re her; and I was therefore obliged to buy a
trained ox, on which I rode all the way to the next British settlement,
for there are no horses in that country. There I found captain Johnstone
with three companies of the 72nd, watching the inroads of the savage
Boshesmen. He was greatly irritated at Karoo, and dispatched lieutenant
McKenzie, and fifty men along with me, to chastise the aggressor. When
the chief saw the Highlanders, he was terrified out of his wits; but,
nevertheless, not knowing what else to do, he prepared for resistance,
after once more proffering me the choice of his wives.

Just when we were on the eve of commencing a war, which must have been
ruinous to our settlement, a black servant of Adam Johnstone came to me,
and said that I ought not to fight and kill his good chief, for that he
had not the white woman. I was astonished, and asked the Kaffre what he
meant, when he told me that he himself saw my wife carried across the
river by a band of pongos, (ourang-outangs), but he had always kept it a
secret, for fear of giving me distress, as they were too far gone for
pursuit when be beheld them. He said they had her bound, and were
carrying her gently on their arms, but she was either dead or in a
swoon, for she was not crying, and her long hair was hanging down.

A whole year passed over my head like one confused dream; another came,
and during the greater part of it my mind was very unsettled. About the
beginning of last year, a strange piece of intelligence reached our
settlement. It was said that two maids of Kamboo had been out on the
mountains of Norroweldt gathering fruits, where they had seen a pongo
taller than any Kousi, and that this pongo had a beautiful white boy
with him, for whom he was gathering the choicest fruits, and the boy was
gambolling and playing around him, and leaping on his shoulders. We
applied to Karoo for assistance, who had a great number of slaves from
that country, much attached to him, who knew the language of the place
whither we were going, and all the passes of the country. He complied
readily with our request, giving us an able and intelligent guide, with
as many of his people as we chose. We raised in all fifty Malays and
Kousis; nine British soldiers, and every one of the settlers that could
bear arms, went with us, so that we had in all nearly a hundred men, the
blacks being armed with pikes, and all the rest with swords, guns, and
pistols. We journeyed for a whol