The early Cape Hottentots

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Wilhelmi Ten Rhyne

Schediasma diarii, in quo de Saldanhaco sinu, Daxinsula, & praecipue de Promontorio Bonae Spei, huiusque tractus Incolis Hottentottis appellatis, agitur.
Relatio adventus.

Sexto Iduum Octobris, anni MDCLXXIII. Sereno coelo, nebuloso tamen, uti ad telluris limbum assolet, horizonte, flante circio (hoc est Z.Z.W.) cursuque in tractum ex meridionali ac orientali medium instituto, maris profunditatem metientes, centum & viginti orgyiis fundum attingere impotes, hortante laetitia primo terram (monstrante nostro ὑπϵμπόρῳ) ad triginta duos latitudinis gradus conspeximus. Verum adverso repulsi flatu, post varia consilia & anhelam de refocillatione exspectationem XIII^o demum ejusdem mensis in semilunarem exordio Sinum Saldanha, aere tranquillo, levicule subludente vulturno (Z.O.) in arenosum fundum jecimus ancoram: ubi peregrini litoris sinum ex mapparum lineamentis cum αὐτοψίας fide pensitabamus, pictoris incuriam, vel relatoris inscitiam protinus culpantes. Id enim ferme unicum cum mappis analogum habebat genuina situatio, quod utrinque eminenti exstaret colle ostium. Caeterum Insulae & numero (tot enim non aderant) & situ (quatuor super nauticam pyxidem discrepante lineis) in chartis differebant, multiformibus ac coloribus frequentissimae^a) Laris. Istic defessum itineris gravaminibus animum nova telluris amoenitate recreare impense satagens, primum Africae vestigium impressi, navarcho pariter ac mercatore nostris, cum remigibus quibusdam comitatus. Hic in orbem

a) alibi a me describtis, described by me elsewhere. (See chap. iii.) (Coloribus is for multicoloribus.)

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The Journal of Wilhelm Ten Rhyne in which is given an account of Saldanha Bay and Dassen Island and principally of The Cape of Good Hope and the Natives of that Place called Hottentots.
The Arrival.

On the 10th of October 1673, under a clear sky but with clouds at the horizon as is usual near shore, with a south-south-west wind blowing and holding a course between South and East, we took soundings and failed to find bottom at 120 fathoms, but soon had the great joy of first sighting land at a latitude of 32 degrees, the factor pointing it out to us. Driven back, however, by a contrary gale, after various shifts and much anxiety how to reprovision ourselves, on the 13th of the same month we made Saldanha Bay with its crescent-shaped entry, in a calm air with a gentle South-East wind breathing, and cast anchor in a sandy bottom.

When we examined the bay in this shore to which we had so newly come and compared the outline in our maps with the reality as presented to our eyes, we had immediate cause to blame the carelessness of the draughtsman or his informant. There was but one feature which the map had in common with the reality, to wit, a hill on either side of the harbour's mouth. For the rest, the islands differed both in number and position: they were fewer than represented in the map, and differed in position four points in the compass. They were thronged with sea-birds of varied form and hue.

Here, because I yearned to refresh my spirits, wearied by the hardships of the voyage, with the charm of a strange land, I for the first time set foot in Africa. With me came the captain, the factor, and some few oarsmen that managed our boat. The hills spread out in a great circle, the mountains drew our eyes in all directions over the

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effusis collibus, & per immensum spargentibus oculos, coelum montibus suspensa terra diversissima plantarum gratia praedivites Semiramidis Alcinoive hortos, aut Elysios in ipso deserto campos aemulari videbatur: ubi cumulatissimam earundem ilico conquisivi sarcinam, ut viva exemplaria botanosophis Musis imposterum offerrem. Miratus praesertim ingentem gummosae aloes copiam, quae millena aliquot amarissimi succi pondera industrio quotannis expromere posset. Tum ad valetudinariam & jam pene agonizantem navim revocabat vespera venatores, petrosum maris tegentes^*) in reditu litus, multivario ostracodermatôn genere conspersum. Inde fortuitis nos subducentes periculis (quippe Belgae octo hippopotamorum venationi insudantes, miserrime nuper ibidem ab Hottentottis confecti erant) sublestam repetiimus acatio ratem; qua postridie, propitio extra sinum argeste (N.W.) solvimus; a meridie praeternavigantes^b) Daxinsulam, paucis servatam excubiis^c) marinorum cuniculorum capturae, oviumque pastioni ab Illustriss. orientalium Indiarum societate, decore ac praesidio nostro summo, designatis.

Pridie Iduum Octobris, sub noctem tranquillus ad litora nos impellebat mesolibonatus (Z.T.W.) ad viginti tres profunditatis orgyias ancoram fundantes.

*) I conjecture legentes.

b) Dassen Eylant.

c) Robben.

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vast expanse of heaven, and earth with the varied charm of many plants seemed to rival the rich gardens of Semiramis or Alcinous, or to present a vision of the Elysian fields in the midst of a wilderness. Of these plants I forthwith collected a generous supply that I might afterwards make offering of the actual specimens to the Botanical Muses.^* I specially admired the enormous abundance of gum aloes, capable of an annual yield of thousands of pounds of bitter juice if cultivated. Then the approach of evening recalled us from our hunting to our ship where there were many sick men already almost at the last gasp. On our return we skirted a stony beach covered with a rich variety of shell fish. Then escaping without hurt from the dangers that might befall us (I must explain that eight Dutchmen recently who were hunting the hippopotamus perished wretchedly at the hands of the Hottentots on this very spot)¹⁾ we regained our crazy bark in the dinghy. Next day we weighed anchor, picking up a fair N.W. breeze outside the bay, and in the afternoon we sailed past Dassen Island, which is occupied only by a few posts established by the Illustrious East India Company, our great glory and protection, for catching seals and pasturing the sheep.

On the 14th of October at the fall of night a gentle S.W. breeze carried us to the shore and we cast anchor in 23 fathoms of water.

* This collection was sent from India to the botanist Breyn, and forms an appendix to Plantarum exoticarum Centuria prima, published by him in Dantzig in 1678 (B.F.)

1) This refers to a party of eight freemen who had gone with the governor's permission, in June 1673, to shoot big game for the needs of their families. They crossed the Berg River at a ford near Riebeeck's Kasteel and went up into the mountains beyond Twenty-Four Rivers. There, at a place which long afterwards bore the name Moord Kuil, they were surrounded by Gonnema's Kochoqua, who after detaining them for several days murdered them all. (Theal, Hist. of S. Africa before 1795, ii, 212; cf. D., June 29, July 11, July 14, 1673.) Soon afterwards four men in charge of the Dutch post at Saldanha Bay were also murdered by Hottentots of the same tribe. A punitive expedition under Ensign Hieronymus Cruse was despatched from the Fort at Table Bay, but the Hottentots could not be got at, except for one slight skirmish, although 800 head of cattle and 900 sheep were looted from them and brought back to the Fort. The war which started in this way dragged on for four years, the Dutch, assisted by the Capemen and other local Hottentots, sending out several expeditions against Gonnema, who with his men always managed to escape in time, although not without the loss of his cattle and sheep. Peace was finally restored in June, 1677, when the Hottentots submitted and promised to pay tribute to the Dutch. (Theal, op. cit., chaps. 30, 31, passim; D. 1673-1677, passim.)

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Ipsis Octobris Idibus, Suave spirante coro (N.W.)^d) alteram, in aspectu longe sperati bonae spei promontorii, praetervecti fuimus insulam, V. ab arce, a Daxinsula VIII. ac XV. circiter a Saldanhaco sinu, juxta mappas, milliaribus distantem, atque excelso montis praecipitio (inibi enim tantulus sese exerit colliculus) non exaltatam, exulum concremandae pro novo fortalitio calci conchylia comportantium carcerem. Hic fertiles degunt chamaeleontes, Indicis minores, ac omnis generis insecta, reptiliaque animalcula; ita pugno magnitudine sua aequiparandae aluntur ibidem praeter varios serpentes^e) araneae venenatae &c.

Pomeridiana quarta^f) Mensalis sinus nos excepit multiplici funere deformes, ac altera die post gubernatoris, viri sine pari, mensa; quam dum ad tubae sonitum petimus,^g) fuci marini permagna species (vix enim tota unicam plantam vexisse posset nostra minor cymba) nostram liburnam ad arenosam Africae actam impediebat. Caeterum Caput bonae spei, appropinquantibus repentini eventus index, sicuti & subalbidae, pusillaeque sunt, gaviae. Placebat rerum novitate tractus, eo attentiorem pervestigationis industriam suscitans, quod^h) horumⁱ⁾ incolarum res auctoribus etiamnum incognitae sint. Ferunt enim (& nihil amplius) quendam Imperatorem a Montibus lunae ad caput B.S. seu extrema Africae in quatuor regna distributum Monomotapae dictum, imperium protendisse.

d) Robben Eylant.

e) quas describit Charles de Rochefort in syn historie van de vooreylanden van America (described by Charles de Rochefort in his account of the islands off the coast of America).

f) de Tafel-Bay.

g) Drombassen vulgo.

h) Videatur Hornii orbis politicus. (See Horn's Political World.)

i) Imo maximae partis Africae, de cujus extensione &c. haesitanter admodum veteres. Resp. Aristot. lib. de mundo, c. 9. & Apul. lib. de mundo. Adeo exigua & manca sunt, quae de Africa, quam illi Lybiam dixerunt, scivere iidem. (One might say ‘of the greater part of Africa,’ concerning the extent of which the ancients speak with so much hesitation, Aristotle, de Mundo, chap. 9, and Apuleius, de Mundo, so slight and defective is their knowledge of Africa, which they call Libya.)

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On the 15th, with a gentle N.W. wind blowing, when we were rejoicing in the distant prospect of the long-desired Cape of Good Hope, we sailed past another island, Robben Island, distant according to the maps five miles from our fort, eight miles from Dassen Island, and about fifteen from Saldanha Bay. It is not made conspicuous by any lofty mountain peak; as a matter of fact only a low hill rises there. It is used as a prison for convicts employed in gathering shells to be burned for the lime for the new fort.^* Here are many chameleons, smaller than the Indian variety, insects of every sort, small reptiles, various snakes, poisonous spiders as big as a man's fist, etc.

At four in the afternoon Table Bay received us, having lost abundance of men in this voyage, and on the next day the table of the Governor, an incomparable man.²⁾ We were summoned to his board by the sound of the bugle; and while rowing ashore our long-boat was hindered in reaching the sandy beach of Africa by a species of very large seaweed, commonly called drombassen. The whole of our smaller ship's boat would scarcely have sufficed to carry one plant. This seaweed is a sign to those approaching the Cape of Good Hope of their speedy arrival, as is also the presence of a species of sea-bird, an albatross of a whitish colour and small size. The place delighted us by its strangeness, the interest of the observer being excited to a livelier attention by the fact that the circumstances of the inhabitants of this part are still unknown to writers. For they say (and this is all they tell us) that a certain emperor spread his sway from the Mountains of the Moon to the Cape of Good Hope or the extremities of Africa; that his realm was divided into four kingdoms, and called Monomotapae.³⁾

* The present castle, founded 1666, occupied 1674 (the year after Ten Rhyne's visit), and finished 1676. (B.F.)

2) The Governor at this time was Isbrand Goske (1672-76), the first to bear the title Governor in place of Commander. He had been sent out specially to prepare the Cape for defence in the event of its being attacked by the English or French, with whom the Netherlands were then at war, and the building of the castle was completed during his tenure of office.

3) Ten Rhyne hardly does justice to Hondius, Dapper and other earlier Dutch writers whose accounts of the Hottentots should have been familiar to him. Legends of Monomotapa and the vast wealth of this Empire were still current in his time, but of the Cape itself a good deal of accurate information was already available in published works.

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Heic non ab ovo historiam exordiar, intra diarii limites commoraturus: nam num hae gentes a Chamo, Noachi filio (praeter Arabes nonnullos stirpis Sem, Africam postmodum ingressos) originem duxerint? An vero Barbarae in Africa gentes multa sobole increverint, quod in occulto solo frugales vixerint, & hinccine terrae infelicitas numerosa^* populo alimenta negarit, ut saepe novas sedes quaesituram juventutem dimiserint, atque inde forsan incogniti hi in extremis Africae oris profluxerint? tanti non interest scire; modo eorum mores cognoscamus & commercia. Sed in antecessum tantisper perspiciamus loci indolem & situm.

* I conjecture numeroso (B.F.).

Cap. I. De situ Promontorii bonae spei.

Promontorium bonae spei appellatum, qua longitudinem (quae hic novem & triginta gradibus, ac viginti quintae scrupulis absolvitur) a freto Gaditano, qua latitudinem (quam triginta quatuor gradibus trigintaque minutis metiuntur) a^k) Promontorio Hesperio & Guardasu ultima Africae portio est. Anno 1498, a Vasco di Gama tutela Johannis, Portugalliae Regis, detecta, Olympipetis excelsa montibus, infoecunditate hominibus valde infestis. Infelices etenim hae gentes proventibus, & malignis illustratae sideribus; terrae sterilitas arenis, merisque eremis informis ac vasta, crudo horret aere, nulla vegitabilium bonitate gaudens, & magis amica sentibus tribulisque, atque asperis paliuris, nisi longa culturae sedulitate, pastui facilis reddatur, perpauci tum ferax frumenti. Caetera vastissimos & petrosos montes habet, raras planities. Hinc memorabilis quidam locus est trium circiter milliarium circulo extensus in aequor; cui ob cruentam illic olim habitam pugnam hoc

k) Lusitanis & nostratibus nautis Cabo verde. (Called Cape Verde by the Portuguese and Dutch sailors.)

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Here I shall not attempt to relate a regular history, my intention being to confine myself within the limits of a journal. Did these people spring originally from Ham, the son of Noah, with the exception of some Arabs of the stock of Shem who entered Africa later on? Or did the native races in Africa increase and multiply, and living frugally in a place unknown to fame, and denied sustenance for their numerous population by an unproductive soil, frequently send out their youth in quest of new lands to settle, until, it may be, these emigrants, spreading far and wide unobserved, finally settled in the remotest shores of Africa? These questions are not so important for us to answer; let us content ourselves with learning their ways of life and their dealings with others. But as a preliminary to this we must inquire for a little while into the nature and situation of the land they occupy.

Chap. I. The Situation of the Cape of Good Hope.

The Promontory known as the Cape of Good Hope is situated at the southernmost point of Africa. Its longitude, in respect of the Straits of Gibraltar, is 39 degrees, 25 minutes; and its latitude, in respect of the Hesperian Promontory and Guardasu (?) is 34 degrees and 30 minutes. It was discovered in the year 1498 by Vasco di Gama, sailing under the protection of John, King of Portugal.^3a) Its mountains tower up to heaven, but are barren and very unfriendly to man. The tribes here are little blessed with crops, lying under the influence of niggard stars. The barren land stretches out vast and formless in pure sandy deserts, with bronze ore thrusting through the surface, unrelieved by the blessings of vegetation, but friendly rather to thorns and thistles and rough briars, unless by assiduous and prolonged cultivation it be made to yield pasturage, which even then is but scant. Apart from the sandy wastes it consists of huge stony mountains with here and there a plain. Worthy of note, then, is a certain wide level expanse with a circumference of about three miles, where a bloody battle once took place, and which is called in consequence

3a) The Cape of Good Hope was first ‘discovered’ by Bartholomeu Dias in 1487, and doubled again by Vasco da Gama in 1497, on his famous voyage to India, the first by the Cape sea-route.

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nomen.^l) De Bachaley plaets. Alter ab illo nostratibus dicitur De Buffels-jacht, in accesso^*) eminens monte, ultra quem planane an montosa sit regio? etiamnum ignoratur. Verum quis omnium alta montium, flexa collium, ac porrecta camporum emetiatur? Fortalitio propinquorum excelsissimus a^m) mensa vocatus mons est, nomine a plano cacumine deducto, qui ex altitudine sua hunc petentibus portum Pharus est. Ejus vestigium quinque leucis^** a fundamine distare perhibetur: ad illud saltem arduo valde ascensu sudans perveni, praeter variarum plantarum myriadas, paludosum palmitidum (quarum elegantissimae reticulatae radices sunt) lucum ad montis, per medium bifidi, pedem pertransiens, densaeque ac horrendorum vociferanti arctopithecorum cohorti, multisque in vespertino reditu occursans meteoris: quaquavorsum enim in aere tripudiabant scintillae, quarum primus intuitus socios, has flammantia audacissimi hic leonis lumina ominantes, terrebat; donec me manu illas prensare volentem fugerent, postea edoctum meteora illa limoso sui succo (micante in obscuro), aⁿ⁾ bolidibus non differe. Alter olim loco nomen impertiens a nativa effigie, non vero a^o) saevientium ventorum rugitu^p) Leonis mons appellatur: ad cujus, supra dictum, caput duo semper in statione sunt excubitores, navium adventum praemonentes.

Praeruptos atque nivales, queis tota haec regio obvallatur, montes flumina, ut umbra corpus, sequuntur. Praecipia sunt 1.^q) Butyrosum 2.^r) Obscaenum 3.^s) Montanum, quod reliquis manifestius e montibus scaturiat. 4.^t) Ἀτελεύτετον

l) Corruptus Malaycismus est, idem quod dimicationis locus. (A corrupt Malay phrase, meaning ‘place of battle.’)

*) I conjecture inaccesso. (B.F.)

m) De Tafel-Berg.

** A leuca is a French measure = 1,500 paces (du Cange). Vestigium seems to be put by mistake for fastigium (B.F.).

n) Sternschot; sic cujusdam ex notis meis calceis sese adfricuerat dictum bolidis referens indolem. (This sentence seems to me corrupt. B.F.)

o) Ut vult Mercator in Ptolom. de Africa, quam ab hac parte ita procellosam statuit, ut navigantes hoc, non nisi necessitate coacti, appellant Promontorium; accomodus nostris refocillationis locus, congruumque diverticulum, ingentibus nihilominus expositum flatibus. (As Mercator says in his Ptolemy on Africa, alleging Africa to be so stormy in this part that sailors never put in at the Cape unless forced; but our men find the place most convenient for revictualling and a suitable port of call, although exposed to mighty winds.)

p) De Leeuwenberg.

q) De Boter-Rivier.

r) Kafferkuls rivier.

s) Berg rivier.

t) Rivier sonder eynde.

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Bakkeley Plaats.⁴⁾ There is also another plain, called by our countrymen De Buffelsjacht,⁵⁾ perched on a mountain difficult of access, beyond which it is not yet known whether the country is flat or mountainous. But who could measure all those mountain heights, winding hills, and spreading plains?

