HOSTILITY OF THE BOERS. 
21 
assaulted the Bak wains, and, besides killing a considerabla 
number of adults, carried off two hundred of our school- 
children into slavery. The natives under Sechele defended 
themselves till tho approach of night enabled them to flee 
to the mountains; and having in that defence killed a 
number of tho enemy, tho very first ever slain in this coun- 
try by Bechuauas, I received the credit of having taught 
the tribo to kill Boers! My house, which had stood per- 
fectly secure for years under the protection of ttio natives, 
was plundered in revenge. English gentlemen, who had 
come in the footsteps of Mr. Gumming to hunt in the coun- 
try beyond, and had deposited largo quantities of stores in 
the same keeping, and upward of eighty head of cattle as 
relays for the return journeys, were robbed of all, and, 
when they came back to Kolobeng, found tho skeletons of 
the guardians strewed all over the place. The books of a 
good library — my solace in our solitude — wore not taken 
away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out and scat- 
tered over the place. My stock of medicines was smashed, 
and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at 
public auction to pay the expenses of the foray. 
In trying to bonefit the tribes living under the Boors of 
the Cashan Mountains, I twice performed a journey of about 
throe hundred miles to the eastward of Kolobeng. Sechele 
had bocomo bo obnoxious to the Boers that, though anxious 
to accompany me in my journey, be dared not trust him- 
self among them. This did not arise from the crime of 
cattle-stealing; for that crime, so common among tho 
Caffros, was never charged against his tribe, nor, indeed, 
against any Bechuana tribe. It is, in fact, unknown in tho 
Country, except during actual warfare. His independence 
and love of the English were his only faults. In my la8t 
journey there, of about two hundred miles, on parting at 
the river Marikwo he gave mo two servants, “to be, as 
bo said, « his arms to serve mo,” and expressed regret that 
he could not come himself. “ Suppose we went north, I 
said, “ would you come?” He then told me the story of 
