In 1666 two men were flogged and sentenced to work in irons for three years for stealing cabbages. Terrible severity seems to have been the only idea of government. Those who were able to produce more than they consumed were allowed to sell to no purchaser except the Company. Even the free men, the so-called burghers, were little better than slaves, and were bound to perform their military duties with almost more than Dutch accuracy. Time was kept by the turning of an official hour glass, for which purpose two soldiers called Rondegangers were kept on duty, one to relieve the other through the day and night. And everything was done vigorously by clockwork,--or hour-glass work rather; the Senate sitting punctually at nine for their executive and political duties. A soldier, if he was found sleeping at his post, was tied to a triangle and beaten by relays of flagellators. Everything was done in accordance with the ideas of a military despotism, in which, however, the Commander-in-chief was assisted by a Council or Senate. And there was need for despotism. Food often ran short, so that penguins had to be supplied in lieu of pork,--to the infinite disgust we should imagine of others besides poor Van Vogelaar. It often became a serious question whether the garrison,--for then it was little more than a garrison,--would produce food sufficient for their need. But this was not the only or the worse trouble to which the Governor was subjected. The new land of which he had taken possession was by no means unoccupied or unpossessed. There was a race of savages in possession, to whom the Dutch soon gave the name of Hottentots,[1] and who were friendly enough as long as they thought that they were getting more than they gave; but, as has always been the case in the growing relations between Christians and Savages, the Savages quickly began to understand they were made to have the worst in every bargain. Soon after the settlement was established the burghers were forbidden to trade with these people at all, and then hostilities commenced. The Hottentots found that much, in the way of land, had been taken from them and that nothing was to be got. They too, Savages though they were, became logical, and asked whether they would be allowed to enter Holland and do there as the Dutch were doing with them. “You come,” they said, “quite into the interior, selecting our best land, and never asking whether we like it;”--thus showing that they had made themselves accustomed to the calling of strangers at their point of land, and that they had not objected to such mere calling, because something had always been left behind; but that this going into the interior and taking from them their best land was quite a different thing. They understood the nature of pasture land very well, and argued that if the Dutchmen had many cattle there would be but little grass left for themselves. And so there arose a war.