It was interesting for me to observe the effects of the restrictive policy pursued by the Cape government toward the Bechuanas. Like all other restrictions on trade, the law of preventing friendly tribes from purchasing arms and ammunition only injures the men who enforce it. The Cape government, as already observed, in order to gratify a company of independent Boers, whose well-known predilection for the practice of slavery caused them to stipulate that a number of peaceable, honest tribes should be kept defenseless, agreed to allow free trade in arms and ammunition to the Boers, and prevent the same trade to the Bechuanas. The Cape government thereby unintentionally aided, and continues to aid, the Boers to enslave the natives. But arms and ammunition flow in on all sides by new channels, and where formerly the price of a large tusk procured but one musket, one tusk of the same size now brings ten. The profits are reaped by other nations, and the only persons really the losers, in the long run, are our own Cape merchants, and a few defenseless tribes of Bechuanas on our immediate frontier.
Mr. Rego, the commandant, very handsomely offered me a soldier as a guard to Ambaca. My men told me that they had been thinking it would be better to turn back here, as they had been informed by the people of color at Cassange that I was leading them down to the sea-coast only to sell them, and they would be taken on board ship, fattened, and eaten, as the white men were cannibals. I asked if they had ever heard of an Englishman buying or selling people; if I had not refused to take a slave when she was offered to me by Shinte; but, as I had always behaved as an English teacher, if they now doubted my intentions, they had better not go to the coast; I, however, who expected to meet some of my countrymen there, was determined to go on. They replied that they only thought it right to tell me what had been told to them, but they did not intend to leave me, and would follow wherever I should lead the way. This affair being disposed of for the time, the commandant gave them an ox, and me a friendly dinner before parting. All the merchants of Cassange accompanied us, in their hammocks carried by slaves, to the edge of the plateau on which their village stands, and we parted with the feeling in my mind that I should never forget their disinterested kindness. They not only did every thing they could to make my men and me comfortable during our stay; but, there being no hotels in Loanda, they furnished me with letters of recommendation to their friends in that city, requesting them to receive me into their houses, for without these a stranger might find himself a lodger in the streets. May God remember them in their day of need!