Page:Life of Africaner.pdf/9

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life of africaner.
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Africaner, in a supplicating attitude, entreating parties ripe for a battle to live at peace with each other: 'Look,' said the wondering chief, pointing to Africaner, 'there is the man, once the lion, at whose roar even the inhabitants of distant hamlets fled from their homes! Yes, and I,' (patting his chcst with his hand,) 'have, for fear of his approach, fled with my people, our wives and our babes, to the mountain glen, or to the wilderness, and spent nights among beasts of prey, rather than gaze on the eyes of this lion, or hear his roar.' "

Africaner and his brother Jager dared not to visit Cape Town themselves after the murders and plunders they had eommitted in the colony, and they were obliged to employ others to procure for them what they wanted from thence. On one occasion, about the beginning of the year 1811, they employed a man, named Hans Drayer, to purehase a waggon for them at the Cape, which is a vehicle of great value in such countries for travelling, &c. For this purpose, they entrusted him with three span or teams of oxen, ten in each span: with two span he was to purehase the waggon, and with the third, to bring the waggon home to Namaqua-land. On his way to Cape Town, Hans met a boor to whom he was indebted for a considerable sum: for payment of this debt the boor seized the whole of the oxen; and Hans was obliged to return to the missionary station at Kamies Fountain, in Little Namaqua-land, where ho usually resided, and he refused to give to Africaner any satisfactory aceount of the oxen. Africaner was so angry at his loss, and so exasperated against Hans, that he pursued him to Kamies, where he and his people