There is an " inherent propensity in the Kaffir character
to rob and to pillage, and especially to carry off cattle, the
passion for the poaaeasion of which seems to be the leading
principle of all his views and actions." As for treaties
binding him to respect his neighbours' property, what
cares he for themi He has no national or personal honour
to sustain; and hence, if he chaoses to keep them, he will
do so; if he pleads to break them, he will do it just as
sooiL So perverted, too, is conscience, that to lie or to
steal is, by a Kaffir, scarcely deemed a sin: the sin consists
rather in permitting himself to be found out. His skill in
the art of theft surpaases that even of the wily Arab. He
will take up a position on some eminence, overlooking a
tract of country where the farmers' flocks are grazing;
and, watching his o]>portunity, will pounce upon them m a,
moment, like the tiger on his prey, and driving them into
the buah, where he cannot easily he followed, will generally
succeed in getting them over the boundary of the Colony,
whence they seldom will return. One of the most annoying,
and often hopeless, tasks of the frontier farmer was, up to
a very recent period, to be obhged to set out, with a
number of attendants, perhaps in the night, to follow the
spoor of his cattle, that had been swept off by his neigh-.
