CHAPTER 2.
The Boers--Their Treatment of the Natives--Seizure of native Children for Slaves--English Traders--Alarm of the Boers--Native Espionage--The Tale of the Cannon--The Boers threaten Sechele--In violation of Treaty, they stop English Traders and expel Missionaries--They attack the Bakwains--Their Mode of Fighting--The Natives killed and the School-children carried into Slavery--Destruction of English Property--African Housebuilding and Housekeeping--Mode of Spending the Day--Scarcity of Food--Locusts--Edible Frogs--Scavenger Beetle--Continued Hostility of the Boers--The Journey north--Preparations--Fellow-travelers--The Kalahari Desert-- Vegetation--Watermelons--The Inhabitants--The Bushmen--Their nomad Mode of Life--Appearance--The Bakalahari--Their Love for Agriculture and for domestic Animals--Timid Character--Mode of obtaining Water--Female Water-suckers--The Desert--Water hidden.
Another adverse influence with which the mission had to contend was the vicinity of the Boers of the Cashan Mountains, otherwise named "Magaliesberg".

These are not to be counfounded with the Cape colonists, who sometimes pass by the name.

The word Boer simply means "farmer", and is not synonymous with our word boor.

Indeed, to the Boers generally the latter term would be quite inappropriate, for they are a sober, industrious, and most hospitable body of peasantry.

Those, however, who have fled from English law on various pretexts, and have been joined by English deserters and every other variety of bad character in their distant localities, are unfortunately of a very different stamp.