408 HITTITES IN AFRICA. 



It is interesting- to compare this with the position of social 

 and even political equality held by women among the Hittites. 

 Men and women are represented as sitting down together to the 

 ceremonial feasts, and to the treaties of the Hittites was affixed 

 the seal of the queen, the great lady of the land, as well as that 

 of the great king. 



A study of the languages might throw some light upon this 

 question, but of this I am not competent to speak. I do not wish 

 to be guilty of a philology like that of a gentleman whom I once 

 heard explaining that " Saku bona " meant good morning, and 

 arguing from this that there was a relationship between Zulu 

 and Latin ; but it seems to me curious to find Bleek stating, on 

 the authority of Von Klaporth, that clicks are found in certain 

 Circassian dialects, especially when one considers that one of the 

 possible clues to the interpretation of Etruscan lies in the fact 

 that there appear to be resemblances between Etruscan and some 

 of these Circassian dialects. 



A name of the Hottentots for the deity (viz., Heitsi-eibib) 

 also, reminds one of Tessub or Tisebu, the Hittite Storm and 

 Sky God, who is represented with the lightning in his hand and 

 standing on the back of a bull, and we have the statement of 

 Lucian in " De dea Syria" that the chief god of Hierapolis was 

 supported on a bull. Considerable progress has been made in 

 recent years, in the decipherment of Hittite inscriptions, but 

 what light this decipherment has so far thrown on the nature, the 

 structure of the language, I am unable to say. The Hittite lan- 

 g-uage, so far as I know, is neither Aryan nor Semitic, and is, to 

 some extent at any rate, agglutinative in structure. The Hot- 

 tentot language, which stands by itself among African dialects, is 

 agglutinative with some traces of inflexion, and in some recent 

 articles Mr. Van Oordt has shown that there are many resem- 

 blances between Hottentot and Mongolian roots. When one 

 considers this and the Mongolian type found among the Hotten- 

 tots, the Mongolian appearance of the Hittites and the proba- 

 bility of their early connection with the peoples of Central Asia, 

 one is tempted to surmise that it was by this channel that pos- 

 sible Mongolian blood and Mongolian speech reached South 

 Africa. 



My impression of the whole matter, and it is an impression 

 only, is that from very remote times gold was obtained from the 

 coast of South-East Africa by traders, possibly at first by Sabaean 

 y\rabians and subsequently by Phoenicians, that the Hittites learn- 

 ing this sent expeditions to penetrate into and explore the country 

 and exploit the gold mines. At that time I think it probable that 

 there were comparatively few Bantu south of the Zambesi, but 

 that they were even at that time endeavouring to settle there and 

 were only kept back by the Hittite military organisation and 

 system of fortifications. I think it probable that on the disintegra- 

 tion and subsequent submergence of the Hittite empire, the 

 Hittites remaining in the country and their half-breed descend- 

 ants, from whom the Hottentots are probably derived, continued 

 to mine for gold and to dispose of the gold they won to 



