400 
TRAVELS IN 
On the morning of the fifth of May, after dropping the com- 
mandant at his own houfe, I proceeded inland to the eaftward, 
and, paffing over a rough ftony country, reached in two days 
the foot of the Hantam mountain. The inhabitants at this time 
were in a ftate of alarm, on account of the Bosjefmans. A party 
of thefe people had carried off into the kloofs of the mountain, 
feveral fheep and oxen, after feverely wounding two Hottentots 
with poifoned arrows, one through the upper part of the arm, 
and the other in the ankle joint. The former feemed likely to 
do well, but the latter was in a very dangerous way. The point 
of the arrow had broken off and ftuck in the bone. The leg was 
fwolen as high as the knee, and gangrene appeared to have com- 
menced round the wound. The people not knowing in what 
manner to treat it, I directed them to apply poultices of bread, 
onions, and oil, and to wafh the wound well with a folution of 
ammonia prceparata, and to give him plenty of vinegar to drink. 
At the end of four days, which it took me in rounding the 
mountain, the patient was no worfe, but the wound on the 
contrary feemed to put on favorable appearances ; the other 
was nearly well. 
The Bosjefmans have been generally reprefented as a people 
fo favage and blood-thirfty in their nature, that they never fpare 
the life of any living creature which may fall into their hands. 
To their own countrymen, who have been taken prifoners by, 
and continued to live with the Dutch farmers, they have cer- 
tainly fhewn inftances of the moft atrocious cruelty. Thefe 
poor wretches, if retaken by their countrymen, feldom efcape 
being put to the moft excruciating tortures. The party above- 
mentioned, 
