338 TRAVELS IN 
foraetimes to abufe, fometimes to negled, and very often to 
contempt. 
In fad:, all fyftems of provincial judicature feem liable to the 
fame objections. If too much power be confided in the hands 
of , the magiflrates, the temptation to corruption is proportion- 
ally great, and to attempt to execute the law without the power 
would feem a mockery of juftice. The latter was very much 
the cafe in the diftant parts of the Cape colony. 
For want of fuch a power the laws have certainly, in mod 
cafes, proved unavailing. The Landroft had only the fhadow 
of authority. The council and the country overfeers were 
compofed of farmers, and were always more ready to fkreen 
and protect their brother boors, accufed of crimes, than to aflift 
in bringing them to juftice. The poor Hottentot had little 
chance of obtaining redrefs for the wrongs he fuffered from the 
boors. However willing the Landroft might be to receive his 
complaints, he poIfelTed not the means of removing the griev- 
ance. To efpoufe the caufe of the Hottentot was a fure way 
to lofe his popularity. And the diftance from the capital was 
a fufficient obftacle to the preferring of complaints before the 
Court of Juftice at the Gape. Whenever this has happened, 
the orders of the Court of Juftice met with as little refped, at 
the diftance of five or fix hundred miles, as the orders of the 
Landroft and his council. If a man, after being fummoned, 
did not chufe to appear, there was no force in the country to 
compel him ; and they knew it would have been fruitlefs to 
difpatch 