Of the mountains near the Fort the loftiest is called Table Mountain, from its flat top, and from its height it is a beacon for those seeking this harbour. From base to summit it is said to measure five leucae.^* And certain it is that it was after a very stiff climb and the loss of much sweat that I succeeded in scaling it. There were myriads of different plants; and at the foot of the mountain, which is cleft through the middle, I passed through a marshy grove of palmitides, with sharply reticulated roots. Once we met a terrifying troop of yelling baboons; and during our descent in the evening saw many ‘meteors.’ Sparks were dancing in every direction in the air, and the first sight of them terrified my companions, who supposed that these must be the blazing eyes of lions, noted here for their daring. But when I tried to catch them in my hand the sparks fled; and I learned subsequently that these ‘meteors’ resemble in their marshy juice, which glows in the darkness, the meteor bolis. Another mountain which formerly gave its name to the place is called Lion Mountain, not from the roaring of the savage winds, but from its natural shape. On its summit are always posted two look-outs to give warning of the approach of ships.

The sheer snowy mountains with which all this region is hemmed in are naturally associated with rivers as a body is with its shadow. The most important are: 1. Bot river, 2. Palmiet river (?), 3. Berg river, which springs more obviously than the others from the mountains, 4. River Sonder End, rising among the mountains but of extent unknown as yet, 5. Breede river, a shallow stream, very

4) Bakkeley Plaats is near the village of Vredendal, west of Van Rhynsdorp. The name is derived from the Malay barkelehi, to fight, and refers to a skirmish which took place here in May, 1668, between the Dutch stationed at Saldanha Bay and some Namaqua who had stolen some cattle and sheep from them and from other Hottentots. (D., May 17, 1668; Godée-Molsbergen, Reizen in Zuid-Afrika, i, 134).

5) Probably the Buffelsjagt R. in the district of Swellendam, to which cattle-trading expeditions were often sent from Hottentots Holland. The country beyond was not fully known until after Schryver's journey of 1689.

* See note on opposite page. The height of Table Mountain is 3,582 feet, so that Ten Rhyne's estimate is somewhat generous.

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seu sine fine flumen, ex montibus ortum, hactenus, quousque se extendat, ignotum. 5.^u) Latum, ex adsitarum arborum ordine amoenissimum, minime profundum, 6.^v) Paludosum. Hi, quibus abunde irrigatur ille tractus, fluvii dulci & percocto latice suo plerique saltem saluberrimi sunt.

XVI. Kalendarum Novembris spatiosissimum^w) Ampliss. Societatis Hortum novam adventantibus navigiis annonam copiosissime suppeditantem, nec non limoniorum, citriorum, arantiorumque malorum viridariis, densis Rorismarini septimentis, & suaveolentis laureti apricitatibus (proceram sua altitudine exaequantibus arborem) laetum, rivuloque e radice montis orto, ac jucundissima ubertate in eum exudante divisum, hoc est, ipsam inter medios paliuros sterilesque dumos viriditatem, visi. Inde oculos in contiguos diffundens montes, euronoti (venti Z.O.) originem evidenter eminus licet spectabam: cum enim propinquorum juga montium alta, sensimque declinante vestiuntur nube, adsunt procellosi praeludio vulturni (pro nubis raritate vel spissitudine, magnitudine vel parvitate, denique ascensu descensuve, vel magis minusue impetuosi) quem saepius ad oculum de mensali decidere monte vidi. Hunc magno plerumque turbine, & fere semper spirantem ac si Aeolus huic regno imperitaret, conspexi. Attamen licet astra certis itineribus semper teneant cursum, non eosdem aeri motus infundunt. Ita hic alius terris, nec sibi undique similis, alius eodem momento aquis, bivariam, imo trivariam in hoc sinu divisus, atque etiamnum extra eundem aliorsum ductus, dominatur ventus; idque diversus montium respectus efficit. Nam etiamsi admodum tranquillus alibi sit aer, Mons tamen Mensali maxime continuus, semper eructat flamen^x) diabolicus inde dictus.

Quodcirca si locorum situs ad experientiae lumen accuratius examinaretur, forsitan non ita incertis vagaretur finibus navigatio; ubi incertitudinis ignorantiam abditis imputant aestibus undarumque pressuris artifices. Ast unde secus^y) stati dependent venti, nisi ab altis & nivalibus

u) Bree-rivier.

v) Moeras-rivier.

w) De E. Compagn. Thuyn.

x) Duyvelsberg.

y) Passaet-winden.

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pleasant by reason of the trees along its banks, 6. Elands Kloof river.^* These rivers, with which the region is copiously irrigated, are, for the most part at least, very wholesome with their sweet sun-warmed waters.

On the 17th October I visited the extensive gardens of the noble Company, the abundant source of fresh supplies to visiting ships. It was a lovely sight with its plantations of lemons, citrons, and oranges, its close hedges of rosemary, and its laurels, equal in height to a tall tree, all fragrant in the sun. Through it runs a river that rises at the foot of the mountain, the waters of which are the cause of its smiling fertility. It is the very essence of greenness set in the midst of thorns and barren thickets. From there I ranged with my eyes over the neighbouring mountains, and could plainly see, though at a distance, the source of the S.E. wind. For when the summits of the mountains in the vicinity are covered with a deep bank of cloud gradually creeping down, then comes the stormy South-Easter, its greater or less violence being in accordance with the rarity or density of the cloud, its largeness or smallness, its rise or fall. This cloud I have often seen with the naked eye descending from Table Mountain. I have noticed that this wind generally comes in great gusts and that it is always blowing, as if this were the kingdom of Aeolus. For although the stars keep ever on their way with unvarying course, they do not impart the same motions to the air. So here, while one wind, and that not a steady one, prevails on land, another at the same moment is found on the sea, blowing in two or three directions in the bay, and in still a different direction outside it. The cause lies in the various physical features of the mountains. For even if the air be quite still elsewhere, yet the mountain which is continuous with Table Mountain is always vomiting forth a gale, and is hence called Devil's Peak.

In this connection I might remark that if the physical features of different places were examined more accurately in the light of experience, the art of navigation might not wander within such ill-defined limits. At present the exponents of the art attribute the ignorance arising from their uncertainty to mysterious currents and wave pressures. But on what else can trade winds depend, if not on lofty snow-capped mountains, especially if you remember that these winds blow at the time of the melting of the snows? Where the quarter of the wind is unchanging, or changes but once a year, the only possible operative

* There is room for doubt as to the identification of rivers no. 2 and 6 in this list, Ten Rhyne's information is so slight. See Journals of Bergh and Schrijver, ed. Mossop, V.R.S. 12, Appendix C. (B.F.)

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montibus tempore quo nives solvuntur praesertim spirantes. Verum ubi perpetua, vel semel quotannis inversa ventorum statio est, solus montium respectus, solisque cursus annuus id praestent opus est. Caeterum & a magnis paludibus, saltem ab amplissimis vaporum promtuariis, hae mutationes procedere possunt.

Idcirco regionum situs ac natura, aeque ac maris aestus a Navarchis cognosci deberet; veluti in Gallico litore, inter S. Malo urbem & insulam Wigth, quas inter periculosa Pila in Normandia (quae C. de la Hagne dicitur in Mappis) exstat, expertus sum. Sed difficultatum plenissima haec inquisitio, a propinquis non modo, sed etiam a longinquis locis, saepe a solis ascensu descensuve & recessu intensio & remissio, ab anni tempore inversio stati venti derivanda est. Ast magis in occulto latet perennium ventorum caussa, & certe ipsus haud interpretetur Oedipus, ex quali montium ad planities relatione dependeat euronoti (Z.O.) per plerasque orbis partes vulgatissimi, & hujus Promontorii B.S. possessoris, perpetuum spiramen.

Si haec similiaque experiundi opportunitas Renato philosophorum Coryphaeo fuisset, hic solam lunam non invocasset tutelarem suae sententiae Deam. Quippe generalibus obligari se negat natura legibus, ubi expertae inductionis artificio opus est. Ita fluxus & refluxus maris non ubique ad^a) des Cartes se flectit hypotheses: alius enim in mari Ligustico, Tyrrheno & Baltico; vehementissimus in Golfo de Jaqueta; hinc in nova Francia^* Le passage courent, & in Mexicano sinu Canalis Bahame. Plures de vi magnetica eidem imputari possent hallucinationes. Sed ne extra pomoeria! Caeterum circumjacentia exactius perspicerem loca, flumina, montes. Sic quinque extra fortalitium leucis^b) salipromus extat sinus, cibarii fertilissimus salis, qui fossilis, ideoque potius gemmae, quam maris, sal dicendus: inconcisam servat figuram; frustula plerumque

a) Princip. Philos. part 4 § 49 &c. Isaac Vossius de motu marium & ventorum; cujus παραδοξίη plerique nautarum se opponunt, qui primus illis Sacteronos est. (Isaac Voss on the motion of the seas and winds. Most sailors are opposed to his paradox.) (The word Sacteronos is unknown to me. B.F.)

* I have not identified Le passage courent. B.F.

b) De Sout baey (Salt Bay).

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causes are the physical features of the mountains and the annual course of the sun. Not but what we must also admit the possibility that these changes should arise from great marshes, which are very ample store-rooms of vapours.

For this reason the physical features of places should be studied by captains just as much as the tides and the currents. I have myself had experience of this on the coast of France between the town of S. Malo and the Isle of Wight, where there is a dangerous ridge on the coast of Normandy called on the maps Cape de la Hagne. But the enquiry is full of difficulties. The freshening or slackening of a trade wind depends not only on near but on distant places, and often on the rising or setting and recession of the sun; while its change of direction depends on the season of the year. But the cause of winds that blow throughout the year is still more obscure, and Oedipus himself could scarcely solve the riddle of the relationship of mountain to plain on which depends the perpetual blowing of the South-Easter, a common wind in many parts of the world, a permanent possessor of the Cape of Good Hope.

If Descartes, the prince of philosophers, had had the opportunity of experiencing these and other like phenomena, he would not have invoked the moon alone as the presiding deity of his thought. Indeed Nature refuses to be bound by general laws, where there is need of induction based on experience. Thus the ebb and flow of the sea does not everywhere obey the hypotheses of Descartes. It is different in the Ligurian, Tyrrhenian, and Baltic Seas, it is very violent in the Gulf of Jacqueta; in New France we have le passage courent; and in the Gulf of Mexico the Bahama Channel. To Descartes also many ravings about the force of the magnet can be attributed. But I must not stray beyond bounds. Let me rather describe with more care the adjacent localities, rivers, mountains.^*

Five leucae from the Fort there is a salt-producing bay, Salt Bay,^** very rich in edible salt. This salt is mined, and is therefore to be called rather a crystal salt than sea salt. It keeps its shape if not broken up. The pieces are generally large, but can easily be ground to a fine powder.

* What Ten Rhyne is protesting against in this paragraph is the à priori approach of Descartes to natural philosophy. It is peculiarly interesting then to note that Ten Rhyne had made a special study of the Hippocratic tract on Ancient Medicine. (B.F.)

** Salt Bay (i.e. Riet Vlei, beyond Milnerton. B.F.)

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magna, sed in tenuissimum facile terenda pulverem. In ipsa albicat matrice, quamvis & niger reperiatur; ast cum ingenti adurit aestu canicula, sponte prorumpit facie micante albida, nostratium commune sal acrimonia tantisper antecellens, congruumque ciborum condimentum. Num quod, si quis in Africa (ut Aristotelis^c) tempore jam compertum) prope mare infoderit, aquam principio dulcem, post brevi salsam inveniet?

c) Lib. Problem. Sect. 23 probl. 21. (Aristotle's Problem is stated thus: ‘Why is it that in Libya, if one digs a hole near the sea, the water that first comes is drinkable, but afterwards quickly becomes salty, but this happens less elsewhere?’ B.F.)

Cap. II. De Brutis.

Montosa haec salitudo feris brutis, quam hominibus aptior habitatio est: hic enim nocentissimi armentis leones, elephantes, rhinocerotes,^d) tigrides seu potius pantherae, lupi, alces,^e) hippopotami, agrestes equi, bubali, apri, oresitrophi, napes, arctopitheci, histrices, echini, putorii, lynces, cervi, daxi, meles, lutrae, lepores, & pulcerrimi coloris onagri, ac si nigro corio albas ordine inseruisset strias pellio: caprae, rupricaprae, ibices, cum maculosi tum cinerei: hirci rupisultores, feles silvatici, tigriformes atque cani; vulpiumque quaedam species, quam Belgae zachhalse dicunt; rariores^f) Tamandua-Guacu, a Brasiliensibus sola magnitudine diversae. Ingentem sane beluarum copiam illic hospitari necesse est; cum millena aliquot brevi temporis intercapedine captorum, praesertim hippopotamorum, alcium, ibicum, consimiliumque pondera, a paucis venatoribus Gubernatori producta sint. Unde patet, quam graviter lapsus sit^g) Aristoteles, ubi in Africa (ubi equi^h) non de-est belua dente ad mortes pretiosa suas) non aprum, non cervum, non capram silverstrem inveniri tradit.

d) Premit advena dentes tigris, ut bibat humanum populo lugente cruorem. Petron. Satyr. (The stranger tiger snaps his jaws, that he may drink human gore while the people mourn. Petronius, Satyrae.) (The reference is to §119, lines 16-18. The quotation is garbled. B.F.)

e) Prodigiosae magnitudinis beluae, a me non semel conspectae, quas saepe cum vitae periculo venatum eunt nostrates: videatur Plin. lib. 8. cap. 25 & c. 26. (Beasts of enormous size seen more than once by me. Our countrymen often go to hunt them at the peril of their lives. See Pliny, Natural History, bk. 8, chaps. 25 and 26.)

f) Quas Marcgravius describit sub nomine Mienen detders. Hist. quadrup. lib. suo 6. cap. 4 (Described by Marcgravius under the name Mienen. History of Quadrupeds, bk. 6, chap. 4.)

g) de hist. anim.lib. 8 cap. 28.

h) Petron. in satyr. (The reference again is to Petronius Satyrae. §119, lines 15, 16. Equi seems to be corrupt. The passage in Petronius concerns the elephant. B.F.)

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It is white even in its natural deposit, although black specimens are also found. But when the dog days scorch it with their tremendous heat, of its own accord it splits and shows a gleaming white surface. It surpasses the common salt of our country somewhat in pungency of taste, and forms a most agreeable accompaniment of food. Can this be the reason why (as already known in Aristotle's time) if one digs near the sea in Africa, one first finds sweet water, then, after a little, salt?

Chap. II. Animals.

This mountainous desert is a fitter habitation for wild beasts than for men; for here are to be found lions, the cruel enemies of flocks and herds, elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers or rather panthers, wolves, elks, hippopotamuses, wild horses, buffaloes, boars, mountain-bred napes (?), baboons, porcupines, hedge-hogs, putorii (?), lynxes, stags, rabbits, badgers, otters, hares, zebras of a most beautiful colouring, as if a furrier had inserted white stripes at regular intervals in a black hide, goats, mountain goats, ibexes, both spotted and ash-coloured, springboks, wild cats, shaped like tigers and grey, a species of fox which the Dutch call jakhals, and more rarely Tamandua-Guacu (?), differing only in size from the Brazilian variety. In truth an enormous supply of animals must harbour here, for in a brief space of time a few hunters brought the governor several thousands of pounds weight of animals they had taken, chiefly hippopotamuses, elks, ibexes, and similar creatures. Hence we can see into how serious an error Aristotle fell when he says that in Africa (where there is no lack of that beast whose teeth are precious at its death) the boar, the stag, and the wild goat are not to be found.

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Cap. III. De Avibus.

Inter aves frequentes satis, & diversicolores,ⁱ⁾ struthiocameli, pavones, grues, ciconiae nigrae, ardeae, anseres, onocrotali, anates, penelopes, querquedulae, glaucia, mergi, urinatrices,^k) fulicae, boscades, penguini, perdices, rubicantes & cinerei phasiani, vanelli, ficedulae, gallinagines minores, ululae, cepphorum myriades,^l) apodes, ac variae tincturae hirundines,^m) colibrydes, seu verticillatae cujusdam plantae suctores, & pelicani quaedam species, quam Galliⁿ⁾ les Flammants, nostrates a Lusitanis id docti Flaminken, variegatis erectis plumis.

i) Huc transferatur locus Esai, cap. 13. v. 21. (Cf. Isaiah, 13:21.)

k) vid. Charles de Rochefort lib. cit. p.m. 133.

l) Non apodes, licet Plin. lib. 10. c. 39. hoc nomen illis indiderit, & sine pedibus describserit; uti veteres paradisi dictas aves apodas putâre perperam. (They are not footless, although Pliny, bk. 10, chap. 39, gives them this name and describes them as being without feet. The ancients also believed, falsely, that birds of paradise, as they are called, are without feet.)

m) Alibi a me describtae vid. idem Rochefort p.m. 141. Quo & referri poterit Brasiliensii Guaimumbi, quam Marcgravius, bloemenspecht interpretatur, cujus ille novem recenset species, ego ex repertis tantum tres alibi describsi. (Described elsewhere by me. See Rochefort, p.m. 141. To this may be compared also the Brazilian Guaimumbi, which Marcgravius translates bloemenspecht, and of which he enumerates nine species, while I from my own observations have noted but three, described elsewhere.)

n) vid. eundem p.m. 133.

Cap. IV. De Piscibus.

Hic quoque mare fluviique suas dant feras, leones, cuniculosque marinos, guapervas Brasiliensium,^o) balaenas, levesque galeos, thynnos (mensae decus) salmones, rajas, mugiles, musculos, auratas, decumanas, anguillas, binasque e genere cyprini species, Incolae nuncupant Hottentots vis, hi quippe illis delectantur, cum squammosi, saxatiles grataeque carnis sint; altera permagna mensarum dapes est, steenbraesem vocitata: Tum Caniculae speciem, quam Lusitani^p) Cassaon appellant: ostreas, cammaros, cancros, verasque torpedines, turbines, sepia & viriformes conchas, quas inter Pareo dictus natator Plinio nautilus est.^* Sed ire per omnes vetat propositi compendium; unum tamen addam in epilogum. Cum oram curvi molliter litoris leni unda tusam legerem, in ejectaneos sciscitaturus maris foetus, quaedam animalcula, scopulis firmissime adhaerentia inveni, multipeda vitalium fibrarum exsertione rosas eminentia, unde Belgicum vulgus Kliproosen vocat.

o) Balenae quaedam species hic frequens Belgice wont-kapers & vin-vissen. (A certain species of whale common here, called by the Dutch wont-kapers and vin-vissen.)

p) vide Marcgrav. lib. 4. c. 12.

* Pliny, Nat. Hist., ix. 47.1. (B.F.)

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Chap. III. Birds.

Among the birds, which are plentiful enough and of varied colours, are ostriches, peacocks, cranes, black storks, herons, geese, pelicans, ducks, penelopes, querquedulae, glaucia, divers, urinatrices, coots, boscades, penguins, partridges, red and ash-coloured pheasants, vanelli, figpeckers, the lesser gallinago, screech-owls, myriads of cephi, martins, swallows of various hue, colybrides, or suckers of a certain verticillated plant, and a certain kind of pelican called by the French Flammants, and by our countrymen, who learned the name from the Portuguese, Flaminken, with upstanding variegated plumage.

Chap. IV. Fish.

