her huiband’s, her only protedtion and comfort, they endeavour all they can, and that chiefly at night, to deprive ¡her likewife of her infants; for it has been obferved, that the mothers can feldom perfuade ¡themfelv.es to flee -from their tender offspring. The amiable tendemefs of the mother, which, perhaps, glows with a more lively flame in the -breaft of this poor heathen, than in thofe of her .Chriftian tyrants, is the very circumftance laid hold on by their perfecutors, in order to rivet the chains of this wretched female ib much thefafter. There are feme mothers, however, that fet themfdv.es free, when they have loft all hopes of faying their children. After having made their .efcape, they fometimes keep feeretly about the neighbourhood, in hopes of finding feme opportunity of recovering their infants again: for o h ! what grief to a mother, bred and born to tafte the fweets of liberty, and now lately opprefled by the heavy chains of bondage, to refledt, that her offspring’s life is only pre- ferved, in order that it may be rendered miferable by an intolerable flavery. ¡But, unhappy mothers ! whilft involved in thefe painful refledtions, they wander up and down, lefs ia fear of the wild beafts than of the eolonifts, they, perhaps, 'in the end, fall a prey to feme of thefe' fierce animals, or not unfrequently perifh with hunger: for as foon as they have eloped, men are fet to lie in ambuih for them at fuch places by the rivers fides, as it is fuppofed they muft take in their way, and by this means they are often retaken. And, though they ihould reach their own homes in fafety, they may even then very poflibly happen to be whipped up by fome peafant and carried into flavery. 3 With- Without doubt, the Bolhies-men have been a long while in a favage ftate, and many of them are now brought into a ftill more miferable fituation, fince the Chrif- tians have invaded their country, and purfue them with chains and fetters into their deferts. In fo favage a ftate, they probably neither have, nor ever had, many manners or cuftoms different from thofe few I have already mentioned, or may defcribe in the courfe of this work. _ With refpedt to religion and language, the Bojhies-men agree in a great meafure with the more civilized part o f their nation, or the Hottentots properly ib called. Thefe are not fenfible of the exiftence o f any being, who is the origin and ruler o f ail things; for, on being queftioned, they fay they know nothing o f the matter. Some Hottentots, who fpoke the Dutch language readily, and with whom, both in company and feparately, I con- verfed on this fubjedt, always anfwered me to this effect - We are poor Jiupid creatures., and have never heard, neither are we able to und'erjland, any thing o f the matter. And, m fadt, they foon let me perceive, that they are weary with puzzling their brains with topics of this kind. Several Dutch families, that had fpoken the Hottentot language from their infancy, as well a9 their own, have given me to underftand, that they had found the fame degree o f ignorance in the Boihies-men; yet that, as both Bofhies- tnen and Hottentots have the firm # belief in the powers of magic, they feem confequently by this to acknowledge feme evil being of great might and power: hut that they by no means on this account worfhip him, or indeed any other, although they feem to attribute to him all the evil; that *775- Auguih
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