempt- 
ing to learn the alphabet till one of them knew 
the half of the letters. I left two Hottentots as 
their instructors, but they soon returned to the 
waggons, saying their two scholars had fled to 
the hill. 
The farmer's son told us, that the first month 
after taking possession of the ground for their 
farm they killed twenty-eight lions ; and that 
only four days ago they had shot a lion which 
had devoured a kid. 
