These poor people were fed on the flesh of old ewes, or any animal that the boor expected to die of age; or, in default of that, a few quaggas or such game were killed for them. They were tied to a wagon-wheel and flogged dreadfully for slight offences; and when a master wanted to get rid of one, he was sometimes sent on an errand, followed on the road, and shot.[64] The cruelties, in fact, practised on the Hottentots by the Dutch boors were too shocking to be related. Maiming, murder, pursuing them like wild beasts, and shooting at them in the most wanton manner, were amongst them. Mr. Pringle stated that he had in his possession a journal of such deeds, kept by a resident at so late a period as from 1806 to 1811, which consisted of forty-four pages of such crimes and cruelties, which were too horrible to describe. Such as we found them when the Cape finally became our possession, such they remained till 1828, when Dr. Philip published his “Researches in South Africa,” which laying open this scene of barbarities, Mr. Fowell Buxton gave notice of a motion on the subject in Parliament. Sir George Murray, then Colonial Secretary, however, most honourably acceded to Mr. Buxton’s proposition before such motion was submitted, and an Order in Council was accordingly issued, directing that the Hottentots should be admitted to all the rights, and placed on the same footing as the rest of his Majesty’s free subjects in the colony. This transaction is highly honourable to the English government, and the result has been such as to shew the wisdom of such liberal measures. But before proceeding to notice the effect of this change upon the Hottentots, let us select as a specimen of the treatment they were subject to, even under our rule, the destruction of the last independent Hottentot kraal, as related by Pringle.