In the present case, Sechele, knowing every question put to his people, asked me how they ought to answer. My reply was, "Tell the truth." Every one then declared that no cannon existed there; and our friends, judging the answer by what they themselves would in the circumstances have said, were confirmed in the opinion that the Bakwains actually possessed artillery. This was in some degree beneficial to us, inasmuch as fear prevented any foray in our direction for eight years. During that time no winter passed without one or two tribes in the East country being plundered of both cattle and children by the Boers. The plan pursued is the following: one or two friendly tribes are forced to accompany a party of mounted Boers, and these expeditions can be got up only in the winter, when horses may be used without danger of being lost by disease. When they reach the tribe to be attacked, the friendly natives are ranged in front, to form, as they say, "a shield"; the Boers then coolly fire over their heads till the devoted people flee and leave cattle, wives, and children to the captors. This was done in nine cases during my residence in the interior, and on no occasion was a drop of Boer's blood shed. News of these deeds spread quickly among the Bakwains, and letters were repeatedly sent by the Boers to Sechele, ordering him to come and surrender himself as their vassal, and stop English traders from proceeding into the country with fire-arms for sale. But the discovery of Lake Ngami, hereafter to be described, made the traders come in five-fold greater numbers, and Sechele replied, "I was made an independent chief and placed here by God, and not by you. I was never conquered by Mosilikatze, as those tribes whom you rule over; and the English are my friends. I get every thing I wish from them. I can not hinder them from going where they like." Those who are old enough to remember the threatened invasion of our own island may understand the effect which the constant danger of a Boerish invasion had on the minds of the Bakwains; but no others can conceive how worrying were the messages and threats from the endless self-constituted authorities of the Magaliesberg Boers; and when to all this harassing annoyance was added the scarcity produced by the drought, we could not wonder at, though we felt sorry for, their indisposition to receive instruction.