96 
TRAVELS IN 
oppreffion on one fide, and by want of energy and patient fuf- 
fering on the other, feemed now to be completely difiblved. 
The farther we advanced, the more ferioufly alarming was the 
flate of the country. The boors, it feems, unable to rellrain 
their favage temper, which the penalty levied upon them by 
the General had wrought up into a rage, with the afTifiance of 
a fop'ie, determined to wreak their vengeance on the poor Hot- 
tentots, according to their common pracftice, whenever infuriate 
paiTion feizes them. The reprefentations made to us by this 
party were more than confirmed by our own obfeivations in 
our progrtfs through the country. Among the numerous in- 
ftances of cruelty to which Vv^e bore witnefs, the following were 
particularly ftriking. 
We had fcarcely parted from thefe people when, flopping at 
a houfe to feed our horfes, we by accident obfcrved a young 
Hottentot woman with a child in her arms lying ftretched on 
the ground in a moft deplorable condition. She had been cut 
from head to foot with one of thofe infernal whips, made from 
the hide of a rhinoceros or fea-cow, known by the name of 
fambocsj in fuch a barbarous and unmerciful manner, that there 
was fcarcely a fpot on her whole body free from ftripes ; nor 
had the fides of the httle infant, in clinging to its mother, 
efcaped the ftrokes of the brutal monfter. With difficulty we 
had her removed to a fituation where medical affiftance could 
be given ; but the fever ran fo high, and the body was bruifed 
to fuch a degree, that for feveral days there were little hopes 
of her recovery. It was a punifhment, far inadequate to the 
crime, to keep the inhuman wretch on bread and water who 
had 