Here the sea and also the rivers yield their own wild creatures, sea-lions, sea-rabbits, guapervas of Brazil, whales, small sharks, tunnies (the glory of the table), salmon, rays, mullets, mussels, gilt-bream, decumanae, eels, two species of carp (the inhabitants call them Hottentots' fish, since the Hottentots delight in them, because they are scaly, and haunt the rocks, and have a tasty flesh). Another large table fish is the steenbras. Then there is a species of dog-fish, which the Portuguese call Cassaon. Also oysters, lobsters, crabs, the true torpedo, turbines, cuttlefish, and viriform shells, among which is the Pareo, called by Pliny the sailing nautilus. But to enumerate all is impossible within the narrow limits I have set myself; I shall merely add one to conclude. When I was skirting the edge of a gently curving shore beaten by quiet waves in order to prosecute my researches into the offspring which the sea casts forth from her womb, I discovered certain animalcula firmly attached to the rocks, which by the innumerable living fibres they thrust out present a rosy hue, and are in consequence popularly known among the Dutch as rock-roses.

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Cap. V. De insectis & venenosis Animalibus.

Non horum, nec insectorum hie ullus esset finis; publica sunt variformes cantharides, papiliones, mordellae,^q) cicindelae, variaeque scheseos locustae, plurimi curculiones, & diversicolores millepedae^r) araneae, pugno magnitudine aequiparandae, ac variae formicae, quae grandibus pabuli acervis (quos parcissime ad novam arcem exstruendam calce posse substitui autumabat a Fisco Dominus: illos ego divulsos multis formicarum myriadibus suffertos detexi) in vicinis montibus se ipsas inhumant.

Communia ex venenatis sunt serpentes, effigie, magnitudine, & loco discrepantes, viperae duplo quam in Gallia repperi, majores; salamandrae, scorpiones, scolopendrae, lacerti, bufones; de quorum origine cum Gubernatore, viro ab experientia incomparabili, disserens; mirabar eorundem illic loci imaginem; cum patriis triplo majores praelongis a tergo pedibus, attarum instar, terram potius verrerent. Hoccine miraris, regerebat Ille, protinus adferri jubens de Holothuriorum genere pisces bufoniformes, extra ventrem gestantes pedes. En! hi nostratium bufonum conceptacula sunt; veluti ipsemet postea observavi, ex hoc nempe pisce bufonem progigni; tum etiam talem exenterans coram Gubernatori piscem, singula ferme intestina, praesertim pulmones, quibus large instruebantur, uti in bufonibus, ranisve consimilia reperi.

Caetera animatorum genera vel visum non subiere meum, vel visa tantillo tempore, quo illic morabar prosecare non potis fui singula, hic in Stagiriticam proclivis sententiam;^s) In Asia nempe efferatiores, in Europa fortiores, in Africa multiformiores bestias provenire: Unde natum proverbium:^t) Africam semper aliquid novi proferre. Cum aquarum indigentia beluas, levandae sitis gratia convenientes, illic convocet, ut promiscua venere coeant. Quod in desertissimis forte verum est locis; secus indefinita Africum perfluunt flumina.

q) De quibus dictus Rochefort p.m. 123.

r) His analogam dat figuram Rochef. p.m. 129. (Rochefort gives an analogous shape for them.)

s) loco supra citato (see former citation). (Hist. of Animals, viii, 28.)

t) Aristot. dicto loco & lib. de generat. anim. lib. 2. cap. 7.

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Chap. V. Insects and Poisonous Creatures.

Neither of the poisonous creatures nor of the insects could there be given any complete enumeration here. Among the latter are common various beetles, butterflies, mordellae, glow-worms, locusts of different sorts, many weevils, millepede spiders of various colours, comparable in size to a man's fist, and several kinds of ant, which bury themselves in great heaps of food in the neighbouring mountains. The Treasurer asserted that these ant-heaps could be sparingly substituted for lime in the building of the new fort. I broke some open and disclosed myriads of ants swarming within.

Among the poisonous creatures snakes are common, differing in shape, size and habitat. There are vipers twice as big as I have found in France, salamanders, scorpions, scolopendrae, lizards, toads. Of the origin of these I discoursed with the Governor, a man of incomparable experience; I expressed surprise at the appearance of the toads in that place, which were three times the size of our native ones and had very long hind legs like (?), with which they swept the ground. ‘You are surprised at this,’ said he in reply, forthwith ordering some specimens of toad-shaped fish of the genus Holothuria (water-polypes), with feet below their bellies, to be brought. ‘Look, these are the source from which our toads are born.’ And this I myself afterwards observed, to wit, a toad produced from this fish. I also disembowelled a fish of this sort in the presence of the Governor and found all the internal organs, especially the lungs with which they are generously supplied, to be like those of toads or frogs.

Other classes of living things I either did not see at all, or, if seen, in the very short time of my sojourn there, could not examine minutely. But I am inclined to adopt the opinion of the Stagirite, that in Asia the most savage, in Europe the strongest, in Africa the most various wild animals are brought forth. Hence has sprung the saying: Africa always produces something new. Aristotle gives as the reason that the lack of water gathers together different animals to relieve their thirst with the result that they copulate promiscuously. But this must be understood of the deserts of Africa, which otherwise is watered by many great rivers.

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Cap. VI. De Plantis.

Verum Botanicum me mage cepit studium, quippe hoc sterile etiamsi solum, omnigenis scatet plantis, quibus peculiarem describtionis locum dicavi. Sive enim litori quis inambulet, ludentem faventemque vegetabilibus naturam, ubi ego herbae kali (de cujus sale tantum veteres, plus tamen strepunt novaturientes) aestimabam copiam. Sive per plana vagetur, immensam earundem varietatem, praesertim elegantium ericarum, multiformium sedorum, luxuriantium Ornithogalorum, narcissorumque (quorum bulbi humanum etjam caput magnitudine exaequant, jam dudum ad curiosos in Hollandiam missi) geranij noctu odori &c. suaveolentiam. Sive per montes currat, arborum (quas inter species quaedam omnes alias frequentia antecedit; ejus lignum prae duritie Belgis yserhout, usque huc Vulcano soli dicatum) fruticumque silvas, & in collibus frugiferam aloem probandamque scammoneam, uberrime offendet; & in hortis^u) solanum Indicum, quandamque^v) Melonum speciem, mirandam ex longo itinere adventantibus diuretica sua virtute refocillationem conciliantium. Tum transvectam torrida zona Musam (Piran Malay, Arabes Amusas vocant) de quibus expertorum fide constat, Illas, uti & Cocos, tantum intra, nunquam extra tropicos efflorescere, atque loca aequinoctiali lineae propinquiora & plures & majores horum fructus, juxta declinationem ab Aequatore per gradus gradatim quoque numero & magnitudine decrescere, & tandem evanescere; sic raram & sine frugibus Musam ad Caput B.S. reperi; & in Bengala extra tropicos, mala ac pyra Hollandica, Cocci vel Musae nulli: verum Mesquetti, in eodem Bengalae regno, & in Persia a tropici initio fructus hi, sed sine succo nascuntur, in appropinquatione ad lineam, succulentiores, grandioresque. Verum aspera & inculta regio arboribus, alibi mollescentibus, dum^* inspirat indolem; subtiliorque quam patrius est, aër intensiores vires.

u) Spaens-Spec of Ritsies.

v) Nostrates perperam waterlimoenen: Hos delineat Rochef. p.m. 104. (Our countrymen wrongly call them waterlimoenen. See sketch in Rochefort, p.m. 104.)

* Read suam. B.F.

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Chap. VI. Plants.

To botanical studies I devoted greater attention, for this soil, barren though it be, abounds in plants of every sort, to the description of which I have set aside a special work. For, in the first place, if one takes a walk upon the shore one encounters conditions that produce a luxuriance of vegetable life. Here I myself have seen quantities of the plant kali, about the salt of which the ancients spoke so much and the modern pundits speak still more. Or, on the other hand, if one strolls across the flats, there is again an immense variety of plants, especially comely ericas, house-leeks of various kinds, luxuriant Star of Bethlehem plants, and narcissi. The bulbs of these often equal a human head in size, and specimens were long ago sent to Holland to satisfy the curious. There are also geraniums that smell sweetly by night. Or, again, if one ranges the mountains, there are woods full of trees and shrubs. Among the various species of tree one is more common than all the rest. It is called ironwood by the Dutch, but up till now it has been dedicated solely to Vulcan. And in the hills there is a fruit-bearing aloe, and good kind of scammony. In the garden there is the Indian nightshade, and a certain species of melon, which wonderfully restores the health of those who arrive after a long voyage by its diuretic quality. Then there is the Musa brought from the torrid zone (the Malays call it Piran, the Arabs Amusas), with regard to which we have it on the authority of those who have tested the matter, that they, like the coco-palm, flourish only inside, never outside, the tropics. Places which are nearer the equinoctial line have more and larger specimens of these fruits, which gradually decrease in number and in size according to the various degrees of declination from the Equator, and at length disappear. Thus it was only rarely that I found the Musa at the Cape of Good Hope, and always without fruit. In Bengal, outside the tropics, there are apples and pears of the Dutch variety, no coco-palms or Musae. But at Mesquetti, a place in the same kingdom of Bengal, and in Persia from the beginning of the tropic, these fruits grow, but without juice. The nearer they get to the line, the juicier and larger they become. A rough and uncultivated region imparts its own natural qualities to trees that are elsewhere soft and delicate, while an air more fine than their native air intensifies their strength.

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Cap. VII. De Anni Temporibus.

Hic horrida non valde saevit bruma, nec toties increpant grandines, neve glacie congelantur flumina, maximum pruina conferente frigus: Hic enim non in quatuor, sed in duas, veluti in India vestra, periodos dividitur annus. Hiemen pluvia facit, aestatem siccitas, utraque furentibus concitata ventis. Ita ut cum in patria Sirius aestuat, riget hic nimbosus Orion.^* Cum enim in patria appropinquat aequatori sol; hic inverso cursu ab eodem recedit. Tum si unus eligatur ex Hollandia locus Amstelaedamum V.G. hoc bonae spei Promontorium 17 gradibus & 51 minutis, qua latitudinem praeponitur; postponitur vero 11 gradibus & 30 scrupulis, si longitudinem spectas: Octobri enim mense (qui hic aestatis initium efficit) cum in patria arborum raduntur comae, vegetantia hic primum pullulascebant.

* From Virgil, Aen. I, 535. (B.F.)

Cap. VIII. De hujus Eparchiae Incolis Hottentottis.

Nomen est in varias nationes divisis;

1. Quarum princeps illa, quam Essequaes faciunt. Natio, cum ex multitudine tum corporis proceritate (semigigantes enim putaveris) & robore fortissima; ideoque a suis nunquam impune lacessita. Si enim Namacquas &c. duas tresve pecudes abstulerint, ilico in eos bello saeviunt, penitiora cogniti a nostratibus tractus ad CL. & paullo plus milliarium distantiam incolentes, ad insolitum nostrorum armorum expaventes visum; aliâs cum illis, qui consuetam ad Caput B.S. sedem tenent, moribus convenientes. Quorsum una quotannis vice jussu Gubernatoris, ex tabaco, araco, & aeneis torquibus, quibus illi ex diutina exspectatione impensius inhiant, mercimonia, commutando lucroso pecori, transferuntur.

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Chap. VII. The Seasons of the Year.

Here the winter is not very rough nor severe; there are not many hailstorms; nor are the rivers frozen; the hoarfrost brings the greatest cold. For here the year is not divided into four seasons, but, as in your India, into two. Rain makes the winter, drought the summer; both are buffeted by furious winds. But when at home the heat of the dog-star prevails, then here is the chill of rainy Orion; for when at home the Sun is approaching the equator, here, moving in the opposite direction, it recedes from it. Then if you choose any spot in Holland, Amsterdam for example, the Cape of Good Hope is 17 degrees and 51 minutes before it in respect of latitude, and 11 degrees and 30 minutes behind it, if you consider the longitude. For in the month of October, which is the beginning of summer here, when the leaves are being stripped from the trees at home, growing things here are just beginning to shoot.

Chap. VIII. The Hottentots who inhabit this realm.

The people who bear this name are divided into various tribes: -

1. The chief tribe is that of the Essequaes.⁶⁾ This tribe is first both in numbers, in stature (you would think them almost giants), and in physical strength. None of their own race ever attacks them with impunity. Suppose the Namaquas or some other tribe have stolen two or three head of cattle, forthwith they descend on them in war. They are pretty well known by our countrymen, though inhabiting tracts of land at a distance of 150 miles, or a little more. They are frightened at the unfamiliar spectacle of our arms; in other respects they agree in their habits with those who are regularly settled at the Cape of Good Hope. Once a year, on the Governor's orders, a merchandise of tobacco, arrack, and copper necklaces, is sent to them to be profitably exchanged for cattle. The natives are agape for these articles owing to the long interval of waiting.

6) The Hessequas (see above, p. 39) were at this time one of the most important markets for the purchase of cattle to supply the needs of passing ships, and, as Ten Rhyne says, expeditions were frequently sent to barter with them. He describes this trade more fully below, see p. 135.

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2. Alteram Namacquaes constituunt, hunc sibi peculiarem in vestitu servantes ritum: quod ubi alii vulpino, caprinove corio, hi ex elephantino dente contextis canistellis pudenda tegant, vix penetrabilibus aliis tutiores in bello scutis.

3. Hos sequuntur Sousvas, ejusdem cum nostris Hottentottis ingenii & indolis.

4. Hinc Sonquas, quibus sontica^* de caussa a nostratibus ereptae sunt pecudes, ut silvis degentes alimoniam ex desertis, ferarum praesertim venatione petere cogantur.

4. His affines sunt Gregoriquas.

6. Inimicum agmen claudunt Honnimas, quibuscum nostrates ob dira municipum homicidia bella gerunt. Quorum praefectus supremus, Honnima dictus, claudus etiamsi senex; strenuus tamen miles est.

7. Illi vere, qui inter nostros securi arcem frequentant, auxiliares in terrestri bello copias componunt. Eorum praefectus generalis Claes appellatur, & ab illo secundus Capteyn Cuyper, egregii uterque & vafri milites, non semel a me visi, mera cum nudipeda plebe mendicabula: sic huic, sex stipatoribus comitato, emendicatum tabaci frustulum pluries dedi, Gallice tantillum cum eodem locutus.

* Ten Rhyne is fond of puns. He has a similar play on words (p. 90) about Table Mountain and the table of the Governor. B.F.

[p. 111]

2. The second tribe is that of the Namaquas.⁷⁾ They maintain the following fashion in dress peculiar to themselves: whereas the others wear skins of foxes or goats, they cover their nakedness with a lattice of elephant's tooth.⁸⁾ They are better protected in war than the rest, having almost impenetrable shields.⁹⁾

3. After them come the Sousvas,¹⁰⁾ with the same mental and physical equipment as our Hottentots.

4. Next are the Sonquas,¹¹⁾ who for just occasion were bereft of their cattle by our countrymen, with the result that they live in the woods and are forced to seek a means of livelihood in the desert, chiefly by hunting wild animals.

5. Their neighbours are the Gregoriquas.¹²⁾

6. The Honnimas¹³⁾ are the last of this hostile array. With them we are at war by reason of divers murders perpetrated on our countrymen. Their chief captain, Honnima by name, is old and lame, but a vigorous soldier.

7. Finally those who mingle freely with our men about the Castle form auxiliary troops. The general in command of them is called Claes, and the second in command is Captain Cuyper,¹⁴⁾ both excellent soldiers and tacticians. And indeed I myself have often seen them, a pair of beggars, with their ragged crew at their heels. To the latter, with his retinue of six attendants, I have often supplied the pinch of tobacco for which he begged, holding a little conversation with him in French.

7) See above, p. 34.

8) A misleading description; the garment referred to was a little apron, consisting of an ivory tablet attached to ‘a beautifully pleated and prepared skin’ (see above, p. 38). Ten Rhyne is incorrect in saying that the Cape Hottentots wore goatskins, for none of them possessed any goats.

9) Van Meerhoff describes these as ‘shields of double ox hides, which are dry, and so large that they can completely shelter themselves behind them’ (Godée-Molsbergen, op. cit., i, 58).

10) The Chainouquas (see above, p. 26), whose present name was derived from that of their chief Souswa.

11) Bushmen. Ten Rhyne is of course mistaken in saying that they were deprived of their cattle by the Dutch and so forced to a hunting mode of life; they were characteristically hunters, and possessed no cattle save what they could steal from the Hottentot tribes. But in 1669 Cruse encountered a band of Bushmen with a large herd of cattle which they had probably stolen, and when these Bushmen attempted to seize his merchandize, he and his men retaliated by shooting upon the Bushmen and seizing all their cattle. Ten Rhyne is probably referring to this incident. (D., Jan. 26, 1669: Moodie, Record, 303-4).

12) Called Karichuriquas by Dapper.

13) i.e. Gonnema's clan of Kochoqua (see above, p. 23). The causes of their war with the Dutch have already been referred to (p. 88).

14) Claes (Klaas, known to the Hottentots as Dorha) was head of a Chainouqua clan. He first came into prominence about 1672, and was for many years a firm supporter and cattle trader of the Dutch, and regarded as their most faithful ally. He was on hostile terms with Gonnema, and fought against him in the war of 1673-77, hence Ten Rhyne's reference to ‘auxiliary troops’. ‘Claas with his rival Captain Koopman became chiefs of the Chainouquas on the death of Sousoa. In 1691 he was confined on Robben Island by Simon van der Stel for robbing Koopman of his cattle. Koopman during his exile took the wife of Claas. When he returned from banishment to his grazing grounds beyond Sir Lowry Pass his wife attempted to rejoin him. She was overtaken by Koopman and stoned to death. Claas was killed in the winter of 1701 while searching for a strayed or stolen ox near Koopman's kraal’ (Mossop, V.R.S. 12, 209 n). Cuyper (or rather de Cuyper, ‘the cooper’), first mentioned D. July 6, 1666, was head of one of the Goringhaiqua kraals. In the agreement of May 5, 1672, by which ‘the minor chief Dhouw, hereditary sovereign of the country called by us Hottentoos Holland,’ sold that land to the Dutch, reference is made to ‘the Hottentot chief Dackkgy (alias Cuyper, stadhouder and guardian to the prince’) (!) (Moodie, Record, 318-9). It is interesting to note how, within twenty years of the settlement at the Cape, the names of the local Hottentot clans and tribes had already fallen into general disuse, the different groups being more commonly known by the names of their headmen or chiefs, while only the more remote groups still bore their tribal names.

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Cap. IX. De Connexione cum aliis.

Quinam vero Hottentottis contermini sint populi, necdum ita planum est; auriti plures quam oculati testes sunt, qui de^w) Nigritis mussitant. Sic aliis persuasum vult decurio quidam nostras; se ab ultimis (ad quorum emissus erat fines, sextuplici consortio stipatus) Hottentottorum nepotibus, a caeteris vita & moribus plane discrepantibus, & nondum speciali nomine notis praecepisse, inter se & Nigritas spatiosum quoddam interjacere flumen, quod cymbis ex arborum cavamine fabrefactis, permutandis mercibus trajicerent. Caeterum Hottentottis^x) inter se nulli fines.

w) Vulgo Kaffers.

x) Ut de Scythis, quos hodie Turcas appellamus. Just. lib. 2. histor. (As with the Scythians, whom today we call Turks. Justin, bk. 2 of the history.) (His actual words are: hominibus inter se nulli fines. B.F.)

