316 ABORIGINES OF EASTERN PROVINCE. 



terms very different from tlie rest. In some cantons these are 

 called Chinese Hottentots, because their complexion resembles the 

 Chinese seen at the Cape. Like them, too, they are of a middling 

 stature." 



He describes tliem as " a particular race of Hottentots," 

 and their former home Camdeboo, the Bockeveld and the 

 Eoog-eveld, and at that time ranging- the vast space between 

 Cal¥raria and the country of tlie Great Xamaquais. From 

 Sparrman's account it is clear that Bushmen of this type were 

 originally numerous between the two Fish Rivers. Writing' 

 from Ag-ter Bruintjes Hoogte, he says: — 



" Not far from here lived the Chinese or Snese Hottentots, 

 whose chief resort is on each side of the two Fish Rivers. Many 

 of them had been good serviceable slaves." 



He saw remains of their habitations between the two Fish 

 Rivers. 



" Another and more considerable part of this yellow-skinned 

 nation is dispersed over a tract of country eleven days' journey in 

 breadth, and situated more to the north than to the north-east of 

 the Fish Rivers, near a river called Zonio (Tsomo), where some 

 of them ai'e said to be occupied in the grazing and rearing of cattle. 

 The rivers running through the country of the Snese-Hottontots 

 are t'Kamsi-t kay (White kei), t'Nu-t'. kai (Black Kei), Little 

 Zomo and Great Zomo." 



In the Sneeuwberg'en, north of Camdeboo, the Bushmen 

 were still very numerous towards the end of the eighteenth 

 century. Barrow tells us that tlie Bosjesmans, known in the 

 colony as Chinese or Cineeze Hottentots, are " amongst the 

 ugliest of human beings." The horde or kraal consisted of 

 five-and-twenty huts, each made of a small grass mat bent 

 into a semicircle and fastened down between two sticks, open 

 before, but closed behind with a second mat; they were about 

 three feet high and four feet Avide. Their domestic arts were 

 reduced to a minimum. They had woven grass mats and fish 

 baskets, but apparently no pottery, and Burchell also made no 

 mention of earthenware utensils in his account of Bi^^^^-^^en. 

 This seems remarkable in view of the fact that coarse potteiy 

 is so frequently found in " Bushman " caves. However, we 

 learn from Arbousset that the Bushwomen of Basutoland did 

 make pottery, and the available evidence seems to indicate that 

 whilst the potter's art was unknown to the primitive inland 

 Bushmen, they readily adopted it under Hottentot or Kaffir 

 influence (vide Miss M. Wilman). 



Kaffirs. 



During' the seventeenth century, the Kaffirs had not 

 advanced so far west of the Great Fish River. The Xosas,* 

 were known to be in the neigdibourhood of East London by 

 the j^ear 1686, and in 1702 a band of Kaffirs had actualh' 



* For a good account of Bantu migrations, see a paper by 

 W. Hammond Tooke on the " Geographical Distribution of Hottentot 

 and Bantu in South Africa " (Records, Albany Museum, vol. ii, 1913). 



