English border, and
they forgot that men enfeebled by famine would be unfitted for warfare,
or indeed for any lengthened travel. An attempt was made to remedy the
blunder by postponing the day of the resurrection of the chiefs and
cattle, but it failed. The people had discovered the imposture, though
not until they were reduced to the most frightful condition of
starvation. The English colonists did all that lay in their power to
relieve them, but they were wholly unable to remedy the mischief. Vast
numbers died everywhere by the most terrible of all deaths, and the
strength of the nation was so completely broken by the disaster, that
they were rendered wholly incapable of continuing the warfare, for which
in former days they had been so renowned.

WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR.

All the particulars of the wreck of this ill-fated vessel have been
given in the narrative. The whole of the crew and passengers, except
seventeen, escaped safe to land, to the number of one hundred and fifty.
In accordance with the proposal of the captain, they endeavoured to
make their way overland to Cape Town; but after a few days' travel,
during which they were harassed by the Kaffirs with repeated attacks, a
fresh consultation took place. Forty-three able-bodied men persevered
in the attempt. Of these, some three or four, after terrible perils and
hardships, succeeded in reaching Cape Town. What became of those who
were left has never been certainly known. Rumours, which are mentioned
by Le Vaillant and others, declare that some women at all events
survived, and were compelled to become the wives of native chiefs. An
expedition was even sent out to search for these, but failed, more
apparently from want of capacity in those conducting it than from
anything else. Under these circumstances the fate of those who remained
behind may, not unfairly, be made the subject of fiction.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hair-Breadth Escapes, by H.C. Adams

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