and commerce.of Tyrus ihould have.been limited to that part
o f the Indian ocean to the fouthward o f the Red Sea, which is
a more difficult navigation than to the northward. That this
commerce was extenfive we have the authority o f the prophet
Ezekiel, who, in glowing terms, has painted its final deftrudion,
and who, it may be remarked, is fuppofed to have lived at the
very time the Phoenicians failed round Africa by order o f Necho,
# T h y riches and thy fairs, thy merchandife, thy mariners and
“ thy pilots, thy caulkers, and the occupiers o f thy merchan-
I dize and all thy men o f war that are in thee, and in all thy
d company which is in the midft o f thee, ihall fall into the
“ midft o f the feas in the day o f thy ruim” It is probable therefore
that the navigation o f the Eaftern Seas was known in the
earlieft periods o f hiftory, and there feems to be no reafon for
fuppofing that the Chinefe ihould not have had their ffiare in it.
Without, however, making any enquiry into the probability
that an ancient interc'ourfe might have fubfifted between
China and the Eaft coaft o f Africa, either by convention for
commercial purpofes, or that Chinefe failors might have been
thrown on that coaft either in Phoenician, or Arabian, or their own
veffelsj I happened to obferve in a former publication of “ Travels
“ Southern A frica^ as a matter o f fafi, | that the upper lid o f
“ the eye o f a real Hottentot, as in that o f a Chinefe, was
“ rounded into the lower on the fide next the nofe, and that it
“ formed not an angle as in the eye o f an European— that
“ from this circumftance they were known in the colony o f
“ the Cape by the name o f Chinefe Hottentots. Further ob-
fervations have confirmed me in the very ftriking degree o f re-
femblance between them. Their phyfical charade« agree in
almoft
almoft every point. The form o f their perfons in the remarkable
fmallneis o f the joints and the extremities, their voices and
manner o f fpeaking, their temper, their colour and features, and
particularly that fingular ihaped eye rounded in the corner next
the nofe like the end o f an ellipfis, probably o f Tartar or Scythian
origin, are nearly alike. T h e y alfo agree in the broad root
o f the nofe; or great diftance between the e y e s : and in the
oblique pofition o f thefe, which, inftead o f being horizontal,
as is generally the cafe in European fubjeds, are depreffed
towards the nofe. A Hottentot who attended me in travelling
over Southern Africa was fo very like a Chinefe fervant I had
in Canton, both in perfon, features, manners, and tone o f voice,
that almoft always inadvertently I called him by the name o f
the latter. Their hair, it is true, and that only differs. This,
in a Hottentot, is rather, harih and wiry, than woolly, neither
long, nor ffiort, but twifted in hard curling ringlets refembling
fringe. I poffefs not a fufficient degree o f ikill in phyfiology
to fay what kind o f hair the offspring would have o f a Chinefe
man and Mofambique woman; much lefs can I pretend
to account for the origin o f the Hottentot tribes, infulated on
the narrow extremity o f a large continent, mrd differing fo
remarkably from all their neighbours, or where to look for
their primitive ftock unlefs among the Chinefe.
I am aware it will appear rather fingular to thofe, who may
have attended to the accounts that generally have been given
o f thefe two people, to meet with a comparifon between the
moft poliihed and the moft barbarous, the wifeft and the moil
ignorant of mankind ; and I am therefore the lefs furprized at
H an