Chap. II. 
HOSTILITY OF THE BOEES. 
37 
in the opinion that the Bakwains actually possessed artillery. 
This was in some degree beneficial to us, inasmuch as fear pre¬ 
vented any foray in our direction for eight years. During that 
time no winter passed without one or two tribes in the East 
country being plundered of both cattle and cliildren by the Boers. 
The plan pm^sued is the following: one or two friendly tribes are 
forced to accompany a party of mounted Boers, and these expe¬ 
ditions can be got up only in the winter, when horses may be used 
without danger of being lost by disease. When they reach the 
tribe to be attacked, the friendly natives are ranged in front, to 
form, as they say, a shield; ” the Boers then coolly fire over 
their heads till the devoted people flee and leave cattle, wives, 
and children to the captors. This was done in nine cases during 
my residence in the interior, and on no occasion was a drop of 
Boer’s blood shed. News of these deeds spread quickly among 
the Bakwains, and letters were repeatedly sent by the Boers to 
Sechele ordering him to come and surrender himself as their 
vassal, and stop English traders from proceeding into the country 
with firearms for sale. But the discovery of Lake Ngami, here¬ 
after to be described, made the traders come in fivefold greater 
numbers, and Sechele replied, “ I was made an independent chief 
and placed here by God, and not by you. I was never conquered 
by Mosilikatze, as those tribes whom you rule over; and the 
English are my friends. I get everything I wish from them. I 
cannot hinder them from going where they like.” Those who are 
old enough to remember the threatened invasion of our own island 
may understand the effect which the constant danger of a Boorish 
invasion had on the minds of the Bakwains; but no others can 
conceive how worrjdng were the messages and threats from the 
endless self-constituted authorities of the Magaliesberg Boers; and 
when to all this harassing annoyance was added the scarcity pro¬ 
duced by the drought, we could not wonder at, though we felt 
sorry for, then* indisposition to receive instruction. 
The myth of the black pot assumed serious proportions. I 
attempted to benefit the tribes among the Boers of Magaliesberg 
by placing native teachers at different points. “ You must teach 
the blacks,” said Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, the commandant in 
chief, ‘‘ that they are not equal to us.” Other Boers told me, “ I 
might as well teach the baboons on the rocks as the Africans,” 
