the system of us humane and virtuous English, till 1837! To these dreadful and wicked expeditions there was no end, and but little cessation, for the boors were continually going over the boundaries into the countries of Bushmen, Caffres, or Guiquas, just as they pleased. They went over with vast herds and eat them up. "In 1834 there were said to be," says the Report, "about 1,500 boors on the other side of the Orange River, and for the most part in the Griqua country. Of these there were 700 boors for several months during that year in the district of Philipolis alone, with at least 700,000 sheep, cattle, and horses. Besides destroying the pastures of the people, in many instances their corn-fields were destroyed by them, and in some instances they took possession of their houses. It was contended that the evil could not be remedied; that the state of the country was such that the boors could not be stopped; and yet an enormous body of military was kept up on the frontiers at a ruinous expense to this country. The last Caffre war, brought on entirely by this system of aggression, by these commandoes, and the reprisals generated by them, cost this country 500,000l., and put a stop to trade and the sale of produce to the value of 300,000l. more!" Yet the success of a different policy was before the colony, in the case of the Kat River Hottentots, and that so splendid a one, that the Report says, had it been attended to and followed out, all these outrages might have been spared.
Such are commandoes.—So far as they related to the Bushmen, the following facts are sufficiently indicative. In 1774 an order was issued for the extirpation of the Bushmen, and three commandoes were
