Note 150 — Chapter XXV · 1878—THE GAIKAS AND PERIE BUSH

Bowker was one of eleven children not one of whom was under 6 feet, and three of his brothers were 6 feet 3 inches. Like many others of those serving with us, he had seen his cattle driven off, and had known his relations and friends murdered by Kafirs; but he had a high type of mind, as is indicated by the following story. In a petty skirmish in 1864 he was fired on by a Basuto, who missed him but killed his horse. Bowker fired on the Basuto as he ran, and broke his arm. The man fell, but when Bowker approached stood up stoically to meet the death he anticipated. Bowker bound up his arm and let him go, thinking no more of the matter. Many years after, when Bowker was travelling with his wife in a waggon in Basutoland, buying cattle, he halted at a kraal at sundown, and as usual the Basutos crowded round him. He noticed one man who stared at him closely and then disappeared, but came back within an hour, with all his family, bearing on his head a bundle of firewood, a sheep, and some milk and vegetables, saying, “I offer these gifts to the man who broke and mended my arm.” The firewood could not have been worth less than half a crown, as the country is treeless, and the only fuel is the manure of cattle.