Cap. X. De Corporis habitu.

Uti universo hominum generi, praeter patriae indolem, proprius quidam connascitur instinctus; ita non minori miraculo per tot secula & tot populorum nomina, unicuique hominum sua, & ab aliis deflexa, lineamenta natura invenit, quae tam vultus, quam animi indices, ineffabilem inter mortales differentiam efficiunt. Sic Hottentottorum plerique quasi sole adusti fusca undique cute inumbrantur, sanguine sicco calidoque communiter praediti; nonnullorum tamen subcandicans vultus a patria ferrugine recedit. Quamvis nigerrimi illis pulcerrimi; ac dum versicolores terras vel capillis inspergunt, vel adipe mixtas facies illinunt, semet cosmeticae maximopere indulgere censent; Invenitur enim in hac regione colores promens mons, laboriosa sedulitate

[p. 113]

Chap. IX. Their relations with other peoples.

Who the people are that neighbour the Hottentots is not yet known; those who venture a word about the negroes (popularly called Kafirs) depend more on hearsay than on the witness of their own eyes. Thus one of our officers would have it believed that he learned the facts I shall now mention from the most remote branch of the Hottentot family, to whose territory he had been sent with a guard of six men. These Hottentots differ widely from the rest in their ways, although they are not yet known by a special name; and they told him, says our officer, that between them and the negroes lies a broad river which they cross in boats made out of hollowed tree-trunks in order to exchange goods¹⁵⁾. The Hottentots are separated from one another by no boundaries.

15) I have been unable to identify this officer or the journey to which reference is made. It may possibly refer to Hieronymus Cruse, who with fifteen men landed at Mossel Bay in 1668 and went eastwards overland as far as the Gouritz R., bringing back reports of the Attaquas, ‘a tribe similar to the Cape Hottentots, but well supplied with copper and beads, which they obtain from another nation dwelling further east and somewhat darker’ (D., Nov. 28, 1668).

Chap. X. Physical Characteristics.

The human race as a whole, apart from local and national peculiarities, is provided at birth with a character proper to itself; but no less wonderful is it that every single individual of the species, down through the ages and among so many peoples, should be supplied by nature with his own personal lineaments, distinct from those of other men, expressive alike of the inner and the outer man, and constituting an indefinable difference between one individual and another. Thus the Hottentots as a race have everywhere a dark and swarthy skin, as if scorched by the sun, and are generally endowed with a dry, warm blood. Yet the faces of some show much fairer, departing from their native dusky hue. Nevertheless the blackest are the loveliest in their eyes, and they think themselves never so finely adorned as when they sprinkle divers coloured earths upon their hair, or rub them, mixed with fat, upon their faces. For in this region there is a mountain that produces colours, which if carefully worked might perhaps be profitable.

[p. 114]

forte lucrosus. Omnes quos mihi saltem videre contigit, gracili ac elaborato corpore, congruenter concisis artuum lacertis, simo (qualis Africanorum ac Asiaticorum plerisque conatus est) naso, depressa fronte, chilones, crispo, languinoso, & in varias deraso formes capillo, nudi incedunt, tectis tantum levi corio praecordiis. Feminas a maribus deformitate distinguas; Illae hoc sibi a caeteris gentibus peculiare habent, quod pleraeque earum dactyliformes, semper geminas, e pudendis propendentes appendiculas, productas scilicet Nymphas (ut raro in nostratibus exemplo prolongata conspicitur clitoris) gestent, quas tuguriola (illi suo idiomate krallen vocant, mulieribus fortuito referta) intrantibus magna cum gesticulatione, coriaceum elevando supparum, videndas praebent.. Sic strangulatam nuper prosecavit amicus chirurgus viraginem Hottentotticam, in qua digitalia haec Nympharum tubercula, e verendis procidua, duas in una mammilla papillas, variosque in^y) pancreate calculos observârat. Imo vero, adjiciebat probatissimae fidei Gubernator: Et ego calculum ex medietate virilis testiculi exsectum, propter adamantinam pelluciditatem annulo insertum possedi; ast eum superstitioso & ingentem de eo amuleti vim ventilanti, Nigritarum Regi donavi. Id vero cum Nigritica, Aethiopica &c. gente commune habent; quod ubi hi oleo, illi pecorum adipe corpora, sed praesertim verticem, illinant, cineribus ex concrematis herbis (quos Bouchòu vernacule appellant) in eundem conspersis: quod officium uxores maritis praestant. Aurium lobos transversim lateque secant, aperturam bacillo, vel tabacifuma fistula, vel quod illis solennius, corallinis inauribus pandunt.

y) Sic tandem omnem dubitationis aleam evaderet dictamen hoc; posse etiam in omnibus corporis partibus calculos produci. (This statement need not labour under any suspicion of doubt: stones may be produced in any part of the body.)

[p. 115]

All the Hottentots whom I at least have seen have slender and finely-knit bodies, matching the small musculature of their limbs; their noses, as with most African and Asiatic peoples, are snub, their foreheads low; they are thick-lipped, and have curly woolly hair, shaved into various patterns; they go naked except for a light covering of skins on the chest and belly.

The women may be distinguished from the men by their ugliness. And they have this peculiarity to distinguish them from other races, that most of them have dactyliform appendages, always two in number, hanging down from their pudenda. These are enlargements of the Nymphae¹⁶⁾, just as occasionally in our own countrywomen an elongation of the clitoris is observed. If one should happen to enter a hut full of women - the huts they call kraals in their idiom¹⁷⁾ - then, with much gesticulation, and raising their leathern aprons, they offer these appendages to the view. A surgeon of my acquaintance lately dissected a Hottentot woman who had been strangled¹⁸⁾. He observed these finger-shaped prolongations of the Nymphae falling down from the private parts, two nipples in one breast, and various stones in the pancreas. What is more, the Governor, whose word can be absolutely relied upon, added the following: ‘I too owned a remarkable stone. It was cut from the middle of a man's testicle, and, on account of its diamond-like brilliance I had it set in a ring. But I made a present of it to the King of the Negroes, a superstitious fellow, who displayed a profound belief in its power as an amulet.’

The Hottentots have this in common with the Negro, Aethiopian, and other races, that, as the latter smear themselves with oil, they smear their bodies with animal fat, and especially their heads, sprinkling also on their heads the ash of burned herbs, which they call in the vernacular bouchou.¹⁹⁾ Wives perform this service for their husbands.

They cut the lobes of their ears across in a wide slit, and stretch the aperture by inserting a stick, or a tobacco-pipe, or, what is more usual with them, coral ear-rings.

16) On this well-known characteristic of Hottentot women, see above, p. 62.

17) The word kraal is not of Hottentot origin, but was taken over by the Dutch from the Portuguese curral and applied to the settlements of the Hottentots, not to their huts.

18) On this woman, see below, p. 126, n. 26.

19) Buchu was always ground to powder, never burned.

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Cap. XI. De Vestimentis.

Lanae^a) iis usus ac vestium ignotus, quanquam ingenti frigore saepe urantur; pellibus tamen ferinis (bovinis ovillisque) utuntur. Coriaceae ergo primatum aeque ac plebejorum masculae vestes unico constant, ex bovino ovillove corio, colobio (ipsis Karos dicto: quod & lectuli, & arculae & omnis fere suppellectilis vices supplet; eoque imbrium hiemisque caussa teguntur) ita tamen ut illi quandoque ex pantherarum caprearumve pellibus confectum gerant; atque ubi gregarii vulpina, optimates de lutra meleve membrana pubem velent. Neque enim ipse Hercules, tot gentium invictus domitor, & jam Diis ascitus, cum terras peragraret, una pelle vestitior, neque uno baculo comitatior fuit.^* Cadente pluvia coriaceo, stricteque aptato vertici, pileolo, in apiculum erecto, utrinque aures vestiente segmento, caput obtegunt. Collo sacculum (quo telorum cuspides plerumque condunt, aliâs tabaco implent) suspendunt. Brachia pone cubitos ex elephantino dente armillis ornant, queis suas peras saepius alligant, caetera nudi; nisi quod aliqui quandoque ex siccatis bovini corii plantas tegant soleis, quas urgente necessitate coctas assatasve comedunt, ac renovant per damna famem.

Femininus vero vestitus constat ex pelliceis ovium scilicet, cum amiculo, tum supparo, quo verecundas in publico, sollicite magis quam viri aperiunt^**) partes feminae; quae consimili mitra comam continuo cingunt. Arefactis ex viminibus orbiculis (quos aliqui exsiccata pecorum exta, alii membranaceas, ex boum recenti corio rotunde convolutas, ansas putant) sibi arcte super impositis, caligarum loco pedes muniunt, raro calceatae.

a) Just. de Scythis ibidem. ((Justin on the Scythians.) (The reference is bk. II, chap. 2, where the following words occur: Lanae hic usus ac vestium ignotus, quamquam continuis frigoribus urantur; pellibus tamen ferinis ac murinis utuntur. Ten Rhyne's information about the Hottentots seems to be sometimes supplemented by references in ancient authors to various savage peoples. B.F.)

* This passage about Hercules comes, with some alterations, from Apuleius, Apologia, 22. (B.F.)

**) This must, I feel sure, be a mistake for operiunt. (B.F.)

[p. t.o. 116]

How the Hottentots build their Huts.
(In the background is a representation of a kraal.)
[After Kolb.

[p. 117]

Chap. XI. Clothing.

The use of woollen garments is unknown to them although they are often vexed by great cold. They use the skins of wild animals, and of oxen and sheep. The clothing of the men, therefore, whether chiefs or commoners, is exclusively of skin, and consists of a colobium or blanket made of the hide of ox or sheep, and called by them karos. This supplies the place of a bed, of a box, and of almost all furniture. With it they protect themselves from the rain or from the cold. Not but what the garment is sometimes made from panther or goat-skin; and whereas the common folk cover their loins with fox-skin, the chiefs use otter or badger. Nor indeed was Hercules himself, the invincible subjugator of so many peoples, and now enrolled among the Gods, better clad, when he sojourned on earth, than with one skin or better companioned than by one club.

When it rains they cover the head with a leather cap, closely fitting on the crown, and rising up to a peak, with flaps on both sides to cover the ears. Round the neck they hang a wallet in which they generally bestow their arrowheads, but which they sometimes fill with tobacco. Their arms above the elbow they adorn with circlets of ivory on which they sometimes hang their wallets. For the rest they are naked, except that they sometimes protect the soles of their feet with shoes of dried ox-skin. These, under the pressure of necessity, they devour boiled or roast, sacrificing their footgear to assuage their hunger.

The clothing of the women consists of sheepskin garments, to wit, a cloak and an apron, with which they take more care to cover their private parts in public than the men do. They bind their hair all round with a band likewise made of skin. They rarely go shod, but instead they protect their ankles with rings made of dried withies lying closely one on top of the other. Some think that these rings are made of dried sheep-gut, others that they are fragments of membrane from the fresh hides of oxen twisted into a circular shape.²⁰⁾

20) Few of the early writers seems to have thought it necessary to investigate closely the exact nature of these rings, about which their statements vary so much that it is difficult to know what to believe. Maxwell's observation is probably the least fantastic: ‘The women wear skins cut in thongs about their legs to the length of a great many yards, which when dry with the inside out look so like sheep's guts that most strangers have mistaken them for such’ (V.R.S. 5, 50).

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Communia ornamenta sunt vel capitis, vel quod uti nos villosos tondemus canes, in plenilunares, semilunares, stellares &c. figuras radunt; frontalibus corallia, serratas conchulas, nummos aeneos, connodulatos vaccarum &c pilos &c. appendunt. Omnes fere, nisi pauperrimi, diversis ex corallinis, vitreis, aeneisve globulis colla circumdant monilibus; quae cum Illustriss. Societate opimo commutant pecore. Cubitos elephantinis, carpos cupreis plerumque brachialibus ornant.

Cap. XII. De Aedificiis.

Praeter parva^b) tuguriola,^c) nec domus illis ulla, nec tectum aut sedes est, armenta & pecora semper pascentibus, & per incultas solitudines errare solitis. Casulae hae unica patent antica, earumque tectum culmenve & parietes ex foliis caulibusque Africani Gladioli (cujus^d) Bulbos panis loco manducant) tam solide contexta sunt, ut a pluvia aliisque aeris injuriis protegant incolentes. Columina, imbrices, scandulaeque ex arborum ramusculis fabrefacta; vestibulum arcuatum, inflexum est. In pavimentum quisque cavernam effodit, cui, tanquam lectulo, ovillam insternit pellem maritus, simili involvendus, ita ut vel caput pedesve vel manus extra eandem non animadvertas, servans, quem naturaliter foetus in utero situm; femina ad conjugis antri limbum altius dormit. Angustissima haec casula quindecim, quandoque plures, hospites capit. Haecce mapalia in collibus campisve, vel fluminum ripis inter arbusta collocant, atque in orbem disponunt quinos vel senos distantia invicem passus; atque ita armenta, his inclusa septis, a ferarum potius quam hostium invasione defendunt: ubi vero Praefecti in alia commigrandi loca indicant, subjectos magnis ignium incendiis commonefaciunt; solae feminae totum peculium, omniaque utensilia (quae alias in coriaceum injecta saccum ipsaemet humeris comportant) colligunt, & cum gurgustio gestatoriis imponunt bobus, belligeras in sequentibus copias viris.

b) Krallen vocant. (They call them kraals.)

c) Justin. loco citato. (Justin as before.) (The words nec domus to errare solitis are Justin's. B.F.)

d) Hottentots broot appellant nostrates.

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They commonly wear ornaments on their head, or else, as we do with poodles, they shave their hair into full moons, crescent moons, or stars. On their foreheads they wear corals, serrated shells, bronze coins, and knotted hairs of cows and other animals, etc. Almost all, except the very poor, wear necklaces of coral, glass, or bronze beads. These they acquire from the Noble Company in exchange for prime cattle. On their elbows as a rule they wear ivory bracelets, on their wrists copper ones.

Chap. XII. Buildings.

Apart from their huts they have no houses, nor shelter, nor dwelling-place, for they are always engaged in pasturing their herds and flocks, and are accustomed to wander through uncultivated wildernesses. Their little cabins have but one opening, and their roof and gable and walls consist of the leaves and stalks of the African gladiolus, the bulbs of which they eat instead of bread (our countrymen call it Hottentot's bread). They are so closely built that they protect the dwellers from rain and other inclemencies of the weather. Poles, gutters, and shingles are made from small branches of trees. The porch is arched and winding. Each husband digs out a hollow on the floor, in which, as on a bed, he spreads a sheep-skin; he then wraps himself up in another sheep-skin so cosily that neither head, nor foot, nor hand can be seen, assuming the posture naturally taken by the child in the womb. The wife sleeps higher up on the edge of the man's hollow bed. This little cabin holds fifteen, sometimes more, lodgers. They place the huts on hill or plain, or among trees on the banks of rivers, and lay them out in a circle at a distance of five or six paces from one another. In this way they protect the cattle, which are enclosed within these bounds, from the attack rather of wild beasts than of an enemy. But when the chiefs give the signal to move to a new place, they warn their subjects by kindling huge fires. Then the women alone collect all the stock, and all the gear which at other times is cast into leathern bags and carried on their own shoulders, and place them together with the hut on pack-oxen, while the men drive away the forces of the enemy.

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Cap. XIII. De Supellectili.

Si quis in supellectilis partes inquirat, antiqua opus est mente revolvat secula; ubi^e) Thebanum Cratem populo rem familiarem donasse, & solitudinem delegisse, arbores plurimas & frugiferas prae uno baculo sprevisse, ac villas ornatissimas una perula mutasse comperiet. Sola quippe pera & baculus olim Cynicae, nunc Hottentotticae gestamina familiae sunt; quae olim Diogeni & Antistheni, ea nunc Hottentottis, idem quod Imperatoribus paludamentum, quod Regibus diadema, quod Pontificibus galerum, quod lituus auguribus, sunt. Neque in hoc Diogeni, cum magno Macedonum Rege de regni veritate certabundo, baculoque sceptri, & vasculo solii vice glorianti, cedunt, semper sua sorte contenti. Utuntur tamen nonnumquam poculis, ex collectis in litore conchyliis, vel ex comestarum prius testudinum (quas Sirigoos vocitant, & in cineribus tostas edunt, ac pro tabaci frustulo peregrinis divendunt) operimentis: quibus si careant, cavata manu cum Cynico aquam hauriunt. Cibum quandoque rejecta in testa, alias sub cineribus apparant, secus cruda vorantes. Attamen peculio ditiores exquisitas ex argilla ollas, coquinae destinatas, alii ex arborum truncis cibarios alveolos oblongos conficiunt.

e) Vide Apulejum in apol. pro se ipso. (See Apuleius, Apologia.) (Chap. 22. The whole passage from Thebanum Cratem to solii vice glorianti is taken, with slight adaptations, from this chapter of Apuleius. B.F.)

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Chap. XIII. Furniture.

Whoever makes enquiry into the matter of their furniture will need to ponder the examples of the ancient world, where he will find that the Theban Crates made a gift of his property to the people, and chose the wilderness, scorned his parks and orchards for a single staff, and took in exchange for his splendid villas one wallet for his back. For as in the old days the Cynics were contented merely with a wallet and a stick, so now are the Hottentots. The wallet and the stick are to the Hottentots of to-day as they were to the Cynics in antiquity, the equivalent of the General's cloak, the King's diadem, the bonnet of the high priest, and the augur's staff. Nor in this matter do they yield to Diogenes who contended with the great king of Macedon about true kingship, glorying in his staff rather than in a sceptre, in his wallet more than in a throne; for the Hottentots are always contented with their lot. They do sometimes however use cups, either shells which they have collected on the seashore²¹⁾ or the shells of tortoises which they have eaten. These they call sirigoos. They roast them in the ashes and eat them, and sell them to strangers for a little tobacco. But if they lack a cup, then, like the Cynics, they drink water from the hollow of their hand. Their food they prepare sometimes in a pot that has been thrown away, sometimes under the ashes; otherwise they devour it raw. But the richer among them make most beautiful clay pots for use in cooking,²²⁾ while others from the trunks of trees make oblong troughs for food.²³⁾

21) Cf. de la Loubère, Description du Royaume de Siam (Paris, 1691), vol. ii, 109: ‘When we offered them brandy, they picked up as receptacle the first suitable shell they saw lying on the ground, and after blowing through it used it for drinking’.

22) The art of making pottery, formerly found among all the Hottentots, was lost soon after the Europeans came among them. From the descriptions available of these pots, as well as from specimens found or preserved, it appears that the most common form was that of a large-bellied urn with narrow rounded base, small mouth, and two ears through which a cord was passed for purposes of suspension. Other pots of the same style were quite cylindrical, with almost flat bases, while in others the base was slightly rounded and larger than the rest of the pot. The pots were often ornamented round the neck with rows of dots or short broad lines, apparently produced by incising. They were unglazed and generally somewhat thick, although a few have been found rather thin and evenly built throughout. (Schapera, Khoisan Peoples, 313.) Grevenbroek (see below, p. 251) briefly desribes their mode of manufacture.

