Cattle Thief

Known as the Transkeian beak who had a soft spot for the reivers and rustlers of his unruly district, Frank Brownlee established a reputation as the pioneer transcriber of oral testimony into written texts. The Sunday Times described his Cattle Thief as 'a picaresque novel, its hero having a well developed inherited appetite for other people's property, notably their cattle and horses'.The second work included here - published for the first time - features Christina as Brownlee's indiscreet informant. As she remarks to him: 'Yes, it's only an old Griqua woman what's talking to you. But we has our inside feelings.' The vernacular farrago which follows is to be savoured for the sympathetic manner in which it reveals a vanished lifestyle on the old Cape frontier.