them, the greater part being women. To all I gave a piece of
tobacco, which was received with great joy. On this, the men
forming one party and the women another, they proceeded instantly
to light their pipes; and sat talking and smoking with the highest
glee and enjoyment. But in spirits, the women excelled their com.
panions, and chatted with each other in a style of volubility which
I had not supposed the Bushman language, with all the impediments
of its numerous claps, susceptible of. They invited us to hunt a
rhinoceros which had lately been observed browsing in the vicinity
of their kraal.
So much confidence and goodwill, shown us by a people whom
the Klaarwater missionaries had represented as the most ferocious of
savages, warmed my heart with equally kind feelings towards them,
and dispelled from my own mind every sensation of fear, however
firmly I had resolved that no favorable appearances should ever
lull our vigilance to sleep, or tempt us to think that precaution
might ever be dispensed with. But most of my own Hottentots
betrayed their timidity; and both by their looks and conversation,
declared their uneasiness at seeing so many visitors coming around
them; although their number, including the women, amounted only
to fourteen.
As soon as the heat of noon had passed, we left the verdant
meadows of Grass Station, and rode the whole of this day in a
south-easterly course over plains, in a right line towards Water-
point, the eastern point of the Hyena Mountains, where we had been
informed that we should find the kraal of our Bushman friend Kaabi.
Ih e natives give it a name importing “ Water-point,” on account of
the river taking its course round it. At the western end of this
range, two table-mountains form a remarkable feature.
When we had travelled nearly eight miles, we ascended a low
hill on which we were glad at finding a small pool of water, and
though it was quite muddy, halted that all the party might drink;
for the weather had become so excessively hot, that it felt almost as
though the sun were pouring down liquid fire upon us.
I had suffered myself to be guided over this hill by our last
visitors, because they were desirous of conducting me to their Icraal
as a mark of friendship : which it certainly was, if we consider with
what jealous care this nation always conceal from the colonists the
place of their abode. They brought us to the summit of the ridge,
where, situated between heaps or hillocks of large stones, and unsheltered
by either tree or bush, we found half a dozen wretched
weathei-worn huts, having only one—third of the circumference
enclosed, and utterly incapable of protecting their inhabitants from
the inclemency of wind or rain. But at this kraal not one individual
had been left at home; want had driven every one abroad to dig up
his daily food in the plain. Within these huts there was no property
of any kind, except in one or two, a dirty furless skin, or the shell of
an ostrich-egg. Never before had I beheld, or even imagined, so
melancholy, so complete, a picture of poverty.
“ Here;' said they, as they pointed to the huts, “ this is our
home.” — And having paused a few moments, they seated their thin
emaciated bodies on the ground, and looked up to me with such
speaking expression of humility and want, that I felt a tear, which
could not be suppressed, trickling down my cheek. Abstracted from
every other thought, my whole mind was absorbed in the contemplation
of what was before me. W ell! I involuntarily exclaimed
to myself, and is this the home of human beings ! Have I been sleeping
on the bed of ease, and pampered with a thousand useless
luxuries, while my fellow-creatures have been wandering the burning
plains from day to day, and have returned at last to their wretched
huts to pass the painful night in hunger, and unsheltered from the
storm ! Yes, unfavoured savages, unpitied and despised as ye are by the
thoughtless and unfeeling, ye still are men, and feel the pains of want,
the misery of care ; untutored as ye are, ye still are not too ignorant
to know that injustice and oppression confirm no right, and that God
as given liberty equally to all; rude and uncivilized as ye are, ye still
are not insensible to the dictate of conscience, that kindnesses should
be remembered with a grateful heart. Unblest among the nations
ot the earth, ye seem but to share these plains with beasts of prey,
and but to stand the next degree above them: yet do ye breathe the