SOUTHERN AFRICA. 193 
grazing village ten or twelve miles to the northward, in confe- 
quence of fome intelligence he had received of the wolves hav- 
ing committed great depredations among his young cattle on 
the preceding night. A meffenger was therefore immediately 
difpatched after him ; and in the meantime the king's mother, 
a well-looking woman, apparently about five-and-thirty, and 
his queen, a very pretty Kaffer girl, about fifteen, with their 
female attendants, to the number of fifty or fixty, formed a 
circle round us, and endeavoured to entertain us with their 
good-humored and lively converfation. It was not long before 
Gaika, the king, made his appearance riding on an ox in full 
gallop, attended by five or fix of his people. Our bufinefs 
commenced with little ceremony under the fliade of a fpreading 
mimofa. He requefted that we might all be feated in a circle 
on the ground, not as any mark of civility, but that it might 
the more diftindly be heard what each party had to fay. 
The manner, however, in which he received us fufficiently 
marked the pleafure he derived from the vifit : of the nature of 
this he was already aware, and entered immediately upon the 
fubjedt, by expreffmg the fatisfaftion he felt in having an 
opportunity of explaining to us that none of the KafFers who 
had palTed the boundary eftablifhed between the two nations 
were to be confidered as his fubjedls: he faid they were chiefs 
as well as himfelf, and entirely independent of him ; but that 
his anceftors had always held the firft rank, and their fupre- 
macy had been acknowledged on all occafions by the colonifts : 
that all thofe Kaffers and their chiefs, who had at any time 
been defirous to enter under the protection of his family, had 
been kindly received j and that thofe who chofe rather to 
c c remain 
