y of an intended uprising of the devoted tribe, and the
prospect of handsome pay in the division of captured cattle besides. It
is difficult for a person in a civilized country to conceive that any
body of men possessing the common attributes of humanity, (and these
Boers are by no means destitute of the better feelings of our nature,)
should with one accord set out, after loading their own wives and
children with caresses, and proceed to shoot down in cold blood, men and
women of a different colour, it is true, but possessed of domestic
feelings and affections equal to their own. I saw and conversed with
children in the houses of Boers who had by their own and their master's
account been captured, and in several instances I traced the parents of
these unfortunates, though the plan approved by the long-headed among
the burghers is to take children so young that they soon forget their
parents and their native language also. It was long before I could give
credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses, and had I
received no other testimony but theirs, I should probably have continued
sceptical to this day as to the truth of the accounts; but when I found
the Boers themselves, some bewailing and denouncing, others glorying in
the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the actors, I was
compelled to admit the validity of the testimony, and try to account for
the cruel anomaly. They are all traditionally religious, tracing their
descent from some of the best men (Huguenots and Dutch) the world ever
saw. Hence they claim to themselves the title of 'Christians,' and all
the coloured race are 'black property' or 'creatures.' They being the
chosen people of God, the heathen are given to them for an inheritance,
and they are the rod of divine vengeance on the heathen, as were the
Jews of old.

"Living in the midst of a native population much larger than themselves,
and at fountains removed many miles from each other, they feel somewhat
in the same insecure position as do the Americans in the Southern
States. 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 proportions
of a regular insurrection. 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