23) The Hottentots made not only eating vessels, but also milk bowls, pails and dishes out of wood. These utensils were apparently fashioned entirely by cutting and boring, no fire or other hot object being employed. Their different shapes and mode of manufacture are summarized by Schapera, op. cit., 314.

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Cap. XIV. De Indole.

Enimvero nativa barbaries & otiosa solitudo illorum animis voluptatum omnium ac vitiorum genera miserabilis virtutum inscitia subjicit:^f) levitate quippe, & inconstantia, mendaciis, fraudibus, perfidia ac infamibus omnis libidinis curis turpissime exercentur, nequissime sanguinarii; nec enim imbelles satis est prostrasse, dum trucidatis multis etiamnum insultant telis & baculorum ictibus; ita durissima indole omnem eluctati humanitatem, in majorum feritate perseverant, furto deditissimi: alter enim alterius fraudulenter saepe ditatur pecore. Humaniores & mage casti fuerint Africani illi, qui tibi triumfale nomen imposuêre, Africane Scipio! magnum urbanitatis & castimoniae exemplar! Praeter flagitiosi luxus veternum luxuriosam sibi cudunt inertiam: quippe^g) agrum non exercent, nihil serentes, nihil metentes,^h) nunquam solliciti quid esuri vel bibituri? Ast naturae vi suis sordibus addicti jacent. Quare, si quis eorum famulitio uti velit, esurientes, nunquam saturos, mandare debet, nihil promittens, quod imposterum non praestet. Unde praematura senectus libidinosa, & ut plurimum enervia corpora occupat. Verum cum negligentissimi vel potius nulli, in observanda aetate sint, de diuturnitate vitae nil certi statui poterit: quicquid enim effraenis illis demit luxuries, coacta restaurat ex egestate temperantia, vegetabllium pabulo alitis. Namque num quidam ultra seculum superstites sint? dubitant nostrates. Atque hinccine antiquos vixisse diu? hallucinan-

f) Uti Hornius in Arca Mosis de Africanis testatus. (As Horn declares of the Africans in his Ark of Moses.) (I have not been able to consult Horn's book to see how much of Ten Rhyne's description is borrowed from him. B.F.)

g) Just. de iisdem ibidem. (Justin again.) (Agrum non exercent is an exact quotation. B.F.)

h) Ut volucres coeli, Matth. 6. (Like birds of the air. Matth. 6.) (Verse 26. It is surprising to find their obedience to Christ's command numbered among their worst sins. B.F.)

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Chap. XIV. Their Character.

Their native barbarism and idle desert life, together with a wretched ignorance of all virtues, imposes upon their minds every form of vicious pleasure. In faithlessness, inconstancy, lying, cheating, treachery, and infamous concern with every kind of lust they exercise their villainy. They are so bloody in their inclinations as to practise their cruelties even upon their vanquished enemies after their death, by striking their arrows and weapons into their dead carcases. Thus in the hardness of their hearts, resisting every impulse of humanity, they persist in the savagery of their fore-fathers. They are so addicted to theft, that one neighbour does not stick to enrich himself by stealing the cattle of another. Those Africans who gave you your triumphal name, O Scipio Africanus, lofty exemplar of culture and sainthood, must have been more humane, more chaste, than these. And in addition to their shameful indulgence in vice, they secure for themselves a luxurious idleness; they never till the soil, they sow nothing, they reap nothing, they take no heed what they shall eat or drink. But the force of nature keeps them absolutely subject to their squalid ways. Wherefore whoever wishes to employ them as slaves must keep them hungry, never fully satisfled, speak to them with authority, and never fail to be as good as his word.

A consequence of their way of life is that premature old age seizes their lustful and usually exhausted frames. But since they are very careless, or rather utterly indifferent, about recording their age, no certain statement can be made as to their average span of life. For the exhaustion produced by their unbridled lusts is compensated by the temperance to which their indigence compels them. Their diet is a vegetable one. Our countrymen dispute as to whether some of them have not outlived the century; and some speculate as to this being the reason for the great ages of men in antiquity.

Furthermore, from their tenderest years they have such an insatiable appetite for tobacco (infants of less than 8 months old can often be seen smoking), that, when they have the chance of living for ever free from the restraint of laws and slavery, they yet prefer servitude to going without tobacco, often slaving at the nod of a master the whole day in return for a scanty portion of the weed. So extravagant and insatiable is their desire for it.

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turⁱ⁾ aliqui. Hi porro tabacum ab unguiculis (nam octimestribus minores infantulos fumantes saepe numero videre est,) adeo enormiter appetunt, ut, ubi legibus servitioque soluti degunt perpetuo, servire tamen malint, quam tabaco egere, toto saepe die pro exigua Nicotianae herbae portione ad nutum heri famulantes, prodigi ac insatiabiles helluones. Feminae autem & parcius vivere, nec bubulam, nec lac dulce, ovillam quandoque gustare coguntur: hae enim adeo despectui illis sunt. Sed illorum ingeniosa gula est; quippe boni malive memoria mirabiliter pollent impavidae ad periculum mentes, suique securae, atque facto contentae suo; etjamsi extrema pauperie premantur, vel fertiliori grege abundent, semper iidem. Si tamen notorum aliquis vivat egenus, levi quadam commiserationis specie tanguntur (atque haec inter tot enormia vitia coruscat virtus) ovemque & vitulum pecoribus orbato impertiunt. In alias transire sententias, queis semel imbuti videntur, difficillimi.

^k) Aurum & argentum non perinde ac reliqui mortales, appetunt; quippe ibidem divitiarum cupido, ubi & usus. Imo in his plus saepe proficit vitiorum ignoratio, quam in aliis virtutis cognitio. Atque ita sub molliori coelo immania posse esse ingenia, patet.

i) Ut Beverovicius in thesaur. sanit. &c. aliique. (Beverovicius, for instance, in his Treasury of Health, and others.) (Joh. van Beweryck's Wercken der Genees-Konste, bestaende in den Schat der Gesontheyt, etc. Amsterdam, 1672. On page 8 we read: In dien tijt hadden sy noch een sake, die haer mede te langer dede leven, dewelcke ons nu veel ontbreekt; te weten, groote matigheydt in Spijs en Dranck, en van beyde luttel verscheydenheyt. B.F.)

k) Just. de Scythis (Justin on the Scythians.) (The whole passage from aurum to virtutis cognitio is taken, with only the slightest verbal alterations, from Justin. B.F.)

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The women live more sparingly; they are not allowed beef, nor fresh milk, but mutton occasionally. So much do they despise the women.

But gluttons as they are they are not without intelligence. Their minds are wonderfully powerful in remembering a kindness or an injury, fearless of danger, confident in themselves, and contented with their lot. Whether they are urged by dire poverty or blessed with a prosperous flock, they are always the same. But if one of the more distinguished should be living in want, they are touched by a slight feeling of pity (and in the setting of their enormous vices this virtue flashes like a jewel) and contribute a sheep or a calf to the man bereft of flocks and herds. When they have once formed an opinion they are very slow to change their minds. They do not covet gold or silver like other mortals; in truth the desire of riches exists only where they are in use; and ignorance of vice is often of more service among them than knowledge of virtue among other people. To sum up they afford a clear proof that even a mild climate can produce monstrous dispositions.

Among this savage and depraved people some are distinguished for shrewd and subtle understanding. I have spoken for instance with three Hottentot women: one, Aeva²⁴⁾, was a civil, modest body, of rational discourse, who, being pretty well acquainted with the Dutch and Portuguese tongues unfolded to me many secrets of her race; the second, Cornelia, having exchanged her impious ignorance of

24) This well-known figure of the early Cape settlement was a niece of the equally notorious Herry (see above, p. 17) and a sister-in-law of the Kochoqua chief Oedasoa. Her native name is given as Krotoa. She was taken into the service of the van Riebeeck family soon after the Dutch settled at the Cape, and there learned to speak Dutch so well that she was used not only as informant about her people, but also as an interpreter. In 1657 she was said to be ‘about 15 or 16 years old’. She was baptized soon after the arrival of Commander Wagenaar (1662) and married (June 5, 1664) to the explorer Pieter van Meerhoff, the Commander providing them with a bridal feast and promoting the bridegroom to the rank of surgeon. Her subsequent career disappointed all the hopes of the local officials, and is best summarized in the obituary record made in the official journal on her death, which took place the year after ten Rhyne's visit. The entry reads: ‘This day departed this life, a certain female Hottentoo, named Eva, long ago taken from the African brood in her tender childhood by the Hon: van Riebeeck, and educated in his house as well as brought to the knowledge of the Christian faith, and being thus transformed from a female Hottentoo almost into a Netherland woman, was married to a certain Chief Surgeon of this Residency, by whom she had three children still living, and some others which had died. Since his death however at Madagascar, she had brought forth as many illegitimate ones, and for the rest, led such an irregular life, that for a long while the desire would have existed of getting rid of her, had it not been for the hope of the conversion of this brutal aboriginal, which was always still hovering between. Hence in order not to be accused of tolerating her adulterous and debauched life, she had at various times been relegated to Robben Island, where, though she could obtain no drink, she abandoned herself to immorality. Pretended reformation induced the Authorities many times to call her back to the Cape, but as soon as she returned, she, like the dogs, always returned to her own vomit, so that finally she quenched the fire of her sensuality by death, affording a manifest example that nature, however closely and firmly muzzled by imprinted principles, nevertheless at its own time triumphing over all precepts, again rushes back to its inborn qualities’ (D., July 29, 1674). The entry for the following day tells us that ‘the body of the deceased Hottentoo, Eva, was, notwithstanding her unchristian life, buried to-day according to Christian usage in the church of the new Castle’.

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Inter hoc saevum corruptumque genus plerique vafra subtilitate pollent: Sic tribus Hottentotticis locutus sum feminis, alteri Aevae, quae urbana, casta, eloquens, Belgicam ac Lusitanicam satis accurate callens linguam, plurima gentis hujus mysteria mihi aperiebat; alteri Corneliae, impiam cultus ignorantiam Christianismo mutavit, nostrati quodam nupta chirurgo, culpandam agit vitam, saepius exul; tertiae^l) Sarae nomen fuit, quae desperabunda laqueo vitam finivit, quod quidam ex nostratibus ganeo, ut lascivlae liberius indulgeret, connubiale vinculum pollicitatus, promissis cecidisset.

l) De qua sup: quam amicus chirurgus dissecuerat. (Concerning whom see above. She was the one my friend the surgeon dissected.)

Cap. XV. De Moribus.

^m) Exleges hi Barbari & cacoetici Ethnici haec tantum, in quae caecus naturae impetus eos unice impellit, imitantur: eundem in sedendo, quem matrum uteris inclusi foetus, modum tenent, in genua caput, ulnis complexum, incurvantes. Muliebris sexus contemtui illis est. Mortuos triduano ejulatu deplorant, maribus feminisque defuncti casulam circumsedentibus. Cadaver effossa inhumant caverna, & lapide tegunt. Singulis libidinibus deditis, a posteriori placet Venus; femina viro altius collocata in latus, marito cubiculari incubante antro: sicque bestiarum more in mutuos ruunt amplexus.

m) Degeneres humani ritus inquit de Atlantibus Plin. lib. 5. c. 8. (Pliny in connexion with the Atlantes has described the ways of degraded humanity, bk. v. chap. 8.)

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religion for Christianity, married a Dutch surgeon, and now lives a scandalous life, having been often banished from the Fort²⁵⁾; the third was called Sarah, and she hanged herself in despair because a loose Dutchman, in order to have free enjoyment of her, promised her marriage but failed of his word²⁶⁾.

25) This must be the woman of whom Valentyn says (op. cit., 106): ‘In 1705 I spoke to an old Hottentot woman named Cornelia, who after living for many years in the home of the first Cape Commander, Heer van Riebeeck, went back again to her own people, where she still is. She spoke excellent Dutch, and apart from her native dress and animal skins was so civil and well mannered as to call forth astonishment. She then appeared to me somewhere between 80 and 90 years old, and could recall all the Cape governors by name.’ The description Ten Rhyne gives of her is more in keeping with the known reputation of Eva than of this woman, and I am inclined to believe that he has confused the two.

26) It is unfortunate for Ten Rhyne's reputation that he did not consult the official records before claiming to have met this woman. She committed suicide in December, 1671, almost two years before his arrival at the Cape! An inquest was duly held, but its report is unfortunately too long to be quoted here in full. It is reprinted in Moodie's Records, pp. 215-16, to which reference may be made by those curious to ascertain the contemporary attitude of the court towards suicides. The entry in the official journal omits most of the sermonizing reflections of the court, but is sufficiently interesting to justify reproduction: ‘This morning, very early, came to our ears that a certain Hottentot girl, about 24 years old, who had since her early childhood, been respectably educated here by civilised burghers, carefully taught the Dutch language, and trained in burgher manners, had, without our being able to discover any reasons, hanged herself in the sheep pen of a certain burgher by means of her 'cabaij' band. An inquest was held on the body by the Fiscal, in the presence of Commissioners, but no wounds were found on the body, so that she died from suffocation .... According to resolution of the Council, the body of the female Hottentoo was towards evening dragged by a donkey to the gallows, and there, as a loathing of such abominableness, placed with the head in a fork, and hanged between Heaven and Earth.’ (D., Dec. 18, 1671.) Three weeks later the Journal contains the following further entries: ‘Discovered this morning that the fork on which the female Hottentoo had been hanged had been taken down and fallen over. Careful inquiry failed to discover the author’ (Jan. 10, 1672). On the following day, ‘Towards evening, in order to carry out the sentence, the abovementioned female Hottentoo was again lifted on the fork.’ (Jan. 11, 1672.)

Chap. XV. Their Habits.

These lawless barbarians and immoral pagans practise only those habits to which a blind impulse of nature irresistibly impels them. They take the same position in sitting as a foetus enclosed in the mother's womb, bowing the head upon the knees and embracing it with the elbows. They despise the female sex. They mourn their dead with lamentations for three days, both men and women sitting round the hut of the deceased. They dig a grave to inter the corpse, and cover it with a stone. Abandoned as they are to every vice, they practice the rite of Venus a posteriori; the woman rests upon her side higher up than the man, while he reclines in the hollow that serves him for a bed. Thus after the fashion of the beasts they rush on their mutual embrace.

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Cap. XVI. De modo vivendi.

Natura quamvis ingluviem, desidiosa tamen egestas temperantiam edocet. Nunquam enim dubia illis mensa est; sed erutorumⁿ⁾ paludibus tumulisve^o) gladiorum (ex quorum foliis tecta casarum fabrefecere)^p) bulbis, loco panis, utuntur, feminarum industria effossis (illae enim viris pabulum conquirunt; hi ligella servant, & armenta secus bello inservientes) nisi singularem matrimonii, puerperii &c. offerat fortuna casum, tunc bovem vel saltem ovem mactantibus, instituendo ex amicis convivio, ni se praeda cujusdam ferae dederit. Praeterea multiformium^q) sedorum folia consumunt. Vaccarum oviumque pascuntur lacte; quod feminae statutis aurorae^*) crepusculisque momentis emulgent, & eleganti artificio in butyrum redigunt. Avem namque pelle exuunt, eamque invertunt, ut plumae interna spectent, hanc fistuloso applicant bacillo, atque ita concutiunt, ut in butyrosam ac^**) cerosam substantiam lac secernatur: illa caput illinunt; hanc potant, Caseum tamen conficere nesciunt, neque illo gaudent. Potus praeterquam aquae & lactis nullus est; nullosque nisi squammosos manducant pisces, non anguillas, non rajas &c. nec quicquid conchis nascitur ostreisve. Verum dulcissima quaedam^r) Bramae species est

n) Sunt enim, praeter indefinitas species, vel terrestres vel aquatici. (Over and above the various undefined species there is a division into terrestrial and aquatic varieties.)

o) Quorum varias species delineavi alibi. (I have illustrated the various species elsewhere.)

p) Belgicum vulgus vocat Hottentots broot. (Commonly called by the Dutch ‘Hottentot's bread’.)

q) Juxta Batavos wilde of Caepse vygen. (Called among the Dutch wild-figs or Cape-figs.)

*) Crepusculique. B.F.

**) Serosam. B.F.

r) Nostrates vocant Hottentots vis. (Our countrymen call it Hottentot's fish.)

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Chap. XVI. Means of Livelihood.

Nature has taught them gluttony, their slothful indigence teaches them temperance. They have no variety of food; from marshes and mounds they root up swordlilies; with the leaves of this plant they roof their huts, the bulbs they use for bread. These are dug up by the women, for it is the women who provide food for the men; the men look after the huts and the herds, or else are occupied in war. The only interruption to this diet is in the event of a marriage or a birth, when they slaughter an ox, or at least a sheep, to provide a feast for their friends, unless some wild animal should happen to be taken. They also eat the leaves of many kinds of sedum.²⁷⁾ They drink the milk of cows and sheep. The women do the milking at fixed times of dawn and dusk, and they make it into butter by an elegant process. They skin a bird, and turn the skin inside out so that the feathers are inside; they tie this to a hollow stick and shake it so that the milk is separated into butter and whey.²⁸⁾ With the butter they smear their heads; the whey they drink. They do not know how to make cheese, nor do they like it. They drink nothing except milk and water; they eat only fish with scales, not eels, nor rays, etc., nor any sort of shellfish or oysters.²⁹⁾ But there is a sort of very sweet bream with scales in which they take great delight.

27) Still commonly known in S. Africa as Hotnotsvyg (Hottentots fig) or sour fig (=Mesembrianthemum edule).

28) A more accurate description of the butter-making process is given by Grevenbroek (see below, p. 247) and by Schreyer, who says: ‘Die Milch schütten sie in einen ledern inwendig rauchen Sack, in welchen unten ein Löchlein, welches sie zubinden, alsdenn nehmen ihr zwey den Milch-Sack, ieder bey einen Ende, schütten und werffen die Milch so lang in einander, biss Butter wird, als denn lossen sie die Butter-Milch durch das Löchlein abfliessen, thun die Butter heraus, welche dann, wie leichtlich zuerachten, voll Haar ist, das einen davon eckelt; Ihnen aber eckelt nicht, denn sie können alles hinein essen, woran wir einen Eckel und abscheu haben’ (Reise nach dem Kaplande, reprint 1931, 46). [They shake the milk in a skin bag with the hairy surface turned inward. At the bottom is a small hole, which they bind fast. Two of them then take the milk-sack, each at one end, and shake it about vigorously until the milk turns into butter. Then they allow the whey to flow out through the hole, and take out the butter, which, as can easily be imagined, is full of hair, so that one fights shy of it, but this they do not mind, for they eat many a thing which we avoid.] The modern Hottentots employ a somewhat similar method of making butter, which they eat either fresh or dried with various edible plants (cf. Schapera, op. cit., 237).

