“The Dutch government seized upon all the land belonging to the Hottentots, and gave it away in grants to their own countrymen, who now became herdsmen, and possessed of a large quantity of cattle; they also cultivated the ground to a certain extent round about their habitations.  As the colony increased, so did the demand for land, until the whole of the country that was worth having was disposed of as far as to the country of the Caffres, a fine, warlike race, of whom we will speak hereafter.  It must not, however, be supposed that the whole of the Hottentot tribes became serfs to the soil.  Some few drove away their cattle to the northward, out of reach of the Dutch, to the borders of the Caffre land; others, deprived of their property, left the plains, and took to the mountains, living by the chase and by plunder.  This portion were termed boshmen, or bushmen, and have still retained that appellation:  living in extreme destitution, sleeping in caves, constantly in a state of starvation, they soon dwindled down to a very diminutive race, and have continued so ever since.

“The Dutch boors, or planters, who lived in the interior, and far away from Cape Town, had many enemies to contend with:  they had the various beasts of the forest, from the lion to the jackal, which devastated their flocks and herds, and also these bushmen, who lived upon plunder.  Continually in danger, they were never without their muskets in their hands, and they and their descendants became an athletic, powerful, and bulky race, courageous, and skilled in the use of fire-arms, but at the same time cruel and avaricious to the highest degree.  The absolute power they possessed over the slaves and Hottentots demoralized them, and made them tyrannical and blood-thirsty.  At too great a distance from the seat of government for its power to reach them, they defied it and knew no law but their own imperious wills, acknowledging no authority,—­guilty of every crime openly, and careless of detection.”

“I certainly have read of great cruelty on the part of these Dutch boors, but I had no idea of the extent to which it was carried.”

“The origin was in that greatest of all curses, slavery; nothing demoralizes so much.  These boors had been brought up with the idea that a Hottentot, a bushman, or a Caffre were but as the mere brutes of the field, and they have treated them as such.  They would be startled at the idea of murdering a white man, but they will execute wholesale slaughter among these poor natives, and think they have committed no crime.  But the ladies are coming up, and we shall be interrupted, so I will not task your patience any more to-day.  I shall therefore conclude what I may term part the first of my little history of the Cape colony.”

CHAPTER IV.

Alexander Wilmot was too much pleased with Mr. Swinton not to cultivate his acquaintance, and they soon became very intimate.  The conversation often turned upon Mr. Swinton’s favorite study, that of natural history.