VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 79 
lowest, as weli as the highest ranks of society. The wife, with the 
assistance of her daughter, a girl of about eighteen years of age, 
had most unmercifully beaten a female slave in their service, though 
with child, wounding her from head to foot. Complaints of this act 
of barbarity having been brought before the Judge, at the circuit, 
lately established in this colony, and the cruel perpetrators being 
found guilty, they were condemned to pay three hundred rix- 
dollars fine, two thousand rix-dollars costs of suit, and that their 
slaves should all be sold, but not to one of their family. The farm 
appeared in a very delapidated state. 
Some Hottentot women belonging to Gnadenthal, being at work 
in the field, ran towards our waggon, expressed in the most friendly 
manner their joy at seeing their teachers, and delivered some little 
commissions to our driver and leader for their friends and families. 
I was vastly pleased with this rencontre. We halted at a farm, where 
the family gave us a friendly reception. I had been all day troubled 
with violent headach, but was cured by some hot tea, which, though 
proceeding from a dirty pewter urn, with sops of spider's legs, and 
fragments of the wings and bodies of flies, gave me almost immediate 
relief: whether owing to the decoction of these particles of insects, 
to the heat of the water, or any other cause, I waited not to exa- 
mine, but felt thankful for my recovery. 
The road now turned towards the Gnadenthal mountains, which, 
from some eminences, had a truly magnificent appearance. We vi- 
sited a farmer of the name of Kuntz, whom we found in an ailing 
state : he however came down and conversed with us. His farm 
lies along a pretty valley, with an everflowing stream, and a con- 
siderable tract of land under cultivation: the house is large and 
roomy, and some of the ceilings are made of a fine yellow or 
olive-coloured wood from Ceylon. We now moved slowly to- 
wards our home, on bad roads and with weary cattle, but delight- 
ed with the prospect ; and about eight o'clock arrived in the shady 
recesses of Gnadenthal, the very sight of which affords comfort in 
this hot and sultry region. 