29) This certainly does not apply to the ‘Strandlopers’, who ate all kinds of fish (see above, p. 57).

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squammosa, quâ impense delectantur. Tabacum infantes aeque ac senes, feminae ac mares, in maximis deliciis habent, ita ut quamvis suis invidiosi, fumantem tamen flstulam sociis per vices distribuant. Crescit in his oris^s) Ari Africani radix, tanta pollens acrimonia, ut linguam non modo adurat, sed & acerrime lancinet, venenis merito accensenda. Hanc Hottentotti coquendo mitigant (igne nocivum expellente sulfur, volatilem simul & acrem ligante salem) ut esui apta sit haec radix,^t) erinaceorum (qui hic mirae effigiei sunt,) dapes. Nonedulibus, veluti arefactis & pulverulentis pellibus (queis pro calceis saepe diu fuere usi) quin & excrementis, modo non solis, vescuntur incompositi omnes ad unum, etiam non excluso Rege, vilissima mendicabula, ut singuli ferè Nigritae sunt.

s) Alibi a me delineati. (Illustrated by me elsewhere.)

t) Quorum figuras alibi quoque dedi. (I have given drawings of these elsewhere.)

Cap. XVII. De Modo Bellandi.

Nihil est hac plaga infestius, ubi tempestatibus atrox coelum, saxeique montes incolarum ingeniis congenera sunt; unde asperae & in flagitia astutae mentes cum molli nostratium indole haud conveniunt, bellum levissima de causa suscipientes. Arma illis sunt praeter coriaceam lacernam (qua clypei loco utuntur) arcus & tela: Haec vel^u) projectoria, queis adeo accurate ad scopum collineare sciunt, ut ad quadraginta passuum distantiam, propositum offendant punctum, quosque prono jaciunt brachio; vel jaculatoria, quibus bipennibus magno nisu ad artem vibratis, hostes transverberant. Ea plerumque impuro veneno hunc in modum inflciunt: viperum aliudve infestum

u) Vulgo Assagayen.

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Infants and old persons, women and men are equally addicted to tobacco; and jealous though they are of what is their own, yet among companions they hand a lighted pipe around in turns. There grows in these shores a root of the African Arum, with such a pungent taste that it not only burns the tongue but sharply cuts it. It deserves to be classed among the poisons. The Hottentots mitigate the pungency by cooking (the fire expels the hurtful sulphur, and at the same time binds the volatile and biting salt) to make the plant fit for food; and it is a feast for hedge-hogs, which are here of a remarkable appearance. They also feed on quite inedible things, like dried and dusty skins (often such as have been long in use as shoes), and even on excrements, but always mixed with other things; for to a man they are without delicacy or niceness, not even excluding the king, miserable beggarly wretches, like almost all negroes.

Chap. XVII. Their Mode of War.

Nothing could be more unfriendly than this region, where the savage storms and stony mountains are matched by the character of the inhabitants. Their rough and cunning disposition sorts ill with the easy temper of our countrymen, and they resort to war upon the slightest cause. Their weapons are, in addition to a skin cloak which they use instead of a shield, the bow and javelins. These are either projectiles (i.e. hurled straight at the mark), commonly called assegais, which they can direct so accurately at a mark that they can hit a fixed point at a distance of forty paces, and which they fling with a downward motion of the arm; or else designed for carrying to a distance, in which case they are balanced by two wings, and being skilfully launched with great force fly and transfix the enemy. They usually imbue these weapons with poison in the following way: they irritate a viper or other noxious snake, then into the mouth of the angry creature they repeatedly plunge the tip of the weapon. They bind the creature to prevent the weapon from falling out, they enrage it to increase the strength of the poison, and then chop its head off.³⁰⁾ It is from maxillary glands that vipers spit

30) The use of poisoned weapons is more generally associated with the Bushmen, but there is sufficient evidence that the Hottentots also knew and practised it. Ten Rhyne's description of how the snake poison is applied need not be taken at its face value. A more reliable account is given in the descriptive notes to the plates accompanying the journal of van der Stel's journey to the Koperberg (1685-6). On one of the plates is figured a snake, called hamachou by the Hottentots (and rather doubtfully, and inaccurately, identified by Waterhouse as the mamba). The accompanying note says: ‘The natives set large traps for this snake and poison their arrows and assegais with its powerful venom. They first remove the skin from the upper jaw-bone, and disclose beneath it a small oblong bladder, full of little glands.... They first tie up the aforesaid bladder near to the tooth with a fine thread, in order to prevent the venom from escaping. Then when the bladder is dry they divide and smear the desired weapon with it’ (Waterhouse, Simon v.d. Stel's Journal, 164-5). Cf. also Schapera, op. cit., 129 ff.

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genus serpentum, irritant, iratae bestiolae osculo teli cuspidem iterato infigunt, ligata, ne excidat telum, irata, ut toxici vim exasperent, colla praescindunt: quippe ex maxillaribus vesicis viperae eructant virus (quod etsi innocue queat deglutiri, vulnerata mortificat) nostratibus crebro lethale: quo si illorum quisquam percutiatur, affectum locum baculo feriunt diu (& hoc praesentissimum veneno infectis hic remedium est) & fortiter^v) sugunt. Nostrates acuta eorem stratagemata saepius suo damno experti sunt. A^w) Leonibus, hic admodum frequentibus, edocti, ut nimbosa tempestate, quae nostra stlopeta corumpit, vires animumque minuit, dum illi scelera insidiis mandant, se senticetis, lentisque condentes arbustis, ex quibus tela promunt, ac hostes insequuntur, sicque superfuso imbre felicius, quam armis pugnant: verum in campestriis, coelo sereno pluries^x) clamore sublato fugam petunt, dllabentes in proximas silvas tumulosve paliuraeos, quaerendi ut vincantur feri & silvestres homines, sagittis formidabiles. Ast si ingens eorum copia exiguum e nostratibus manipulum obruat, invicta rabie & impetu, quem pro virtute Barbari habent, quibus horrendum jungunt boatum, hostes invadunt. Attamen nostratium stlopeta proximare vix ausi; quamvis inter se belligerantes pressissime semet appropinquent. Itaque quod de Insubribus Gallis^y) Florus reliquit praeconium, Hottentottis ad amussim competit. His animi ferarum (Annaei verba sunt) corpora plus quam humana sunt, sed experimento deprehensum est, quippe, sicut primus impetus eorum major quam virorum est, ita sequens minor quam feminarum. Montana corpora inter humentes educata nubes habent quiddam simile cum nivibus suis; quae mox caluere pugna, statim in sudorem eunt, & levi motu, quasi sole, laxantur.

v) vide infra.

w) quos Gamma vocant (which they call gamma.)

x) ut de Balearicis Barbaris Florus lib. 3. c. 8. (As Florus, bk. 3, chap. 8, says about the natives of the Balearic Islands.) (The passage will be found in Bk. I, chap. xliii of the Loeb edition. As usual, Ten Rhyne has pillaged it freely. The words of Florus are: ‘....clamore sublato petiverunt fuga litora, dilapsique in proximos tumulos quaerendi fuerunt ut vincerentur.’ B.F.)

y) lib. 2. cap. 4. de bello Gallico. (The long passage here taken verbally, with acknowledgement, will be found in the Loeb ed., Bk. I, chap 20. B.F.)

[p. t.o. 132]

Hottentot Dances and Musical Instruments.
(1. Gom-Gcm; 2. Rommelpot.)
[After Kolb.

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the poison that is so often fatal to our countrymen. The poison can be swallowed without doing harm; it is deadly in a wound. If natives are ever struck by this poison, they beat the injured place for a long time with a stick and suck it vigorously. This is the most ready remedy for those infected.³¹⁾

Our countrymen have often come off with heavy losses from encounters with the clever tactics of the natives. For the natives have learned from the lions, which are here very common³²⁾. In rainy weather, which puts our muskets out of action, and damps our strength and spirits, while they depend on cunning for their criminal success, the natives bestow themselves in thickets and tough undergrowths; then, producing their weapons, they fall upon the enemy, owing their success rather to the rain than to their arms. But in open places, and under a clear sky, they are more prone to raise a cry and take to flight; they slip off in all directions into the neighbouring woods and thorny hillocks, where they must be hunted down before they can be conquered, a formidable task with these wild, woodland creatures whose arrows are so dangerous.

But if a mighty host of them encounters a small company of our men, then they rush upon the enemy with the invincible ardour which barbarians mistake for valour, meantime shouting horribly. Yet they shrink from getting within range of the guns of our men, although when they fight among themselves they come to closest quarters. Thus the pronouncement that Florus made about the Insubrian Gauls finds a complete parallel in the Hottentots. They have the temper of wild animals (I am quoting the words of Florus) and bodies more than human. But it has been found by experience that as their ardour is at first fiercer than that of men, so it dwindles till it is feebler than that of women. The bodies of a mountain folk bred amidst moist clouds have a resemblance to their native snows: they warm at once to the battle, fall immediately into a sweat, and are dissolved by a slight effort, as if by the sun. But the flinty rocks and shuddering woods match their real fierceness. For the Hottentots hang about the mountains, scouring every part of them by night and day.

31) A further description is given below, p. 151.

32) A more rational explanation of these tactics is given by Dapper. See above, p. 13. Ten Rhyne's account of Hottentot fighting methods is on the whole borne out by the contemporary records, cf. e.g. D. July 25, 1673; Schapera, op. cit., 353 ff.

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Caeterum praeduri. cautes & horridae^a) silvae cum genuina eorum feritate consentiunt. Ut plurimum etjam circa montes pendent Hottentotti, noctu aeque ac interdiu singula explorantes^*. Praefectos militum nostro more Capitaneos appellant, qui quod ad vestitum, ab aliis solo nitore colobii, armis parum (nisi quod gregarii milites nodulatum in apice, praefecti, sine nodo baculum gladiorum vice, gestent) mandato & stipatorum numero plurimum discrepant, semper enim quinque sex pluresve ex senibus satellites comites habent Capitanei. Quiritum more, qui consilia senibus, juvenibus arma addicebant. Amplissimae Societatis hostis unicus nunc est Honnema cum suis: a quo paullo ante nostrum adventum, jussu Gubernatoris plus quam mille boum vaccarumque praeter ovium &c. praedam nacti sunt nostrates, qui inde animum cepere, brevi forsan in eosdem mittendi. Bini namque auxiliarium praefecti Cap. Claes & Cap. Cuyper, in hunc finem copias, nostris jungendas, congregabant. Hunc belli ritum tenent: Feminae legatorum vices obeunt, quae si capiantur, absque ullo pretio redimuntur.

a) ut de trucibus Thracibus idem lib. 3. cap. 4 (Florus. The reference in the Loeb ed. is Bk. I, chap. xxxviii. B.F.)

* Florus, Bk. I, 7. 15, of the Gauls who took Rome in 390 B.C. ‘Sex mensibus barbari - quis crederet - circa montem unum pependerunt, nec diebus modo, sed noctibus quoque omnia experti’. Thus even this little detail has its source in Florus and not in observation. B.F.

Cap. XVIII. De Modo negotiandi.

Cum eorum omnes in armentis divitiae constent, nullum, nisi de pecore cum hisce Barbaris commercium exercemus, idque hoc pacto. Mercaturae peritum, quandoque plures cum aliquot militibus ad eos delegat Gubernator nostras cum tabaci, vel^b) Virginiani, sed admodum parce (nam hunc nonnisi dono petunt) vel nigri ac vilioris (quem

b) Boubaes toebak illis dicti.

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Their officers they call, after our fashion, Captains.³³⁾ They differ from the rest, so far as dress is concerned, only in the splendour of their kaross. In arms the difference is very slight. The native equivalent of a sword is a club, and the common soldiers carry one with knots at the top, the officers one without. But the difference in authority and in the numerous body-guard is great: the captains always have five, six, or more of the older men to attend on them.³⁴⁾ In this way they resemble the ancient Romans, who entrusted counsel to age, arms to youth.

The Most Noble Society has now but one enemy, Honnema and his people.³⁵⁾ From him, shortly before my arrival, our men, at the Governor's instance, took a booty of more than 1,000 oxen and cows, not to mention sheep.³⁶⁾ By this they were greatly emboldened to face the probability of being soon again despatched against these people. The two auxiliary officers, Captain Claes and Captain Cuyper, collected forces to this end, wherewith to reinforce our men. In war the Hottentots use the following procedure: Women serve as ambassadors; if they are captured, they are restored without ransom.³⁷⁾

33) This term was introduced by the Dutch, who called the headman of every large Hottentot kraal ‘kapitein’ (a practice later adopted by the Hottentots themselves), and on entering into alliance with him gave him a copper-headed cane, which henceforth was regarded as a distinguishing badge of authority.

34) These men would be the council of elders who assisted the chief in governing the affairs of the tribe.

35) See above, p. 111.

36) This refers to the punitive expedition sent against Gonnema in July, 1673, which returned with a booty officially estimated at 800 cattle and 900 sheep. (D., July 25, 1673.)

37) In April 1677, the overseer of the Dutch outpost at Hottentots Holland reported that ‘several of the women of the hostile Gonnema tribe had come to the kraal of Captain Claas, to treat for peace’ (Moodie, Record, 349), which would seem to confirm Ten Rhyne's statement.

Chap. XVII. Mode of Buying and Selling.

Since all their riches consist in cattle we carry on no trade with these natives except in cattle. This is done in the following way:³⁸⁾ Our Governor sends to them one or more experienced traders, accompanied by a few soldiers, with a supply of tobacco, that is, Virginian (called by them boubaes tabak), in very small quantity, for they never ask

38) Ten Rhyne's account of the cattle-trade is supported in the main by the contemporary records, although it contains some details not found in the official documents.

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praestantiorem censent) coralliorum, ex vitro vel aere conflatorum copia, additis quibusdam adusti potus amphoris: (plerique enim οἰνόϕιλοι sunt) his itaque mercibus, boves, vaccas & oves, aliquando pantherarum &c. pelles ita commutant. Primo magnam tabaci portionem, duas plerumque spithamas longam, pro permutando bove vel ove exporrigunt, semper quoddam addentes^c) frustillum (secus se non obligari tenere contractum ex consuetudine censent) & saepe adusti vini portiunculam exposcunt. Tum pedetentim diminuenda Nicotianae herbae portio est ad summum quadruplo. In primo adventu, praesertim ad potentissimos Essequas (ad quos quotannis semel tantum emittit suos Gubernator, ut ex tanta temporis procrastinatione eo avidius tabacum &c. expetant: Tumque nostratibus e longinquo obviam eunt mercatoribus,^d) opimum conferentes vervecem) aliqua dictae plantae donatio fieri debet, quam talis vervecis munere compensant: hacque una vice centum ducentosve, praeter oves, boves mutare possunt nostrates. Sed cavendum, ne illi mercimonii copiam conspiciant, inde quandoque necis periculum nostris immineret; uti ab Essequas Regis fatre edocti ruere, qui, ni ipse senex Rex (cujus filius impraesentiarum regno potitus, patrem in amore nostri aemulatur) id impedivisset, omnes lucri caussa interfecisset. Singuli album nunquam commutabunt bovem, vaccamve (quem forsan ab Aegyptiis, qui sub imagine candidae vaccae Isidem coluere, in eadem orbis parte cum hisce viventibus hausere ritum) qui illis inaestimabilis dux gregis est. Quin summum illorum votum est; ut Magnus Capitaneus (Deum indigitant) album ipsis impertiatur bovem.

Solitae, quas hi Mercuriales viatores absolvunt, stationes ab Arce sunt 1. ad^e) Equitum excubias, ultra quas nullus nostratium fundus est. 2. ad^f) Antra: abhinc ad primum in^g) Hottentottica Hollandia, quae sub Augustissimae Societatis ditione est ultima, fluvium. 3. Trans altum in eadem montem. 4. ad^h) Flumen obscaenum. 5. adⁱ⁾ Tuguria alliaria. 6. ad^k) Flumen butyrosum. 7. ad^l) Fluvium ἀτελεύτητον. 8. Sextidui itinere ab Arce ad^m) Jacobi Ragens

c) Kortom nuncupant.

d) Etom schaep dicunt.

e) de ruyterwacht.

f) de kuylen.

g) Hottentots Holland.

h) Kaffenhuls rivier.

i) Knoflochs krallen.

k) Botter rivier.

l) Rivier sonder eynde.

m) Jacob Ragens boom.

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for this except as a gift, and black and cheaper stuff, which they think better; also of glass and bronze beads; and, in addition, a few jars of brandy, for most of the natives are great drinkers. For these goods they get in exchange oxen, cows, and sheep, sometimes panther skins, etc. At first the traders display a big portion of tobacco, generally about two spans long, for the ox or sheep that is to be exchanged, always adding a little bit (this they call kortom), otherwise the natives do not think themselves bound to keep the contract. The natives also often demand a tot of brandy. Then the portion of tobacco must be gradually reduced to at most one quarter.

On their first arrival, especially to the powerful Essequas - the Governor sends his men to them only once a year, so that by means of the long delay they may be the more eager for their tobacco, etc., and on these occasions they come a long distance to meet our traders, bringing with them a prime wether (they call it etom schaep) - a portion of the tobacco must be given as a present, for which their return is the gift of the wether. On an occasion like this as many as 100 or 200 oxen, in addition to sheep, may be acquired by our men. But care must be taken not to let them see the supply of merchandise; otherwise our men would be in instant peril of death. They were taught this lesson by the brother of the King of the Essequas, who, if the old king himself had not prevented it, would have killed them all for the sake of plunder.³⁹⁾ A son of the old king is at present on the throne, and rivals his father in his love for us. None of them will ever exchange a white ox or cow, which they look upon as an invaluable leader of the herd.⁴⁰⁾ This observance they perhaps adopted from the Egyptians, who worshipped Isis in the likeness of a white cow, and who inhabit the same quarter of the globe as they do. Their first prayer is that the Great Chief (for they pray to God) should send them a white ox.

The usual halts which these disciples of Mercury make on their journeys from the Fort are: (1) de Ruyterwacht, beyond which none of our people owns a farm; (2) de Kuylen, hence to the first river in Hottentots Holland, which is the limit of the control of the Noble Company; (3) across the lofty mountain in the same; (4) to Kaffenhuls

39) I have been unable to find any official account of this incident.

40) No other contemporary writer, as far as I am aware, mentions this special reverence for white cattle, nor is it found confirmed in the works of later authorities.

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arborem. 9. adⁿ⁾ casas anserinas. 10 ad^o) flumen latum. 11. ad paradisum, locum propter amoenitatem ita appellatum: ubi ex argillaceae terrae, aquas inquinantis, copia magna boni laticis inopia est. 12. Ultimo denique ad^p) concharum sinum, qui cxxxvi. circiter leucis a Propugnaculo distat.

n) de ganse krallen.

o) brede rivier.

p) Mossel-baey.

Cap. XIX. De modo saltandi.

