“Yes, sir,” I replied, “I have been some years living entirely among the Caffres.”
“Is the account you have given of the shipwreck quite correct?”
“Everything I told the captain is just as it occurred.”
“Don’t you think the English women who are up there would come away if they could?”
“No,” I replied, “they told me themselves they would not leave now: they have children, and have been well-treated; and they could not come again to civilisation after living during some years as the wives of Caffres.”
“Then,” said the admiral, “if I sent a ship up there to bring these women away, you don’t think they would come?”
“I am certain they would not; and you would not be able to find them. The Caffres would carry them up the country, and conceal them as soon as your ship was seen to be landing men; and if you attempted to use force, you might be opposed by several thousand warriors; who, though armed with assagies only, would yet, in the rough bushy country, slaughter two or three hundred men armed with muskets.”
After some further conversation the admiral asked me what I wished to do.
I replied that I had no money, no clothes, except what the captain had given me, and no friends at the Cape; that I should like my father, who was in India to know of my safety, and should like to receive his instructions as to what he wished me to do. I added that, if I stopped at the Cape, my father would pay any one for my keep as soon as he knew where I was.
The admiral shook hands with me, and said I had better return to the ship at present; but that he should be glad to see me at lunch in an hour’s time, and he would consider what should be done for me.