I have before made mention of our getting our cattle on shore.  The bull and two cows, with their calves, were sent to graze along with some other cattle; but I was advised to keep our sheep, sixteen in number, close to our tents, where they were penned up every night.  During the night preceding the 14th, some dogs having got in amongst them, forced them out of the pen, killing four, and dispersing the rest.  Six of them were recovered the next day; but the two rams, and two of the finest ewes in the whole flock, were amongst those missing.  Baron Plettenberg being now in the country, I applied to the Lieutenant-Governor, Mr Hemmy, and to the Fiscal.  Both these gentlemen promised to use their endeavours for the recovery of the lost sheep.  The Dutch, we know, boasted that the police at the Cape was so carefully executed, that it was hardly possible for a slave, with all his cunning and knowledge of the country, to effectuate his escape.  Yet my sheep evaded all the vigilance of the Fiscal’s officers and people.  However, after much trouble and expence, by employing some of the meanest and lowest scoundrels in the place (who, to use the phrase of the person who recommended this method to me, would, for a ducatoon, cut their master’s throat, burn the house over his head, and bury him and the whole family in the ashes), I recovered them all but the two ewes.  Of these I never could bear the least tidings; and I gave over all enquiry after them, when I was told that, since I had got the two rams, I might think myself very well off.  One of these, however, was so much hurt by the dogs, that there was reason to believe he would never recover.

Mr Hemmy very obligingly offered to make up this loss, by giving me a Spanish ram, out of some that he had sent for from Lisbon.  But I declined the offer, under a persuasion that it would answer my purpose full as well, to take with me some of the Cape rams:  the event proved that I was under a mistake.  This gentleman had taken some pains to introduce European sheep at the Cape; but his endeavours, as he told me, had been frustrated by the obstinacy of the country people, who held their own breed in greater estimation, on account of their large tails, of the fat of which, they sometimes made more money than of the whole carcase besides; and who thought that the wool of European sheep would, by no means, make up for their deficiency in this respect.[86] Indeed, I have heard some sensible men here make the same observation.  And there seems to be foundation for it.  For, admitting that European sheep were to produce wool of the same quality here as in Europe, which experience has shewn not to be the case, the Dutch had not hands, at the Cape of Good Hope, to spare for the manufacturing even their own clothing.  It is certain that, were it not for the continual importation of slaves, this settlement would have been thinner of people than any other inhabited part of the world.