the farmers, indicates a very altered difpofition from that of
their nation at large. Should they feize a Hottentot guarding
his mailer’s caftle,. not contented with putting him to immediate
death, they torture him by every means of cruelty that
their invention can frame, as drawing out his bowels, tearing
oft his nails, fcalping, and other a£ts equally favage. Even
the poor animals they fteal are treated in -a moft barbarous and
unfeeling manner : driven up the fteep fides of mountains,
they remain there without any kind of food or water till they
are either killed for ufe, or drop for want of the means of fup-
porting nature.
The eondition to which this people has been reduced has
entirely fubdued that timid and pufillanimous mind which cha-
raderizes the Hottentot. When a horde is furrounded by the
farmers, and little chance is perceived by them of effeding an
efcape, they will fight it out moft furioufly fo long as a man
ihall be left alive. It frequently happens on fuch occafions .
that a party will volunteer the forlorn hope, by throwing them-
felves in the midft o f the colonifts in order to create confufion,
and to give to their countrymen, concealed among the rocks or
in thé long grafs, at the expence of their own lives, an opportunity
of exercifing more effedtually their mortal weapons upon
their enemies, and at the fame time to facilitate the efcape of
their wives and children.
Their plundering expeditions are conducted not without
fyftem. If, in carrying off their booty, they ihould chance to
be purfued, they always divide ; one party to drive away the
cattle,
cattle, while the other continues to harafs the purfuets ; and,
when the peafantry prove too many for them, they ftab and
maim with poifoned weapons the whole herd. On all fiich
plundering expeditions, they carry, in addition to their bows
and arrows, lances that refemble the KafFers’ haflagai, but of a
much fmaller fize, and always dipt’in poilbn. Their bows áre
remarkably fmall ; and, in the hahds of any one but of a Bof-
jefmán, would be entirely ufelefs. From the earlieft infancy
they accuftom themfelves to the ufe of the bow. All the little
boys who came to us at the kraal carried their bows and fmall
quivers of arrows. A complete quiver contains about feventy
or eighty, made like thofe of the Hottentot that have already
been noticed ; and, in addition to thefe, a few fmall bruihes to
lay on the poifon ; pieces of iron, red ochre, leg-bones of
oftriches cut , in lengths and rounded, and two little flicks of
hard wood to produce fire : this is done by placing one horizontally
on a piece of withered grafs, and whirling the other
vertically between the hands, with the point a ding in a hollow
place made in the furface o f the former. In a few feconds of
time the velocity and fridion fet the grafs in a blaze.
Miferable as the life o f a Bosjefman appears to be, it is perhaps
in reality not more fo than that of moft favage tribes.
He has no invidious objed of comparifon to place againft his
condition. Univerfal equality prevails in his horde. When
one feafts they all partake, and when one hungers they all
equally fufier. “ They take no thought for thè morrow.”
They have no fort of management nor economy with regard
to provifions. With them it is either a feaft or a famine.
When