United States or Switzerland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"In 1811 it was resolved by the colonial government that the Caffres should be driven from this territory, and confined to the other side of the Great Fish River. This was an act of injustice and great hardship, and was proceeded in with extreme cruelty, the Caffres being obliged to leave all their crops, and turned out with great and unnecessary slaughter.
Toward sunset, they stopped on the banks of the river on a rising ground, and the Hottentots and some Caffres were then directed to go down to the river in chase of the hippopotami, as it was advisable to save their provisions as much as possible. Before night they had succeeded, and the carcass of the animal was hauled on shore.
"When the procession had reached the place of interment, the negresses of Madagascar, and the caffres of Mosambiac, placed baskets of fruit around the corpse, and hung pieces of stuff upon the neighbouring trees, according to the custom of their country. The Indians of Bengal, and of the coast of Malabar, brought cages filled with birds, which they set at liberty upon her coffin.
"Yes, I do; but I wish from my heart that the Hottentots had not rebelled; for although in some respects cowardly fellows, yet with their muskets they are brave, and their muskets keep the natives in order." "To the Caffres, the contents of the wagons would prove a temptation; but these are not temptations to the Hottentots, whose object is to get back safe, and receive their wages.
He had a lively interest in all branches of natural history, was a good botanist and mineralogist, and could take note of all the strange animals, plants, or minerals he saw in his adventurous journies in the countries, now colonized, but then the hunting-grounds of Caffres and other uncivilized tribes.
Paul' splendidly, the Caffres rolling out soft rich bass voices, like melodious thunder. They are clever at handicrafts, and fond of geography and natural history, incapable of mathematics, quick at languages, utterly incurious about other nations, and would all rather work in the fields than learn anything but music; good boys, honest, but 'trotzig'. So much for Caffres, Fingoes, &c.
He is devoting himself to Hottentot and aboriginal literature! and has actually mastered the Caffre click, which I vainly practised under Kleenboy's tuition. He taught me to throw stones or a stick at him, which he always avoided, however close they fell, and cried 'Tkorkha! The Caffres ask for a present, 'Tkzeelah Tabak', 'a gift for tobacco'.
"That was not so easy; the frontier boors rose in arms against the English government, and the Hottentots, who had been so long patient, now fled and joined the Caffres. These people made a combined attack upon the frontier boors, burnt their houses to the ground, carried off the cattle, and possessed themselves of their arms and ammunition.
"I would rather go and command a set of Caffres than remain in this Sodom, which the English fire, in default of Heaven's, must sooner or later destroy," had for a long time past been a common expression of the general's, whose fate was henceforth bound up with that of Pondicherry. He held out for six weeks, in spite of famine, want of money, and ever-increasing dissensions.
"Deprived of their means of subsistence by the capture of their cattle, the Caffres were rendered furious reckless, and no sooner had the expedition returned, than they commenced hostilities.
Word Of The Day