chap. viii. TRAGEDIES DURING THE LATE CAFFRE WAR. 223 
this mixture in pieces of the entrails of sheep, which he 
dragged about his yard in the evening, and then hung upon 
a bush, afterward dropping pieces containing poison along the 
track. The first morning after he had done this, fifteen 
jackals, and a number of wolves, were found dead about the 
premises. The leopards, which are also called tigers, and 
which are much more formidable neighbours, would not take 
the poison. About a year before our visit, a leopard had 
killed a horse on the adjacent farm. Wild guinea fowls are 
numerous in this district, and there are numbers of the useful 
secretary birds, which may sometimes be seen flying along 
with a snake in their talons. 
During the late war this part of the country was for some 
time in the hands of the Caffres, and the brother of our 
hostess was killed not a mile from the house. Many frightful 
tragedies were then enacted, some of the details of which we 
had repeatedly heard since we had been in the district. I 
was much affected by the accounts I received of the number 
of Caffre prisoners who died. Mr. Hart said he visited the 
place where a great number of them were, and proposed to 
several mothers to take their children, and feed and care for 
them, urging them to comply rather than keep them and die; 
but although thus repeatedly urged, not one would give up 
her child, but declared they would rather keep them to die, 
than give them to the white man. He said that many chil¬ 
dren perished with their mothers from hunger or starvation, 
self-inflicted. Nothing is so sacred as human life; no law of 
human nature so strong as that of self-preservation; and there 
must have been a more than ordinary cause for such a choice. 
Before the war commenced, all Mr. Hart’s servants departed 
during the night, leaving behind the cows and goats which 
they had acquired by their servitude. Amongst his servants 
was a Bushman, his wife, and his aged mother. At the ap¬ 
proach of the war, the son took his mother and placed her 
