Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/17

Rh people, whose bodies could be found after death, against 19 blacks, killed in these farm fights; and it is further recorded, that in the same period 69 Europeans were wounded against one, or at most two, of the other race; some of the latter were also taken. That many others on both sides were killed in the same period whose deaths are unreported, is very certain; and equally certain is it, or at least highly probable, that in these unrecorded encounters our countrymen got the worst of it, as they generally did. I have here to remark that the number of inquests actually held must have been much greater than what I have stated, as the coroners of three principal districts were unable to furnish the returns required by the Government, doubtless from the defective state of their office records. I say nothing of the operations of certain bands of whites, called "roving parties," one of which, at least, did kill several of them.

If it had been possible to bring the savage into fair and open fight, with something like equal numbers, all this would have been reversed, of course. But the black assailant was far too acute and crafty an enemy to be betrayed into this style of contest, and never fought till he knew he had his opponents at a disadvantage to themselves. He waited and watched for his opportunity for hours, and often for days, for he knew nothing of the value of time, and when the proper moment arrived he attacked the solitary hut of the stock-keeper with irresistible numbers, or the hapless traveller whom he met in the bush, taking life generally singly, but often; the largest number that I read of his destroying on any one occasion being four persons.

In the assaults on the dwellings of his enemy he contrived his attacks so cleverly as to insure success at least five times in six, and if forced to abandon his enterprise, his retreat, with few exceptions, was a bloodless one.

The natives so managed their advance on the point of attack as not to be seen until they were almost close to the dwelling of their victim. They distinguished between a house and a hut, and seldom approached the former, for they quite understood that there was some difference between the most imprudent stock-keeper, and his more thoughtful employer. They had several instances of this, and profited by their experience. There was no want of pluck in the former, but a great absence of vigilance; and until these barbarians were reduced to a mere remnant by disease and strife, they never attacked except in parties of 20, 50, or 100, or even greater numbers. Their mode of assaulting a dwelling when there were several inmates at home, which they knew by previous watching, was to divide into small gangs of five, ten, or more, each concealing itself as effectually as the