one (of them). They came on Saturday, and I besought them not
to fight on Sunday, and they assented. They began on Monday morning at
twilight, and fired with all their might, and burned the town with fire,
and scattered us. They killed sixty of my people, and captured women,
and children, and men. And the mother of Baleriling (a former wife of
Sechele) they also took prisoner. They took all the cattle and all the
goods of the Bakwains; and the house of Livingstone they plundered,
taking away all his goods. The number of wagons they had was
eighty-five, and a cannon; and after they had stolen my own wagon and
that of Macabe, then the number of their wagons (counting the cannon
as one) was eighty-eight. All the goods of the hunters (certain English
gentlemen hunting and exploring in the north) were burned in the town;
and of the Boers were killed twenty-eight. Yes, my beloved friend, now
my wife goes to see the children, and Kobus Hae will convey her to you.
I am, SECHELE, The Son of Mochoasele."

This statement is in exact accordance with the account given by
the native teacher Mebalwe, and also that sent by some of the Boers
themselves to the public colonial papers. The crime of cattle-stealing,
of which we hear so much near Caffreland, was never alleged against
these people, and, if a single case had occurred when I was in the
country, I must have heard of it, and would at once say so. But the only
crime imputed in the papers was that "Sechele was getting too saucy."
The demand made for his subjection and service in preventing the English
traders passing to the north was kept out of view.

Very soon after Pretorius had sent the marauding party against Kolobeng,
he was called away to the tribunal of infinite justice. His policy is
justified by the Boers generally from the instructions given to the
Jewish warriors in Deuteronomy 20:10-14. Hence, when he died, the
obituary notice ended with "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." I
wish he had not "forbidden us to preach unto the Gentiles that they may
be saved."

The report of this outrage on the Bakwains, coupled with denunciations
against myself for having, as it was alleged, taught them to kill Boers,
produced such a panic in the country, that I could not engage a single
servant to accompany me to the north. I have already alluded to their
mode of warfare, and in all previous Boerish forays the killing had all
been on one side; now, however, that a tribe wher