Tripudiis, quae miris gesticulationibus exercent, summopere gaudere videntur: cum, si vel minimus in illis relligionis sensus sit, illam saltationis ritu maxime peragant. Quamprimum enim luna exsurgit, undique concurrunt. Mares prono corpore pedibus fortiter pulsant humum, unisono, sed vel remissione vel intentione, ejulatu boantes, vultu semper aeque gravi; ubi feminae circumsedentes maribus plaudunt canentes. Quod si forte in nostratium aedibus speculum offendant, ridiculo gargalismo animum titillant, propria cum Narcissa delectati forma, mimicis gestibus in effusos dissolvuntur saltus, ut saepe defessi prosternantur; sicuti saepius ab Hottentotto juvene, in nostro hospitio famulante, conspexi.

Cap. XX. De Relligione.

Barbara licet & plane brutalis haec natio, ut inter eas^q) gentes, quae legem etiamsi non habent, naturae quae legis sunt, faciunt, recenseri non possit exlex. Attamen summi cujusdam Entis vel leviculam - cognitionem habere videntur, saepe de supremo quodam Capitaneo memorans:

q) Roman. cap. 2.

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River;^* (5) to Knoflochs Krallen; (6) to Botter River; (7) to Rivier Sonder Eynde; (8) at six days' journey from the Fort, Jacob Ragen's Boom; (9) Ganse Krallen; (10) Brede River; (11) at Paradise, a place so called on account of its charm, where by reason of the prevalence of clayey soil which colours it, there is a scarcity of good water; (12) the last stage, to Mossel Bay, about 136 leucae distant from the Fort.

* I take this to be a mistake for Kafferkuils rivier. Mossop (V.R.S. 12, Appendix C) identifies Caffer Kuils rivier (doubtfully) with Palmiet Rivier in the Caledon district, which suits this passage. Mossop's notes to his translation of Schrijver's journey to the East (op. cit.) give the best information available on this whole itinerary. (B.F.)

Chap. XIX. Their Mode of Dancing.

They take the greatest delight in dancing, which they perform with astonishing gesticulations. If they have the least feeling for religion, it is in the observance of the dance that they most show it. As soon as the moon rises, they run together from all sides. The males, with their bodies leaning forward, stamp on the ground vigorously with their feet, lustily chanting in unison with rising and falling intensity, and with a fixed expression of seriousness on their faces; the women sit round in a circle clapping and singing.⁴¹⁾

If by chance they encounter a mirror in the houses of our countrymen, charmed like Narcissus by their own appearance, they express their amusement and delight by a ridiculous display, abandoning themselves to a wild pantomimic dance before the mirror until often they collapse with exhaustion. I have frequently observed this in the case of a Hottentot youth, a slave in the house where we lodged.

41) Most of the early writers on the Hottentots state that at new moon and at full moon the people spent the night in dancing, singing and merrymaking. None of them, however, declare explicitly that the Hottentots worshipped the moon, except for Kolb, who says that they looked on the Moon as their visible God, which they called Gounja, or ‘Great Chief’, and who gives the words of a prayer addressed to it. Roos and Marais, in 1763, also record an invocation to the moon. The evidence is on the whole very slight, but if taken in association with the fact that the allied Bushmen unquestionably prayed to the Moon, there seems no good reason to doubt that the Hòttentots also revered the earth's satellite, which figures so prominently too in their mythology. The question is discussed more fully by Schapera, op. cit., 375-6.

Chap. XX. Religion.

Though this nation is barbarous and brutish, yet, since it is numbered among those peoples who though they have not the law yet do the things that are of the law of nature, it cannot be regarded as being utterly lawless. They seem even to have some slight knowledge of a supreme being, since they often speak of a Great Chief; for when the

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ubi enim corrugat aeris frontem spissius coelum, ut tonitrua mugiant, vel frendentia rutilent fulmina, fulgurave praemicent, inquiunt illi, summus ille iratus est Capitaneus. Tum ubi quis ex illorum amicis in bellis a nostris conflcitur, atque superstitum aliquis ejusdem necis intentatur minis, haec corrupto Belgicismo affatur: Dat is doet: Was makom? Duytsman altyt kallom: Icke Hottentots doot makom: Mashy doot, Icke strack nae onse grote Kapiteyn toe, die man my soon witte Boeba geme. Quae ita verbotenus donantur latio: Age! quid facitis? Belgae semper ajunt; Ego interficiam Hottentottos; Eja occidite! Ego si moriar, statim ad summum nostrum Capitaneum proficiscar. Vir ille memet albis donabit bobus. Hi quippe sacra armentorum ornamenta illis habentur: ubi vero serenus micat aether, dicunt: Bravas com Kapiteyn, die Kapiteyn ons van witte boeba geme; h.e. Optimus est ille Capitaneus, albis qui nos impertiet bobus. Sed haec fortuito pronunciant rogati. Ast ordinarius eorum cultus cum omnibus fere antiquis gentilibus, quarum primi in ea sententia fuere Aegyptii, in hoc convenire videntur, ut^r) Solem & Lunam pro Diis suis habeant. Soli hunc cultum deferunt:^s) illum orientem occidentemque dira imprecatione contuentur; quandoque ad fluvium considunt ex proxima argilla totos glomulorum cumulos conficientes, quos magno cum-strepitu in aquam projectant, idque, ut illi praetexunt, in Solis honorem. Lunam vero, ut dictum saltando venerantur.

r) videatur Plato in Cratylo &c. (See Plato, Cratylus, etc.)

s) ut Plinius lib. 5. cap. 8 de Atlantibus. (As Pliny, bk. 5, chap. 8, says about the Atlantes.) (His words are: ‘solem orientem occidentemque dira imprecatione contuentur’. B.F.)

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Heaven thickens and gathers its airy brows into a frown so that the thunder peals or the red bolt falls crashing down or lightnings flash, then they say the Great Chief is angry.⁴²⁾ Or if one of their friends is killed in battle by our men, and one of the survivors is threatened with the same death, in broken Dutch he cries out: ‘Dat is doet: Was makom? Duytsman altyt kallom: Icke Hottentots doot makom: Mashy doot, Icke strack nae onse groote Kapiteyn toe, die man my soon witte Boeba geme.’ Which words may be thus rendered: ‘Come! What are you doing? Dutchmen always say: I will kill Hottentots. Well, kill! If I die, I shall go straight to our Great Chief. He will give me white oxen.’ These they regard as sacred ornaments of their herds.

But when the sun shines clear, they say: ‘Bravas com Kapiteyn, die Kapiteyn ons van witte boeba geme.’ That is, ‘Great is that Chief who will give us white oxen.’ But these words they pronounce perhaps only when asked. Their ordinary worship seems to agree with almost all the pagans of antiquity, among whom the Egyptians were the first to adopt the opinion that the Sun and Moon are gods. To the Sun they offer this worship, that at his rising and setting they gaze on him with dreadful cursings⁴³⁾. Sometimes they sit down by a river and from the nearest clay they make whole mounds of little balls which, with a great noise, they hurl into the water: this they allege they do in honour of the sun. The moon, as has been said, they worship by dancing.

42) Similar statements are made by such reliable authorities as Valentyn and Hahn. The former speaks of the ‘Supreme Ruler’ Khourrou (i.e. ! Gurub, the thunder) and of the ‘Great Chief’ or ‘God’ Thukwa or Thik-qua (i.e. Tsui-‖ Goab), ‘who dwells on high, and to whom they showed respect, especially during great storms of thunder and lightning ...saying, if it thunders, the Great God is angry with us.’ Almost verbally the same was said to Hahn by an old Nama man: ‘The people say, if it is thundering, the Lord is speaking; he is scolding them.’ (Quoted by Schapera, op. cit., 381.)

43) Hahn quotes from Saar (1671) the following statement: ‘One does not know what kind of religion they have, but early, when the day dawns, they assemble and take each other by the hands and dance, and call out in their language towards the heavens,’ upon which he comments: ‘This is nothing else but the Tsui-‖ goab worship’ (Tsuni-‖ goam, pp. 40, 92); adding further on (op. cit., 124) ‘when the day dawns the Khoikhoi go and pray, with the face turned towards the East: “Oh, Tsu ‖ goa, All-Father”’. In the light of this evidence, it is apparent that Ten Rhyne is mistaken in regarding the ‘worship’ he records as directed towards the sun; its object is rather Tsui-‖ goab, the creator, the guardian of health, the source of prosperity and abundance, and above all the controller of the rain and its associated phenomena of clouds, thunder, and lightning. (Cf. Schapera, op. cit., 376 ff.)

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Cap. XXI. De Magistratu.

Quilibet casularum viculus suum Praefectum, & ille plerumque superiorem, quos uno nomine Capitaneos vocant, agnoscunt. Essequas, tamen, sed soli, Regem habent. Juxta horum magnatum placita gubernantur omnia; ita ut subjecti nil magni suopte praestare ausint, ad nutum Capitanei semper paratissimi. Migrandum cum est, a Praefectis monentur; inire matrimonium cum volunt, a Capitaneo libertatem petere coguntur, summa cum observatione dicto ejus obedientes.

Cap. XXII. De Jure gentium.

Quamvis non Numinis neve pudoris vinculis adstricti sua se lege exsolvant,^t) sibi ipsis saepe sunt lex, ea quae fecere majores, caeco impulsu, consuetudine magistra, imitantes. Ita si gemellos pariat mater, masculum & femellam, hanc jure gentis occidunt in cunis. In eo fere tantum a Scythis dissimiles, quod hi in Amazonum regno mares interfecerint; dissimiles in eo priscis in Africa^u) Carthaginensibus, qui vivos praesertim pueros, & innoxiam aetatem Saturno sacrificabant. Omnes vero quotquot nascuntur masculi alterutro castrantur statim a navitate testiculo; ne in frugifera terra, plures, quam alere possit, incolas recipiat; atque ut illi addunt, quo tanto velocius possint currere.

t) Roman, eod. cap.

u) ut de Scythis Justin. (Bk. II, 4, 10: Si qui mares nascerentur, interficiebant. Bk. II, 2, 5: Iustitia gentis ingeniis culta, non legibus. B.F.)

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Chap. XXI. The Magistrate.

Every little collection of huts recognizes its own chief, and the chief generally recognizes a superior, and all are called by the one name Captain. The Essequas, but only they, have a king. The whole government rests on these Magistrates; the subjects venture on nothing of importance on their own initiative, but are always ready to obey the Captain's nod. When they are to move the word is given by the Chief. If they wish to enter upon matrimony, they must obtain the permission of the Chief, obeying his word with complete submission.

Chap. XXI. The Law of Nations.

Although, being bound neither by the bonds of God nor of shame, they absolve themselves from law, yet they are often a law to themselves, imitating by blind impulse, under the teaching of dame custom, those things which their fathers before them did. Thus, if a mother bears twins, a male and a female, by the law of their race they kill the latter in the cradle⁴⁴⁾. In this their only point of difference from the Scythians is that they, in the kingdom of the Amazons, killed the males; while they differ from the Carthaginians who early inhabited Africa, in that they sacrificed living boys for preference, and in their innocent childhood, to Saturn.

All the males that are born are immediately at birth deprived of one testicle, so that their barren land may not receive more inhabitants than it can nourish, and, as they add by way of further explanation, so that they may be able to run the more quickly⁴⁵⁾.

44) Grevenbroek describes this custom somewhat more fully. See below, p. 181.

45) Many of the early writers on the Hottentots mention this practice, some saying that it was done in early childhood, others that it was a puberty rite, and still others that it was performed upon a youth before his marriage. Kolb actually gives a minute description of the rite and claims to have repeatedly made a personal examination of the victims themselves. Maxwell, more soberly, says: ‘Being inquisitive to know the truth of this I had the curiosity to search several of 'em (who will readily suffer you for a double stiver to do it), in two of which I could find but one testicle, they I suppose being married, as the rest who had two were not; which however shows the mistake of Nieuhoff and others who assert that the Hottentots cut out one of the testicles of all their male children as soon as they are born (according to Nieuhoff) or at the age of 9 or 10 years (according to others), and that forsooth to make them the more swift and nimble; but how that fancy should come into their heads I cannot tell.’ (V.R. Soc. 5, 51). Later writers all emphatically deny the existence of this practice, especially Fritsch, perhaps the most careful observer of the bodily characters of the Cape Hottentots. He maintains that Kolb [and also Maxwell] may have been deceived by the wellknown fact that in both Hottentots and Bushmen the scrotum is often drawn up close to and just under the root of the penis, and appears to contain only one testicle, the other not having descended into the scrotal sac (op. cit., 333-4). This observation may well account for the early statements that the Hottentots were monorchs.

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Uxoribus, quot habuere viros, tot digitorum articuli a primo minimi digiti incipiendo abscinduntur. Polygamiae, Muhammedorum more, indulgent.^u) Industria^* gentis hujus ingeniis culta, non legibus. Sola vindicta illis est homicidii poena; ubi trucidati cujuscunque consanguinei percussorem persequuntur; neque quiescunt, nisi ultionem fecerint; repertumque itaque fustibus caedunt, telisve transverberant, occisum multis etiamnum ictibus ferientes. Caetera, sive adulterium, sive furtum, vitia non nisi talionis lege puniunt. Denique id sibi peculiare habent: si juvenis inter eos aegrotat, pinguem mactant bovem, futuri delicias convivii, atque, quae maxima opima sunt, exta cum omento aegrotantis collo appendunt, usquedum putrefacta decidunt, quae senex quisquam devorare debet. In successionibus haereditarium jus apud eos, praesertim apud Essequas, valet.

u) ut de Scythis Justin. (Bk. II, 4, 10: Si qui mares nascerentur, interficiebant. Bk. II, 2, 5: Iustitia gentis ingeniis culta, non legibus. B.F.)

* I feel sure industria is a mistake for iustitia. Ten Rhyne in this sentence is simply transcribing Justin. See note^u), p. 142.
B.F.

Cap. XXIII. De Matrimonio.

Conjugium inire volentes suos parentes sollicitant, llli Praefectos, ut sibi integrum sit, ducere virginem; etsi nunquam, nisi bajulum, ad minimum unum, bovem, transportando cum suppellectili tugurio, unam alteramve lactariam vaccam, emulgendo lacti, ovesque decem vel duodecim, celebrandis sponsalibus repotiisve &c. possideant. Qui vero locupletiores, Turcarum ritu polygamiam exercent: atque iis si connubium non arriserit, nubtam

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Their wives have one finger joint, beginning from the first of the little finger, cut off for every man they have⁴⁶⁾. Like the Mohammedans the Hottentots indulge in polygamy. The justice of the people is administered according to their natural impulses, not regulated by law. The only punishment is that for homicide. In this event all the relatives of the dead man pursue the slayer; they do not rest till they have exacted vengeance. When they find the guilty man, they club him to death, or transfix him with spears, and continue to inflict blows upon him when already dead. Other offences, whether adultery or theft, they punish only by the lex talionis⁴⁷⁾. Finally, they have this peculiar custom: if a young man among them falls ill, they slaughter a fat ox, which will shortly furnish a delicious feast; and round the neck of the invalid they hang the largest of the internal organs, together with the omentum, and leave them there till they fall off rotten, when they must be eaten by the old men⁴⁸⁾. In the matter of succession the law of inheritance prevails among them, especially among the Essequas.

46) This form of mutilation has already been discussed, see above, p. 63.

47) Blood vengeance, ‖ Kharab, for the death of a near relative was a sacred duty to the Hottentots, down till within fairly recent times. Killing in such a case was no crime, and neither the chief nor the council had the right to intervene and punish the avenger for his act (ef. discussion in Schapera, op cit., 345-6).

48) The treatment of sick people is described more fully by Grevenbroek, see below, p. 243. A similar observation to that of Ten Rhyne was recorded in 1710 by Commissary Cnoll, who learned from some Hottentots, near the present Houw Hoek, that ‘in case of the very worst diseases, it is their custom to place a sheep on the ground, and to cut from it from time to time, in the presence of the patient, a piece of meat, which is given to the healthy persons. This meat is placed on the fire for a short time and consumed half raw, while the patient is vigorously smeared all over with the warm fat, torn out of a living sheep. In addition, the entrails of the beast are hung round the patient's neck, the treatment they believe will effect a speedy cure’ (V.R. Soc. 5, 85). This rite (of which Ten Rhyne's description is but fragmentary), was not restricted to young men, as his statement would seem to imply, but was performed on all very sick people. His remark about the old men having to eat the rotten entrails which fell away from the neck of the patient is a ridiculous fantasy.

Chap. XXIII. Marriage.

When they wish to embark on marriage they approach their parents, who then approach the chief, so that they may have full permission to marry a maiden. But they never do this unless they possess at least one draught-ox, for removing the hut with its furniture, one or two milch cows, and ten or twelve sheep to celebrate the betrothal or the bringing home of the bride, etc. But those who are richer practise polygamy in the manner of the Turks; and

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repudiant, faciuntque divortium. Nubtiarum solennia haec sunt: Bovem, binasve tresve, quandoque plures, jugulant oves, carnem excoriatam & tantillum aeri expositam cum propria pecudis adipe in dictis ollis excoquunt, intestina sub cineribus assant, atque apparatis epulis necessarios invitant, & opponunt haec bellaria, suo se oblectantes more.

Cap. XXIV. De liberorum educatione.

In puerperis facilis laboris naturalia vincula dextre satis ligare ac solvere norunt; ubi vero difficilis partus forte ingruit, adhibent quandam mirandae efficaciae plantam, foetum commode expellentem; quam nullo pretio ab illis sive per me sive per alios, redimere potui: id enim communicare lege prohibitum esse, regerebant. Puerperae non diu latent; liberos sine ordine & inconcinne admodum educant barbarae matres; postquam per duas aut tres hebdomadas in mapalibus retinuerint eosdem, nullis unquam fasciis involutos, dorso appendunt suo; quadriestribus paullo majores fumare petum,^* octimestres pedibus incedere, colobio tunc donandos, mihi ratum fecit quinquennis hujus regionis hospes; octennes novennesque tractare arma, arcum etjam & tela; ubi parentes cibum saepius eminus collocant, ad quem toties collineare debent, donec eundem inveniant, famem tamdiu perferre coacti.

* Petum is unknown to me. B.F.

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if the marriage does not turn out satisfactorily, they put the woman away and make a divorce. Marriages are solemnized in the following way: they kill an ox, two or three or sometimes more sheep, then they skin the carcases and having exposed them for a little to the air they cook them with the animal's own fat in the pots we have mentioned; the innards they roast beneath the ashes, and when the feast has been prepared they summon their kin and set these dainties before them, enjoying themselves in their own way⁴⁹⁾.

49) The marriage feast did not constitute the marriage ceremony, as Ten Rhyne's remarks would seem to imply. Grevenbroek gives a more adequate description, see below, p. 201.

Chap. XXIV. The Education of the Children.

