1 lO 
TRAVELS IN 
CHAP. III. 
Sketches on a journey into the Country of the Kaff'ers, 
Immediately after our arrival at GraafF Reynet, the Pro- 
vifional Landroft, in his lift of grievances under which the 
diftriiSt was then laboring, reprefented the deplorable ftate of 
fome of its dependencies from the incurfions of the tribe of 
people known by the name of KaiFers. Certain chiefs of this 
nation, he faid, with their families, and valTals, and cattle, 
were overrunning the country : fome had even advanced as 
far as the borders of the diftrid: of Zwellendam ; others had 
ftationed themfelves on the banks of the Sondag^ or Sunday 
river, within fifty or fixty miles of the Drofdy ; but that the 
great bulk of them were in that divifion of the diftrid called 
the Zuure-veldt^ or Sour Grafs plains, which ftretch along the 
fea-coaft between the Sunday and the Great Filli rivers : that 
an inhabitant of Bniyntjes Hoogte^ another divifion of the dif- 
trid, who, during the late difturbances and anarchy in the 
affairs of Graaff Reynet, had on all occafions ufed a di£latorial 
language and aded a bufy part, had now fent him a letter de- 
manding that the command fhould be given to him of a 
detachment of the farmers againft a party of Kaffers who had 
paiTed the borders of this divifion of the diftrid: with three or 
four thoufand head of cattle : that he, the provifional landroft, 
had, 
