commission, appointed by her Majesty the Queen, consisting of Major
Hogge and Mr. Owen, had not then commenced their investigations.

There were some Kaffirs in Cape Town, sent in as witnesses, but did not
see them. The following is Barrow's description of this people: "They
are tall, robust, and muscular, and distinguished by a peculiar firmness
of carriage. Some of them were six feet ten inches, and so elegantly
proportioned that they would not have disgraced the pedestal of the
Farnese Hercules." Further on, he states: "The natives of Kaffraria, if
taken collectively, are perhaps superior, in point of figure, to the
inhabitants of any other country on earth; they are indeed exempt from
many of those causes which, in civilized society, tend to debilitate and
impede the growth of the human body. Their diet is perfectly simple,
their exercise conducive to health, and the air they breathe salubrious.
Strangers to the licentious appetites which frequently proceed from a
depraved imagination, they cheerfully receive the bounteous gifts of
nature, and when night sways her ebon sceptre o'er the scene,

'Sweetly composed the weary shepherd lies,
Though through the woods terrific winds resound,
Though rattling thunder shakes the vaulted skies,
Or vivid lightning runs along the ground.'"

After that read the opinions held of them in Cape Town. I make the
extracts from the published debates of the Legislative Council of the
colony, in assembly there. The Secretary to Government says: "We have
before us the most remarkable fact, that hundreds of these people on the
frontier, who had lived with the farmers, many of them ten or twelve,
and even a greater number of years, suddenly, and without the _smallest
provocation_, turned round and murdered them, or turned them out of
their houses with hardly a rag upon them, destroyed their property, and
walked over to the enemy." Hardly a man who speaks of them, that does
not complain of their pilfering propensities; the farmers grievously as
regards their sheep.

There were at one time some 800 rebels at Fort Hare; a great number were
allowed to depart. Some 3 or 400 were thrown into a regiment and armed;
50 only of the 800 were convicted. This black regiment became so
dangerous, after all the confidence bestowed upon them, that their
officers would not go out with them, fearing more to be shot by their
own men than the enemy. Shortly after they were found sending amm