If a woman is in easy childbed they are sufficiently skilful in binding and severing nature's links; but when a difficult labour sets in, they invoke the aid of a plant of wonderful efficiency, which happily expels the foetus⁵⁰⁾. I could not succeed in purchasing this plant at any price either directly or through others. Their reply always was that they are forbidden by law to share it. Women who have had a child are not long in retirement⁵¹⁾. They bring their children up without any regularity or niceness, as you would expect from savages. After keeping them two or three weeks in the huts, they then sling them on their backs without any swaddling bands whatever. At a little more than four months old they begin to smoke and at eight months to walk upright, at which time they are given a kaross, according to information given me by one who had resided five years in the place. When they are eight or nine they begin to handle arms, both the bow and spears. Their parents often place their food at a distance; at this they must keep on aiming till they hit it, being compelled meantime to go on fasting⁵²⁾.

50) The modern half-breed Hottentots of Little Namaqualand use Mesembrianthemum edule, stamped and given as a pulp, in cases of delayed labour or retained afterbirth; and Euphorbia restituta for tedious labour. (Schapera, op. cit., 412.)

51) The period of seclusion, according to Grevenbroek (see below, p. 203) was at least eight days.

52) This Spartan training is not confirmed by other writers. Ten Rhyne's statement that Hottentot infants four months old are taught to smoke is exceeded only by Tavernier's fantastic tale that ‘as soon as a male is born his mother partially castrates him, and gives him sea-water to drink, and tobacco to eat’! (op. cit., 392).

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Cap. XXV. De Artificiis.

Quot in hara gemmas, tot in hoc degenere populo reperias artes. Cum tamen acu consutas gestent pelles, non tamen ἄτεχνοι sint oportet; acus ex ferro (fodinas quippe habent, ubi^* ego harliolor, locupletissimas) vel ebore, bestiarum nervis pro filamentis utuntur. Tum quoniam capillos acutis artificiose radunt cultris; ut praeter sartoriam & tonsoriam quoque calleant^v) ferrariam artem. Inde ϕιλαυτίας quadam prurigine lacessiti sibi placent, rudes equidem & expertes artium, nisi sordidarum. Ita ex eorum Capitaneis quisquam horologium contemplatus, & a possessore intelligens ejus usum, ajebat: quidni & Hottentotti simile conficerent? quidam instrumentum musicum, effigie & usu fistulae fabricant, eodemque ludunt. Sunt etiam qui Leucanthropian^** somniant. Hinc quoque flstula canendo pisces aucupari ominantur.

* uti. B.F.

v) uti Americani ex aeruginoso ferro cultros acumine nostris praeferendos conficiunt. (The Americans make out of rusty iron razors to be preferred to ours in sharpness.)

** An incorrect transliteration of the Greek λυϰανθρῳπία. B.F.

Cap. XXVI. De ratione faciendi medicinam.

Si a brutis multos curandi modos didicerit humanum genus;^w) A canibus ἐμετήρια; ab^x) ibide, Aegyptia volucri, clysmata; ab^y) hippopotamo (in his sat frequens locis) phlebotomiam;^a) a capris dictamni;^b) ab hirundinibus chelidoniae; ab anguibus feniculi; a^c) bufonibus angustifoliae plantaginis; a mustela rutae; a ciconia origani; ab apris hederae; a cervis cinarae praestantiam;^d) ὅτι ἀληθὴς ἐστι, τούτων διδάσϰαλον εἶναι τὴν ϕύσιν. Quid itaque mirum, si & hae gentes tametsi brutales, quandam medendi rationem habeant? quae veluti in^e) Trojano bello Podalirius

w) Teste Plinio. (See Pliny.) (Bk. viii, chap. 26, ff. B.F.)

x) Plutarch, de Brutorum solertia. (Plutarch on Intelligence in Animals.)

y) Cicer. lib. 2 de nat. Deor. (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, bk. 2, 126.)

a) testimonia ejusdam qui tamen capras Cretenses recenset. (Cicero in the same passage with reference to Cretan goats.)

b) Aelian, lib. 4 c. 49. (Aelian, bk. iv, chap. 49.)

c) Helmont, de pestis xenexto (sic).

d) Plutarch, in dial. brut. (Plutarch on Intelligence in Animals.)

e) vide Homerum. (See Homer, Iliad.)

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Chap. XXV. Arts and Crafts.

You might as well look for jewels in a sty as for arts in this degraded people. Since however they wear skins sewn together with the needle, they cannot be absolutely said to be without arts and crafts. Their needles are of iron (for they have mines and, as I guess, very rich ones) or of ivory, and for thread they use the sinews of animals. They shave their hair skilfully with sharp razors, whence it follows that they are acquainted not only with the tailor's and the barber's craft, but also with that of the smith.

Hence they are provoked to a certain flattering conceit of themselves, although in truth they are rude creatures with no tincture of any arts except the humblest. Thus one of their chiefs gazing at a watch, and instructed by the owner in the use of it, said: ‘Why should not the Hottentots also make ones as good?’ Some manufacture and play a musical instrument with the appearance and function of a flute⁵³⁾. Some pretend to the use of magic and would have it that they can catch fish by playing on the flute⁵⁴⁾.

53) This may possibly refer to the reed pipes of the Hottentots, already described by Dapper. See above, p. 35.

54) I can find no confirmation for this statement.

Chap. XXVI. Their medical practices.

It is claimed that the human race has learned many methods of healing from the brute creation: for instance, emetics from dogs; from the ibis, an Egyptian bird, the use of the clyster; from the hippopotamus, common in these parts, phlebotomy; from goats, the excellence of dittany; from swallows that of chelidony; from snakes of fennel; from toads of the narrow-leaved plantain; from the weasel of rue; from the stork of wild marjoram; from boars of ivy; from stags of the artichoke; for it is true that nature is the teacher of all these. Why, then, should we be surprised if these peoples, brutish though they be, have some method of healing? Like Podalirius and Machaon in the Trojan war who did not so much apply their remedies in pestilence or in every sort of disease, but were accustomed especially to treat wounds, as Celsus says. Thus suction and anointing are the chief, nay, the only remedies of the Hottentots, for all they fear is

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atque Machaon, non tam in pestilentia, omnibusve morborum generibus auxilium adferunt, vulneribus praesertim mederi soliti^f) Celsi verba sunt. Suctio & inunctio remedia Hottentottorum primaria, quin universalia sunt, bestiarum telorumque venena tantum formidantium: quibus si iciantur, laesam partem tamdiu bacillo tundunt, donec sensu privetur; tum scarificant, atque ita vehementer sugunt, ut sanguinem pene cutis sequantur. Hic tamen curandi modus (quem ad efficacem suam chirurgiam referat Severinus) pro veneni diversitate cum pulsationis diuturnitate, tum suctionis efficacia differt: quippe Scorpio non tam alta, quae quidem millepeda, toxici vestigia relinquit; ille etenim his in locis^g) non ita venenatus est. Si ejus cauda paullo supra spiculum fortius comprimatur, limpidissimam guttulam adunco sensim emittit aculeo, nisi forte paullo ante ferierit, nostratibus apibus paullo nocentior, ac veneni vim tardius recuperans, quo si quis percutiatur, putat se lapide tangi. Millipeda vero caustica ferocia virus imprimit. De viperis diximus^h) supra. Si mali moris sit vulnus, levissimae etjam gangrenae indicium acutis telorum cuspidibus resecant, & si late serpserit, infectum omne tollunt. Contusionibus omnibus illinendo (ovilla vel bovina adipe, nec enim aliud unguenti genus noverunt) tum scarificando, tandem fortissime sugendo, ut cruor cum cute solvatur, medentur. Arthritin eadem methodo tollunt, nisi quod inunctum^* adipe partem igni obtendant, ut, si subopimae partes sint, pinguedinem assando, extorqueant, ilico suctioni incumbentes. Praeter ea paucissima cognoscunt ex vegetabilium classe medicamina, sed electa; quae ut jam memini, nullo ab ipsis

f) in Prooem. lib I. (In the preface to bk. I.)

g) longe minus quam in Hispania, Italia vel Gallia. (Far less so than in Spain, Italy or France.)

h) de modo bellandi. (See the chapter on Their Mode of War.)

* inunctam. B.F.

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the poison of wild animals or of weapons. If they are wounded they beat the injured part with a stick until it is deprived of feeling, then they scarify it, and then suck so vigorously that the skin almost comes off with the blood.⁵⁵⁾ This method of cure, however, (which Severinus^* compares with his own effective surgery) differs, according to the various poisons, both in the length of time for which the beating must be carried on and in the efficacy of the sucking. The scorpion, for instance, does not leave the traces of his poison so deep as the millipede. Indeed the scorpion in these parts is not so poisonous. If you press his tail hard a little above the sting, he gradually emits a clear little drop on the barbed end of the sting, unless he happens to have struck a little time before. He is but little more injurious than our bees at home; he is slow in recovering the force of his poison; one that is stung by him thinks that he has got a knock from a stone. But the millipede with burning ferocity presses his poison home. Of the vipers we have spoken above.

If the wound is a bad one, they cut away the slightest sign of gangrene with the sharp points of their weapons, and if it has spread far, they remove the whole of the infected part. All bruises they treat by anointing them either with sheep or cow fat, for they know no other kind of unguent, then by scarifying them, and finally by vigorous sucking, so that the blood and the skin are removed. They get rid of rheumatism in the same way, the only difference being that they expose the part anointed with fat to the fire, in order that, if the affected parts are plump, they may by roasting the flesh drive the rheumatism out. Immediately on toasting the part they fall to at the sucking.

Apart from this they know a very few vegetable remedies, but choice ones; and, as I have said, these cannot be got from them for love or money. Accordingly we must suppose those persons to be themselves deceived or to be deceiving

55) There is an interesting confirmation of this statement in van Riebeeck's Dagverhaal. On Feb. 20, 1657, van R. called at Herry's camp, where he found that ‘a Hottentoo had been stung by an adder in his foot, which was much swollen; he had the leg under the knee tightly bound in two places, and on the foot small incisions were made as the cuppers are accustomed to do; the foot itself was placed in hot cowdung; a man and a woman were sucking the blood from the cuts, spitting it out on the cowdung, and pulling away as heartily as a child at it mother's breast.’ Ten Rhyne's description of the Hottentot medical practices is on the whole borne out by Grevenbroek and other reliable authorities.

* Marcus Aurelius Severinus (1580-1656), an Italian physician, was the author of numerous works on medical subjects.

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pretio redimere potui. Quapropter falluntur & fallunt, qui se a mendacibus, & quae norunt, corde prementibus Hottentottis multa intellexisse jactant. Colicam aromatica quadam radice confestim curant. Subigunt & Daturae quandam speciem, ut opinor, Dacha vocant illi, quam accurate pinsunt, pistam, conglobatam & exsiccatam comedunt (ut plerique Muhamedanorum Amsion sive opium) eoque enormiter inebriantur. Recens natorum infantium umbilicalia vasa pressius ligant, non resecant, tandem sponte decidentia. Singula haec a quadam Hottentottica accepi, ab aliis praeter ea nihil rescire potens.

Cap. XXVII. De Lingua eorundem.

Si quis eos loquentes auscultet, reviviscere Pythagorae aevum dixerit, in quo aves mutuo sermonis consortio polluisse fingebantur. Quippe reveraⁱ⁾ stridor non vox est, si Hottentottorum expressionem expendas: nam quodvis vocabulum stridulo linguae (sonoro applicita^* palato) clangore finitur. Hinc haud perperam quis opinetur, hanc linguae ad palatum crepitationem vocalium vim exprimere, caeteras autem vocum copulas ex alto pectore producunt, pleraque orbiculatis labiis pronunciantes. Adeo ut cum aliis gentibus omni orationis commercio careant; neque ex tanto temporis intervallo e nostratibus repertus sit aliquis, qui perfecte cum ipsis colloqui potuerit: nisi illi, qui dudum prope fortalitium vitam transegere, nostratibus se accommodent, plurima Belgica vocabula, sola terminatione diversa callentes. Omnia ferme finiunt in Kom, ut tabaqkom, tabacum, kortom, portiuncula, horom, audire, &c.

i) Jul. de Atlantibus Plin. ibidem.

* Applicitae. B.F.

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others, who boast that they have learned many things from the Hottentots. For in the first place the Hottentots lie, and, in the second, they are determined to keep their secret remedies to themselvs. They cure colic quickly by a certain aromatic root.⁵⁶⁾ They employ also a certain species of Datura, as I think, called dacha.⁵⁷⁾ This they bray carefully, and after braying, make it into balls and eat it, as many Mahomedans do with Amsion or opium. It makes them monstrous drunk.

The umbilical cord of a new born infant they tie firmly, but do not cut back. The cord falls off by itself after a time.⁵⁸⁾ These details I learned from a certain Hottentot woman. I could get no further information from any source.

56) The Hottentots of Little Namaqualand use decoctions of Eriocephalus Umbellatatus or of the powdered and boiled root of Royena pallens for this purpose (Schapera, op. cit., 411).

57) On dagga (the leaves of leonotis leonurus), see above, p. 40.

58) Kolb likewise says that the umbilical cord is bound with a piece of sheep's sinew until it falls off; the modern Hottentots tie it half-way with a thread of sinew or wood fibre, then cut it through above the knot, and leave the part attached to the baby to fall away by itself (Schapera, op. cit., 264, 262).

Chap. XXVII. Their Language.

If one listens to them talking, one supposes the age of Pythagoras to have returned, in which birds were fabled to have enjoyed mutual converse in speech. In sober truth it is noise, not speech, if one attends to the mode of expression of the Hottentots; for every single word is finished by a noisy click of the tongue against the echoing palate. One would not be wrong in saying that this clicking of the tongue against the palate is the main element in the sounds, but that the linking of the sounds is fetched up from their deep chests, their lips being generally rounded. The result is that they are bereft of all interchange of speech with other races; nor after all this lapse of time can one of our countrymen be found who can converse perfectly with them. Those Hottentots, however, who have lived long in the neighbourhood of the Fort, adapt themselves to our countrymen, acquiring many Dutch terms, of which they modify the terminations. They end nearly all their borrowed words in -kom: as tabaqkom, tobacco; kortom, a little piece; horom, to hear, etc. Their vernacular does not contain many roots, but the words are enriched with affixes.

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Quae vero ipsis vernaculae sunt in radicibus non permultae, in epithetis locupletiores sunt voces: ita omnes quotquot sunt aves Courcour appellant; addendo V.G. Camma Courcour, avis aquatica, sive sit anas, sive mergus, sive gavia, &c. Sickom (corruptus Belgicismus, qui ipsis familiarissimus) courcour, avis foetus; Grotom (eadem corruptio) courcour, magna avis, qua tamen ordinario struthiocamelum indigitant. Quaedam etjam ex pristino cum populis commercio Anglica suae linguae vocabula miscent; V.G. Canem vocant Doggues.

Mere Hottentottonica, quae obiter occurrunt, sunt:

Onkey, belga.	Chou, aer.
Gamma, leo.	Ecy, ignis.
Acqua, equus.	Kou, tonitru.
Ouka, lupus.	Doudou, via.
Nabba, rhinoceros.	Ey, corallia ex vitro.
Goedi, oves.	Ninimos, eadem ex aere.
Boeba, bos vel vacca.	Equa, lignum.
Debitja, juvenci.	Kiny, baculus belligerus.
Sirigoos, testudines.	Sou, olla.
Dacha, herba soporifera.	Bouchou, plantarum cineres.
Dini, mel.

Corrupta Belgica indeflnita sunt.

Boe maakem goet, pulvis pyrius.

Boebasibier, lac. Karos, colobium.

Krallen, Casae &c. innumera.

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Thus all birds whatsoever are called courcour,⁵⁹⁾ with the addition of particular names, e.g. camma courcour, an aquatic bird, be it duck, or diver, or albatross, etc.; sickom courcour, a young bird, sickom being, as often with them, a corruption of a Dutch word; grotom (a similar corruption) courcour, a big bird, by which, however, they generally mean the ostrich. They also mingle a few English terms in their language from their former dealings with that people, e.g. the word doggues for dog.

Pure Hottentot words in general use are: -⁶⁰⁾

Onkey, Dutchman.	chou, air.
gamma, lion.	Ecy, fire.
acqua, horse.	kou, thunder.
ouka, wolf.	doudou, road.
nabba, rhinoceros.	ey, glass bead.
goedi, sheep.	ninimos, bronze bead.
boeba, ox or cow.	equa, wood.
debitja, steers.	kiny, war club.
sirigoos, tortoises.	sou, pot.
dacha, soporific herb.	bouchou, plant ashes.
dini, honey.

Corrupt Dutch words are numberless:

Boe maakem goet, gunpowder; boebasibier, milk; karos, a wrap; krallen, huts; and others too numerous to mention.

59) Both Wreede (ca. 1663) and Kolb (1719), in their vocabularies of the Cape Hottentot language, give a variety of different names in use for different species of birds (these vocabularies are reprinted by Godée-Molsbergen, op. cit., i, 215ff.), so that Ten Rhyne's observation is obviously incorrect.

60) Ten Rhyne's list of words, like other early vocabularies, omits the clicks and the sex endings. It is of interest to compare some of his renderings with those given for the same words by Wreede and Kolb for the Cape Hottentot language, and by Meinhof for Korana, which is a closely-allied language.

	Wreede.	Kolb.	Meinhof.
lion	TGamma	Chamma	xammi
horse	hacqua	hacqua	hab (pl. haku)
wolf (hyena)	Ouck'ha	touqva	| hukhab
rhinoceros	tnabba	nabba	! nabas
sheep	goudie	ghoudie	gus
ox, cow	dwiessa	bubaa	gomab, -s
thunder	quô	quaouw	! urub
wood	equa	hequa	-
honey	-	-	danis
war club, stick	-	Kirri	-
pot	-	-	sub

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Numerandi vocabula.

Cui, unus. Tem, duo. Nona, tria. Acka, quatuor. Corro, quinque. Guichi, sex, &c.

Quae aliorum additamentis multiplicant semper easdem, alterius copula, voces usurpantes: quas si ab illis nostratium quis intelligat, calamo non posse describi dixerit, adeo mirabilis eorum pronunciatio est.

Auctore.

Wilhelmo ten Rhyne.

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Numerals.

Cui, one; tem, two; nona, three; acka, four; corro, five; guichi, six, etc.⁶¹⁾

They multiply these by the addition of others, always employing the same words, but linked to another. But if any of our countrymen understands these words when the Hottentots use them, he is certain to say that they cannot be recorded by the pen, so extraordinary is their pronunciation.

Written by

William ten Rhyne.

61) This list may be compared with the following: -

Witsen (1691) (Cape Hots.). 1. K'qui. 2. K'kam. 3. K'ouna. 4. Hacka. 5. Kro. 6. Nanni. 10. Guissi.

Kolb. (1719) (Cape Hots.). 1. G'kui. 2. K'kam. 3. K'ouna. 4. Hakka. 5. Koro. 6. Nanni. 10. Gyssi.

Hahn (1875) (Nama). 1. | kui. 2. | kam. 3. !nona. 4. haga. 5. gore. 6. ! nani. 10. disi.

Meinhof (1930) (Korana). 1. | ui. 2. | am. 3. ! nona. 4. haka. 5. goro. 6. ! nani. 10. tjisi.

Ten Rhyne's word for ‘six’, guichi, obviously should be for ‘ten’; otherwise his list agrees fairly well with the rest.