Sechele Had Given Orders To His People Not To Commit Any Act Of Revenge
Pending His Visit To The Queen
Of England; but some of the young men
ventured to go to meet a party of Boers returning from hunting,
And, as the Boers became terrified and ran off, they brought their wagons
to Litubaruba. This seems to have given the main body of Boers an idea
that the Bakwains meant to begin a guerrilla war upon them.
This "Caffre war" was, however, only in embryo, and not near
that stage of development in which the natives have found out
that the hide-and-seek system is the most successful.
The Boers, in alarm, sent four of their number to ask for peace!
I, being present, heard the condition: "Sechele's children must be
restored to him." I never saw men so completely and unconsciously in a trap
as these four Boers were. Strong parties of armed Bakwains occupied
every pass in the hills and gorges around; and had they not promised much more
than they intended, or did perform, that day would have been their last.
The commandant Scholz had appropriated the children of Sechele
to be his own domestic slaves. I was present when one little boy,
Khari, son of Sechele, was returned to his mother; the child had been allowed
to roll into the fire, and there were three large unbound open sores
on different parts of his body. His mother and the women received him
with a flood of silent tears.
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