e to place; they had strongholds in the most
inaccessible mountains--active as baboons they retreated to these when
no other place was secure. For days and nights they would watch from
some secret lookout, the cattle or horses of a Boer or Kaffir. Then
having made themselves acquainted with the customs and precautions of
their purposed victims, they at length crept down to the kraal
containing the cattle or horses, took them quietly out early in the
night, and made a rapid retreat before the morning light would enable
the robbed to discover their loss; the Bushmen then being some thirty
miles distant. Pursuit is often impossible, because every horse is
generally taken. Should they be pursued, and see no chance of keeping
the cattle, they will then either hamstring them or stick a poisoned
arrow into them, and thus prevent the farmer from taking advantage of
his speedy pursuit. The Bushman himself being very light, and always
having a good horse, easily gets away. If by chance his horse is shot,
and he reduced to his own legs, he scrambles like a baboon up the rocks
if any are near; if not, he seeks cover behind an ant-hill, or in a
wolf-hole, and prepares his poisoned arrows for defence. Armed with a
quiver full, with five on each side of his head for immediate use, he
cannot be approached with impunity, for at eighty yards the Bushman can
strike a buck while running. Should a man be wounded, then--

"Where it draws blood, no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death."

These ten arrows can be delivered in about twice as many seconds; one
would assume the appearance therefore of a fretful porcupine, should he
venture near these venomous wretches. Forbearance is by the savage,
frequently mistaken for fear, and dog-like he then seeks to worry. Lest
such should be the case with these men, I sent a bullet a few yards over
their heads, and its music was the first intimation they had that their
council of two was interrupted. They stayed not to complain, but lying
flat on their horses' necks, which thus appeared riderless, dashed away
into the blue distance. My Kaffir seemed disappointed at the result; he
kept quiet for some time, and then remarked, "If they had been buck, you
would have hit them,"--it was half an inquiry and half a reproof. He
would neither have understood or appreciated any moral reasoning I could
have given him against t