CONCLUDING REMARKS. 243 without uttering a word or asking a question, levelled his musket and fired. The caross heaved up-and an aged female in the agonies of death rolled out of it. And the party rode on, without considering the matter worthy even of a passing remark! Now, the facts of this horrid murder have been substantiated upon the oaths of several of the persons present, and the official documents, as I am assured upon authority which it is impossible for me to doubt, are now, or at least were very lately, in the possession of Mr. Oliphant the Attorney-General, at Cape Town. But, for reasons of which I am yet ignorant, no punishment whatever has been inflicted upon the persons implicated in these transactions. Without going farther into a subject which has been already so ably discussed and so amply illustrated by my friend Dr. Philip, I shall only, in conclusion, express my conviction of the utter futility of looking for any effectual change of system from any power within the colony. All that can be expected from the most benevolent governor (unless he were a statesman of an order such as our secondary dependencies are but rarely blest with) is the application of palliatives, which may perhaps mitigate the suffering, but which cannot possibly heal the sore. Unless, therefore, the subject is seriously taken up by the Home Government, and some comprehensive plan wisely devised and perseveringly carried into execution for the protection and civilisation of the tribes that surround the colony, no other result can be rationally contemplated than the prolongation, for generations yet to come, of the same revolting scenes of mutual wrong and barbarity. The bitter fountain will still pour forth its bitter waters. The frontier colonists, be they Dutch or British, must of necessity continue to be semi-barbarians, so long as the commando system-the system of hostile reprisals -shall be encouraged or connived at; and so long as the colonists are permitted to make encroachments on the territory and the natural rights of the natives, the colony can never have a safe or a settled frontier. Mutual enmity and reciprocal outrage will proceed as heretofore. The weak will gradually But let us revert once more to facts. Nor need we recal the barbarous acts of ancient times: let us look merely at the legalised butcheries of the Bushman race, which were incessantly going on while I was myself in the colony, and of which only a small portion has been recorded in the works of Thompson and Philip. I well recollect of the field-commandant Van Wyk, generally considered one of the most respectable men in the Cradock district, halting at my cabin in 1821, as he returned with his commando of boors from an expedition against some hordes of Bushmen on the Bamboosberg, who had committed depredations in the Tarka. He and his men, as I was then told, had slain upwards of eighty souls, and had taken captive a considerable number of women and children,—some of whom I afterwards saw at the residence of our neighbour Wentzel Coetzer, in the service of one of his sons who had been on the expedition. It was an expedition ordered by the Government to repress the aggressions of the Bushmen; and this was the regular mode in which these affairs were managed. The kraal was surprised, the males consigned to indiscriminate slaughter, and such of the women and children as survived the massacre were carried into captivity. Scores of such expeditions have taken place since, and the system continues to this very hour but little, I fear, if at all abated in its enormities. Nay more, atrocities still less excusable, because altogether wanton and unprovoked, are even now perpetrated with impunity. The following is a sample. In November, 1829, a commando went out against a horde of Bushmen near the Sack River, who were reported to have been guilty of some depredations. The party did not, however, find the horde they were in search of; but, in returning, they came upon another horde who were at that time living in peace with the colonists, and who were not accused or suspected of having been guilty of any offence. This kraal they thought fit to surprise, and shot seven of the unsuspecting and unresisting people in cold blood. As the party returned from this doughty exploit, a Bushwoman was observed lying near the path, wrapped up in her caross, apparently asleep. The commander, CONCLUDING REMARKS. 243 without uttering a word or asking a question, levelled his musket and fired. The caross heaved up-and an aged female in the agonies of death rolled out of it. And the party rode on, without considering the matter worthy even of a passing remark! Now, the facts of this horrid murder have been substantiated upon the oaths of several of the persons present, and the official documents, as I am assured upon authority which it is impossible for me to doubt, are now, or at least were very lately, in the possession of Mr. Oliphant the Attorney-General, at Cape Town. But, for reasons of which I am yet ignorant, no punishment whatever has been inflicted upon the persons implicated in these transactions. Without going farther into a subject which has been already so ably discussed and so amply illustrated by my friend Dr. Philip, I shall only, in conclusion, express my conviction of the utter futility of looking for any effectual change of system from any power within the colony. All that can be expected from the most benevolent governor (unless he were a statesman of an order such as our secondary dependencies are but rarely blest with) is the application of palliatives, which may perhaps mitigate the suffering, but which cannot possibly heal the sore. Unless, therefore, the subject is seriously taken up by the Home Government, and some comprehensive plan wisely devised and perseveringly carried into execution for the protection and civilisation of the tribes that surround the colony, no other result can be rationally contemplated than the prolongation, for generations yet to come, of the same revolting scenes of mutual wrong and barbarity. The bitter fountain will still pour forth. its bitter waters. The frontier colonists, be they Dutch or British, must of necessity continue to be semi-barbarians, so long as the commando system-the system of hostile reprisals -shall be encouraged or connived at; and so long as the colonists are permitted to make encroachments on the territory and the natural rights of the natives, the colony can never have a safe or a settled frontier. Mutual enmity and reciprocal outrage will proceed as heretofore. The weak will gradually melt away before the strong; tribe after tribe will be extirpated as their brethren have been extirpated; and year after year, while we continue to talk of our boundless benevolence and our Christian philanthropy, fresh loads of that guilt which the Almighty has denounced in awful terms-the blood-stained guilt of OPPRESSION, will continue to accumulate upon our heads as a nation. CHAPTER XIII. The Hottentots-Progress of Colonial Encroachments— Reduction of the Aboriginal Race to Servitude― Their Condition at the close of last Century-Their Wars with the Boors-Oppressions and Cruelties-Colonial Redress - Case of Stuurman-Condition of the Hottentots during the Author's Residence in the Colony-Exertions of Mr. Buxton and of Dr. Philip for their Relief-Emancipating Ordinance of 1828-Colonial Clamours-Account of the Settlement at Kat River. IN describing the insurrection of the Boors on the eastern frontier in 1815, I have cursorily noticed the former condition of the enthralled colonial Hottentots. I shall devote this chapter to a rapid sketch of the progressive changes in the circumstances of that people from the first settlement of the colony to the present day; concluding with an account of the experiment recently made to reinstate the aborigines in the full rights of freemen, and to establish a limited number of them as small landholders. When the Dutch began to colonise the southern angle of the African continent, about the middle of the seventeenth century, they entered the country as friends, and easily obtained from the natives, for a few trinkets and flasks of brandy, as much territory as was required for their infant settlement. The native inhabitants, afterwards known by the name of Hottentots *, are described by the best authorities as being at that period *"The name," says Mr. Barrow, "that has been given to this people is a fabrication. Hottentot is a word that has no place or meaning in their language; and they take to themselves the name under the idea of its being a Dutch word. Whence it has its derivation or by whom it was first given, I have not been able to trace. When the country was first discovered, and when they were spread over the southern angle of Africa, as an independent people, each horde had its |