Researches in South Africa Author:John Philip Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 39 CHAPTER III. Exclamation of a Bushman on going to be executed.—Description of the State of the Bushmen in 1823.—Mr. George Thomson's Account of the Comm... more »ando system.—Feelings of the Colonists on this point.—Comparative Humanity of the Dutch and English Governments.—Present Condition of the Bushmen.—Interview with Uithaalder, the Bushman Chief.—His Memorial. The clergyman of the district of Graaff-Reinet stated to me, that, in 1819, when he was called, in the exercise of his duty, to attend at the execution of a Bushman, who was condemned on the charge of having been accessary to the slaughter of a slave belonging to a frontier boor, the poor creature was so ignorant of my friend's character, and so incapable of appreciating the intention of his visit, that, on his first introduction to him, he accosted him in the following terms:—" I knew you would kill me, you murderer! my father always told me to beware of the white men, for they would kill me, and I see he has spoken the truth !" The following is an extract of a letter from S. Bailey, Esq., a most respectable medical gentleman, residing in Cape Town, dated 5th December, 1822 :— " An old Hottentot, from Hantam, named Whit- booy, formerly a servant of Mr. Van Reenen's, my father-in-law, called upon him a few days ago, when, after a few questions, Mr. Van Reenen asked him how the crops were looking in that country: he said heknew nothing of the matter, having just returned from the Bushman country, where he had been from July last, with the commando under the command of the field-cornet, Van der Merwe ; and added, that they bad killed thirty men and eighteen children, their orders being that they were not to make any prisoners. I had subsequently an opportunity of having this report confirmed by a young African fa...« less