32 
BOEKS AFEAID OF THE CAFFKES. 
Chap. II. 
The first question put by them to strangers is respecting peace ; 
and when they receive reports from disaffected or envious natives 
against any tribe, the case assumes all the appearance and pro¬ 
portions of a regular insmTection. Severe measures then appear 
to the most mildly disposed among them as imperatively called 
for, and, however bloody the massacre that follows, no qualms 
of conscience ensue: it is a dne necessity for the sake of peace. 
Indeed the late Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter most devoutly believed 
liimself to be the great peacemaker of the country. 
But how is it that the natives, being so vastly superior in 
numbers to the Boers, do not rise and annihilate them? The 
people among whom they live are Bechuanas, not Caffres, though 
no one would ever learn that distinction from a Boer; and 
history does not contain one single instance in which the Bechu¬ 
anas, even those of them who possess fire-arms, have attacked 
either the Boers or the English. If there is such an instance, 
I am certain it is not generally known, either beyond or in the 
Cape Colony. They have defended themselves when attacked, 
as in the case of Sechele, but have never engaged in offensive 
war with Europeans. We have a very different tale to tell of 
the Caffres, and the difference has always been so evident to 
these border Boers, that, ever since “ those magnificent savages 
obtained possession of fire-arms, not one Boer has ever attempted 
to settle in Caffreland, or even face them as an enemy in the 
field. The Boers have generally manifested a marked antipathy 
to anytliing but “ long-shot ” warfare, and, sidling away in their 
emigrations towards the more effeminate Bechuanas, have left 
then quarrels with the Caffres to be settled by the English, and 
their wars to be paid for by English gold. 
The Bakwains at Eolobeng had the spectacle of various tribes 
enslaved before their eyes—the Bakatla, the Batlokua, the Baliu- 
keng, the Bamosetla, and two other tribes of Bakwains were all 
gToaning under the oppression of unrequited labour. This would 
not have been felt as so great an evil, but that the young men 
of those tribes, anxious to obtain cattle, the only means of rising 
to respectability and importance among their own people, were 
in the habit of sallying forth, like our Irish and Highland 
reaj)ers, to procure work in the Cape Colony. After labouring 
* Tlie ‘ United Service Jonrnal ’ so styles them. 
