Note 1. The Boers, however, had little liking for this arrangement, which severed them from their parent country, and their hearts yearned towards a reunion with it. Of this I had a positive assurance before it was my fate to visit the colony myself. In the year 1838 I had the honour of making the acquaintance of H.R.H. Prince William Henry of Orange, who was on his voyage home in the "Bellona" frigate from Java, _via_ Saint Helena. He dwelt with great pleasure on the circumstance of several Dutch families having travelled many miles from the interior to meet him at Cape Town, when he touched there. Aged men and women, who had scarcely moved out of their farm sitting-room for years, hastened to meet a Prince from their beloved Fatherland. Note 2. Shortly after Lord Charles Somerset succeeded to the government of the Cape, in 1817, Graham's Town being attacked by Makanna, the pretended Kaffir prophet, a witch-doctor, Colonel, now Major-General Sir Thomas Wiltshire, after defeating a horde of these savages, followed up his success by pursuing them into their own country, where he forced them to sue for peace. This was granted, on condition of their surrendering Makanna, and giving up in atonement for their past, and as security against future offences, that tract of country lying between the Fish and Kat Rivers on the one side, and the Tyumie and Keiskama on the other. PART ONE, CHAPTER FOUR. THE KAFFIRS AND THE ABORIGINES. Though the publications on the Cape colony are already so numerous, and they all more or less profess to describe the native inhabitants, it is certain that we yet know very little of their real character; more especially of the character of the Kaffirs. These are often painted as an aboriginal race, "a pastoral and gentle people." They are neither the one nor the other. They are intruders on the lands that they occupy; their habits are the most savage imaginable; [see Note 1] their treachery is well-known to all who have been unfortunate enough to come in contact with them, and the conversions among them in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred have no other existence than in the warm imaginations of the well-meaning but ill-informed members of Missionary Societies. What converts there are, are principally from the despised slaves of the haughty Kaffirs, the Fingoes.