The three tribes of Kaffers above-mentioned have each a
different language, though they are all of the fame nature, and
have evidently been derived from the fame fource. This muft
be the cafe among every people who want a written character,
efpecially when they become divided into tribes, and ceafe to
communicate with each other. The different families of Hottentots
all fpeak a different language, which, however, is very
obvioufly perceived to have been derived from one common
■origin.
Having dried , our -clothes, we took leave of the kraal, and
•continued our defcent of the mountain. It was night before we
gained the plain, where we once more enjoyed a clear fky and
a brilliant moon. The following morning the thermometer was
down to the freezing point, and the whole furface o f the country
was covered with a hoar froft.
From this place we made the beft of our way to the Bokke-
veld, returning nearly by the fame route that had brought us to
it. At the edge of the defert the Bosjefmans’ captain paid us a
fecond vifit, with the people o f his kraal, and a whole firing
o f Namaaqua Hottentots, generally women, whofe hufbands
and children were in the fervice of the Dutch farmers. One of
thefe appeared to be the oldefl woman I had ever beheld.
Much more than a century o f years had certainly paffed over
her head. She produced her elddft daughter, who headed five
generations. On being aiked i f her memory could carry her
back to the time when the Chriftians firft came among them,
fhe replied, with a fhake of the head, that fhe had very ftrong
reafons
reafons to remember it, for that before fhe had ever heard of the
Chriftians, fhe knew not the want of a bellyful, whereas it was
now a difficult matter to get a mouthful. The condition of the
whole horde certainly appeared to be very deplorable ; but I
feel a happinefs in adding, that, by means of this captain and
two or three well-difpofed farmers, feveral hordes of the outcaft.
Bosjefmans have fince been brought in, and obtained by public .
fubfcription a confiderable quantity of iheep and horned cattle,
o f which, it is to be hoped, they will fpeedily fee their advantage,
in encreafing the numbers; and one o f that worthy and very
ufeful fraternity of men, the Hemhiiters, has voluntarily offered
his fervices to go among the Bosjefman hordes, and endeavour
to promote among them that fenfe of comfort, which has fo-
effectually crowned their exertions in another part of the colony
among the poor Hottentots, as has been noticed in the preceding
chapter. Other members of focieties, eftabliihed principally
with a view of propagating among favages the mild.
doCtrines of Chriftianity, have alfo lately arrived in this colony,
whofe millions are particularly directed to the two nations o f
the Bosjefmans and the Kaffers ; and though they perhaps may
not make them readily comprehend the full intent and objeCt o f
their million, they will at leafl, by their mild and humane
conduCt, infpire them with a degree of confidence in men of a
different complexion to themfelves, and ihew them that the
colony is now in the hands of a government that will no longer
fanCtion the cruelties under which they have fo long and lately
groaned.
On