The policy of showing mercy to the frontier Kaffir murderer is similar to that of allowing a mad dog to run at liberty and bite people rather than to commit the cruelty of knocking it on the head. At the present time, the prompt and decided conduct of the able governor of the Cape appears to have checked a most threatening demonstration of the frontier Kaffirs. The Dutchmen, who are far up in the interior, keep their black neighbours in better order. When there is any just cause for going to war, such a severe punishment is inflicted by them on the Kaffirs, that a score of years will not wipe out the moral effect of the dread that these Dutchmen have inspired. I am convinced that by this apparent severity lives are eventually saved. Almost all the disasters that we have met with in Africa have been caused by underrating the enemy, or fancying security where there was danger. Perpetual caution and watchfulness are the only safeguards. Many people under English dominion have a desire for war, on account of the advantages which they thereby derive, their waggons and oxen being frequently let for months at a time to the commissariat, etc., and standing idle, but well paid for. The more troops there are in the colony, the more money is brought to the inhabitants. The unfortunate individuals who are settled on the outskirts of the colony, or in situations liable to be attacked, are the great sufferers during war time. In each successive war the Kaffir tribes are found to be better armed and more formidable. Young Kaffirland likes excitement, and having little to lose and everything to gain, trusts to his luck for a _coup_. The assagy is a formidable weapon in the hands of a Kaffir: it is a light spear about five or six feet long; an iron blade, of nearly two feet in length, is fixed in the wood while the iron is red-hot, and the socket is then incased with the fresh sinews of some animal, which hold all firmly together as they contract. When preparing to throw the assagy, the Kaffir holds it about an inch on the wood end of the balance, the back of the hand down, the first finger and thumb grasping, and all the other fingers resting on the wood. He continues jerking the assagy about, to give it the quivering motion that renders it difficult to avoid; while he occasionally pretends to throw it, to put the man aimed at off his guard. All this time he continues jumping about, rushing from side to side, but getting gradually nearer.