continuance in that line. His more powerful neighbours'
might feel disposed to quarrel with him for having suffered sosmall
a party, of white men, which he might have prevented,
to pass through his territory into theirs- Whatever the motive
might have been, the Chief was so earnest © in his remonstrances
that the commissioners considered it prudent to desist from
their original design ; and although they had obtained little more
than 100 head of cattle, at the rate of two and three pounds in
weight of coloured porcelaine and glass heads for each, they resolved
to prepare for their return. I t was not without extreme
regret that they afterwards discovered, when they had returned
as far as to the Orange river, that the Barroloos were in fact a
numerous, wealthy, and friendly people. A bastaard Hottentot,
who had travelled into that country, assured Mr. Truter
that there was not in all Africa so perfectly good-humoured
and so well-disposed a people as the Barroloos ; that they had
many towns, the largest of which was so extensive that it
required a whole day to walk from one extremity to the
other ; that their houses were of the same kind as, but much
better built than, those of the Booshuanas ; their gardens and
grain lands better cultivated ; that the whole surface of the ©c
ountry was covered with trees and shrubs ; water and rivers
abundant, and the soil every where productive ; that the
Barroloos were a very ingenious nation, and skilful in carving
wood and ivory ; that he had seen their furnaces for melting
iron from a brown earth and stone, and copper from a grey
earth ; that the distance from Leetakoo did not exceed ten
days’ journey of the common rate of travelling. This information
was, however, obtained too,, late ; and the country of
the Barroloos is still untrodden ground for the European
traveller, who may in future be inclined to prosecute further
discoveries in Southern Africa.
To know that such societies exist in this miserable quarter
of the globe, as those above described, must be peculiarly
interesting to those who have long been exerting their eloquence
and thek influence to meliorate the condition of the
suffering African. They furnish a complete refutation of an
opinion that has; industriously been inculcated, and which
unfortunately is but too prevalent,^ that slavery is his unalterable
lo t; and that it would still-exist; as it always had existed,
were Europeans to discontinue their abominable traffic in these
unhappy creatures. Such an opinion, in justification of a
crime against humanity, is just on a level with that of a.
Dutch boor who told Governor Jansen, on remonstrating
with him on his cruelty towards the Hottentots, that there
could be no harm in maltreating those heathens, as the
women evidently carried about with them the mark, which
God set upon Cain. Not one of the tribes of natives bet
w e e n the Cape-of Good Hope and the extreme point that
has hitherto been discovered in the interior of Southern-.
Africa—not a. single creature, from the needy and savage
Bosjesman to the more- civilized Booshuanas has the most
distant idea of a state of slavery. On the contrary, they have •
all been found in the full enjoyment of unbounded freedom..
There is no compulsion used among these people to oblige an
individual to remain even in the horde to which he belongs;,
contrary to his inclination; being always at liberty to depart?
witkhis property, and join another society that may suit him»