AIJOEIGINES OF EASTERN PROVINCE. 811 



distinction between Bushmen and Hottentots : to him the 

 Bushman was merely a wilder kind of Hottentot. Certain 

 Chonacquas met by the same traveller during- an earlier journey 

 were actually reg-arded by him as " Boshmens," He wrote of 

 them thus : — ■ 



" In one of my excursions I fell in with a party of these 

 savages. They were armed with bows and arrows, and the captain 

 who was with them had a hassagai or spear in his hand, and heavy 

 ivory rings on his right arm. On my return to the farmer's house 

 I found them to be of the tribe of Chonacaquas." 



The best account of the Gonaqua is tliat g-iven by 

 Le Vaillant, who in 1781 found them living- not far from Kok's 

 Kraal on the Great Fish Eiver. It Avas there he met the 

 Hottentot beauty, Narina. According- to this author, they 

 diUered from the ordinary Hottentots, several of whom accom- 

 panied liini in his travels, " by the darkness of their 

 complexions, their noses Avere not so flat, they were much taller 

 and better proportioned, and, in a word, had a more agreeable 

 appearance and deportment." Referring* to the cousin of 

 Narina, he wrote: — ^" His features were at once manly and 

 pleasing', his height and form unexceptionable ; he was alto- 

 gether the handsomest savag*e I had ever seen." He was 

 convinced that tJie Gonaquais must have been originally " the 

 produce of those two nations (Caft'res and Hottentots)." They 

 possessed "prodigious quantities" of fat-tailed slieep, goats 

 and oxen, whereas the Cahres who lived on the other side of the 

 Great Fisli Eiver had only cattle and dogs, and Bushmen only 

 dogs. They had both assegais and poisoned arrows. But "bow 

 and arrows are the natural and proper arms of the Hottentots," 

 and " of Assegais, the Gonaquais and all other Hottentots 

 never caiTy more than one." " The only furniture I saw in the 

 country, except their mats and skins, was some very brittle 

 earthenware. Their pottery is chiefly useful in melting* the 

 fat oi tlieir animals." Milk was kei)t in finely woven baskets. 

 They made karosses of calf skins. Their dwelling'-places were 

 huts like those of Hottentots at the Cape, and arranged in half- 

 circles; there were strongly fenced kraals for the cattle. They 

 were not agriculturists in any sense. There was no division of 

 labour amongst the men, no priests and no physicians; there 

 was a chief, but his office was not hereditary. They were 

 musical people, possessing the " goura," a peculiar stringed- 

 wind instrument, the " rabouquin," a kind of guitar, and the 

 " romelpot," a tom-tom. 



During his journey from the kSundays Eiver to the neigh- 

 bourhood of Somerset Fjast and the Great Fish Eiver. Lp 

 Yaillant met no other tribes than Gonaqua. He writes : " All 

 this country is inhabited by hoords of Gona(|uais who differ 

 essentially from the Hottentots of the colonies." Eoving bands 

 of Caft'res were reported to be a continual menace, and the 

 elusive Boshismen were heard of, but he actually met neither. 

 The total population liad been greatly reduced by the small- 

 pox epidemic, and probably to greater extent through Kaffir 

 wars, and thus the Gonaqua were by this time but a small 



