one o f his moft favorite fenfualities, by flogging them till he
has fmoked as many pipes of tobacco as he may judge the magnitude
o f the crime to deferve. The government o f Malacca,
according to the manufcript journal of an intelligent officer in
the expedition againft that fettlement, has adopted the fame
cuilom o f fogging by pipes ; and the fifcal or chief magiftrate,
or fome of his deputies, are the fmokers on fuch occafions.
By a Tefolution o f the old government, as unjuft as it was
inhuman, a peafant was allowed to claim as his property, till
the age o f five-and-twenty, all the children of the Hottentots in
his fervice to whom he had given in their infancy a morfel of
meat. At the expiration o f this period the odds are ten to one
that the Have is not emancipated. A Hottentot knows nothing
o f his age ; “ he takes no note of time.” And though the fpi-
rit that dilated this humane law expanded its beneficence in
favor of the Hottentot by directing the farmer to regifter the
birth of fuch children as he may intend to make his Haves, yet
it feldom happens, removed as many o f them are to the diftance
of ten or twelve days’ journey from the Drofdy, that the Hottentot
has an opportunity of inquiring when his fervitude will
expire ; and indeed it is a chance if he thinks upon or eyen
knows the exiftence of fuch a reiburee. Should he be fortunate
enough to efcape at the end o f the period, the beft part o f his
life has been fpent in a profitlefs fervitude, and he is turned
adrift in the decline o f life (for a Hottentot begins to grow old
at thirty) without any earthly thing he can call his own, except
the iheep’s {kin upon his back.
The
The condition of thofe who engage themfelves from year to
year is little better than that of the other. If they have already
families, they ereCt for them little ftraw-huts near the farm-
houfe. Their children are encouraged to run about the houfe
of the peafant, where they receive their morfel of food. This
is deemed fufficient to eftablifh their claim to the young Hottentots
; and ihould the parents, at the end of the term for
which they engaged, exprefs a defire to quit the fervice, the
farmer will fuffer them to go, perhaps turn them away, and
detain their children.
Thofe who are unmarried and free are fome what better in
their fituation than the others, though not much. The pitiful
wages they agree for are flopped upon every frivolous occafion.
I f an ox or a iheep be miffing, the Hottentot muft replace
them ; nor would he be fuffered to quit his fervice till he has
earned the value of them. An ox, or a couple of cows, or a
dozen iheep, worth forty or fifty {hillings, are the ufual wages
o f a whole year ; and it frequently happens that a bill for
tohacco or brandy is brought againft them to the full amount.
In fuch a fituation, and under fuch circumftances, it may
eafily he fuppofed that the Hottentot has little inducement to
engage in marriage. Thofe who do fo have feldom more than
two or three children ; and many o f the women are barren.
This, however, is not the cafe when a Hottentot woman is
connected with a white man. The fruit of fuch an alliance is
not only in general numerous, but are beings of a very different
nature from the Hottentot, men of fix feet high and flout in
u 2 propor