When They Reach The Tribe
To Be Attacked, The Friendly Natives Are Ranged In Front,
To Form, As They Say, "A Shield"; The Boers Then Coolly Fire Over Their Heads
Till The Devoted People Flee And Leave Cattle, Wives, And Children
To The Captors.
This was done in nine cases during my residence
in the interior, and on no occasion was a drop
Of Boer's blood shed.
News of these deeds spread quickly among the Bakwains, and letters
were repeatedly sent by the Boers to Sechele, ordering him
to come and surrender himself as their vassal, and stop English traders
from proceeding into the country with fire-arms for sale.
But the discovery of Lake Ngami, hereafter to be described,
made the traders come in five-fold greater numbers, and Sechele replied,
"I was made an independent chief and placed here by God, and not by you.
I was never conquered by Mosilikatze, as those tribes whom you rule over;
and the English are my friends. I get every thing I wish from them.
I can not hinder them from going where they like." Those who are old enough
to remember the threatened invasion of our own island may understand
the effect which the constant danger of a Boerish invasion had
on the minds of the Bakwains; but no others can conceive how worrying
were the messages and threats from the endless self-constituted authorities
of the Magaliesberg Boers; and when to all this harassing annoyance
was added the scarcity produced by the drought, we could not wonder at,
though we felt sorry for, their indisposition to receive instruction.
The myth of the black pot assumed serious proportions.
I attempted to benefit the tribes among the Boers of Magaliesberg
by placing native teachers at different points. "You must teach the blacks,"
said Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, the commandant in chief,
"that they are not equal to us." Other Boers told me,
"I might as well teach the baboons on the rocks as the Africans,"
but declined the test which I proposed, namely, to examine whether
they or my native attendants could read best. Two of their clergymen
came to baptize the children of the Boers; so, supposing these good men
would assist me in overcoming the repugnance of their flock
to the education of the blacks, I called on them; but my visit ended
in a `ruse' practiced by the Boerish commandant, whereby I was led,
by professions of the greatest friendship, to retire to Kolobeng,
while a letter passed me by another way to the other missionaries
in the south, demanding my instant recall "for lending a cannon
to their enemies." The colonial government was also gravely informed
that the story was true, and I came to be looked upon
as a most suspicious character in consequence.
These notices of the Boers are not intended to produce a sneer
at their ignorance, but to excite the compassion of their friends.
They are perpetually talking about their laws; but practically
theirs is only the law of the strongest.
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