Such are commandoes.—So far as they related to the Bushmen, the following facts are sufficiently indicative. In 1774 an order was issued for the extirpation of the Bushmen, and three commandoes were sent to execute it. In 1795, the Earl of Macartney, by proclamation, authorized the landdrosts and magistrates to take the field against the Bushmen, in such expeditions; and Mr. Maynier gave in evidence, that in consequence, when he was landdrost of Graaf Reynet, parties of from 200 to 300 boors were sent out, who killed many hundreds of Bushmen, _chiefly women and children_, the men escaping; and the children too young to carry off for slaves had their brains knocked out against the rocks.[66] Col. Collins, in his tour to the north-eastern boundary in 1809, says one man told him that within a period of six years parties under his orders had killed or taken 3,200 of these unfortunate creatures; and another, that the actions in which he had been engaged had destroyed 2,700. That the total extinction of the Bushmen race was confidently hoped for, but sufficient force for the purpose could not be raised. But Dr. Philips’ evidence, presented in a memorial to government in 1834, may well conclude these horrible details of the deeds of our countrymen and colonists.
“A few years ago, we had 1,800 Boschmen belonging to two missionary institutions, among that people in the country between the Snewbergen and the Orange River, a country comprehending 42,000 square miles; and had we been able to treble the number of our missionary stations over that district, we might have had 5,000 of that people under instruction. In 1832 I spent seventeen days in that country, travelling over it in different directions. I then found the country occupied by the boors, and the Boschmen population had disappeared, with the exception of those that had been brought up from infancy in the service of the boors. In the whole of my journey, during the seventeen days I was in the country, I met with two men and one woman only of the free inhabitants, who had escaped the effects of the commando system, and they were travelling by night, and concealing themselves by day, to escape being shot like wild beasts. Their tale was a lamentable one: their children had been taken from them by the boors, and they were wandering about in this manner from place to place, in the hope of finding out where they were, and of getting a sight of them.”