SOUTHERN AFRICA. ,31 
on their own deftrudion. For it not only defeated our inten- 
tion of carrying into effect fuch arrangements as were likely to 
have reconciled the tw^o parties to each other ; but it w^as, like- 
wife, the means of bringing together a colledive body of Kaf- 
fers and Hottentots, whofe firft f!;ep was to drive all the boors 
out of their fociety, to plunder them of the reft of their cattle, 
fet fire to their houfes, and put feveral of them to death. Hav- 
ing cleared the whole of the lower part of Graaf Reynet, they 
advanced into the diilridl of Zwellendam. Their whole. hatred 
was levelled againil the boors. Single dragoons carrying dif- 
patches have frequently been met by large parties of thefe plun- 
derers, and fufFered to pafs without moleftation. Even a houfe, 
which they difcovered at Plettenberg's Bay to belong to an 
Englifh gentleman, they left undiftuibed, whilft all the reft that 
fell in their way were burnt to the ground. 
The fame houfe, however, was afterwards plundered by a 
party of boors who had been colleded by the magiftrates of 
Zwellendam to clear the diftrid: of the Kaffers and Hottentots. 
Thefe unprincipled men, either out of revenge, or from an 
irrefiftible impulfe to mifchief, broke open the houfe, carried 
away clothing and every thing that was portable, drank all the 
wine and fpirits they could find, and made themfeives com- 
pletely intoxicated. Yet the very men who committed thofe 
enormities, were, at that moment, under the impreflion that 
their deareft connexions (if it were poffible any thing could be 
dear to fuch men), their wives, and children, were mafl!acred 
by the enemy, into whofe hands they knew them to have fallen. 
They had been met, it feems, a few days before, in a narrow 
s 2 pafs 
