SOUTHERN AFRICA. 403 
aggregate number of their cattle vrds very considerable, and 
no unwillingness appeared on their part to transfer them in 
exchange for such trinkets and baubles, and such proportion 
of each, as the Chief and his council should determine, they 
must very seriously distress the individuals were they to 
take the number they wanted ; and having understood from 
Mooliliahan that his people had scarcely recruited the losses 
by the plunder and devastation which a man of the name of 
Bloom a half-cast, with his horde, had committed after 
setting fire to the town and murdering the inhabitants, they 
determined to })roceed to the northward to the chief resi- 
dence of another tribe of natives of the same description, 
called the Barroloos. On conmumicating this intention to 
Moolihoban, and requesting him to furnish them with pro- 
per guides, he was evidently much disturbed, and put them 
off for the time with an evasive answer. The next mornino- 
he sent for the commissioners and, after assuring them that 
he had not been able to rest the whole night since they had 
communicated their design of proceeding to the Barroloos, ad- 
vised them by no means to think of visiting these people ; ob- 
serving that they were of a suspicious and ferocious disposition ; 
and that if any accident should befal them, the English govern- 
ment at the Cape would ^-ertainly attribute it to him and his 
horde ; that none of his people knew the way thither, there 
being between them an impassable desert entirely destitute of 
water. Although this friendly communication did not probably 
develope the real motive of ]\[oolihcihan for discouraging the 
further progress of the expedition, yet there can be little 
doubt he had sufficient grounds for wishing to prevent its 
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