proportion, and women well made, not ill-featured, frnart, and
aftive. Thefe people, called baflaards, generally marry with each
other, or with perfons of color, but feldorn with Hottentots, fo
that it is probable this mixed breed in a fhort time will fup-
plant that from which they are defcended in the female line.
The Hottentot girls in the feryice of the colonifts are in fltua-
tions too dependant to dare to rejeft the proffered embraces of
the young peafantry.
It has frequently been obferved that a favage who dances •
and fings muft be happy. With him thefe operations are the
effedts of pleafurable fenfations floating in his mind : in a civilized
ftate, they are arts acquired by ftudy, and pradtifed at
appointed times, without having any reference to the paflions.
I f dancing and finging were the tefts by which the happinefs
a Hottentot was to be tried, he would be found among the
moft miferable o f all human beings ; I mean thofe Hottentots
living with the farmers of Graaff Reynet in a ftate of bondage.
It is rare to obferve. the mufcles of his face relaxed into a fmile.
A depreffed melancholy and deep gloom conftantly overfpreads
his countenance. A Ghonaqua man and a young Hottentot
girl from Sneuwberg, both o f them in the fervice of one of
the farmers who croffed the defert with us,- were the only two
I had hitherto met with who feemed to have any tafte for
mufic. They had different inftruments; one was a kind of
guittar with three firings ftretched over a piece of hollow wood
with a long handle; it was called in their language gabowie.
The other inftrument was extremely Ample : It confided of a
piece of Anew or inteftine twifted into a fmall cord, and fattened
to a hollow flick about three feet in length, at one end to a
fmall peg, which, by turning, brings the firing to the proper
degree of tenfton, and at the other to a piece of quill Axed into
the flick. The tones of this inftrument are produced by applying
the mouth to the quill,and are varied according as the
vibratory motion is given to the quill and firing by infpiration
or expiration. It founds like the faint murmurs of diftant
mufic that comes o’er the ear” without any diftindt note
being made out by that organ. This inftrument was called the
gowra.
Of the very few Hottentots in the diftridt of Graaff Reynet,
who, befides our interpreter, had preferved a fort of independ-
ance, and fupported themfelves, partly by the chace, and partly
from the labors of their children who were in fervitude, was a
fmall party of four or ftve old men who paid us a viflt near the
woods of Bruyntjes Hoogte. Thefe men carried the ancient weapons
of their nation, bows, and quivers charged with poifoned
arrows. The bow was a plain piece of wood from the guerrie
bofch, apparently a fpecies of rhus ; and fometimes the Haffagai
wood is ufed for the fame purpofe. The firing, three feet long,
was compofed of the flbres of the dorlal mufcles o f the fpring-
bok twifted into a cord. The item of an aloe furnifhed the
quiver. The arrow conflfted of a reed, in one extremity of
which was inferted a piece of highly-polifhed folid bone from
the leg of an oflrich, round, and about ftve inches in length ;
the intent of it feemed to be that of giving weight, ftrength,
and eafy entrance to this part of the arrow. To the end o f the
bone was affixed a fmall fharp piece of iron of the form o f an
equilateral