432 CATTLE AS AN ECONOMIC FACTOR IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



the side of the white races, and led to the infliction of great in- 

 justices upon the Hottentots. They in their turn (with much 

 less enlightenment) were not beyond reproach, and in the ultimate 

 result it is not too much to say that this bartering of cattle was 

 in a real and direct sense the beginning of serious political 

 troubles, and led at first to a change in the manner of life of 

 whole tribes who by despoliation were, as we have already seen, 

 driven to dwell in the woods and live by hunting. Eventually the 

 virtual extermination of the Hottentots is referable to this same 

 factor, for the Hottentots were assailed by the Kaffirs as well 

 as by the Avhite men, and it needed only a serious epidemic follow 

 ing upon years of raiding and death to complete the work of 

 destruction. It has been put on record by one who made many 

 journeys more than one hundred years later than Ten Rhyne, into 

 "the country of the Hottentots and Caffraria" in the years 

 1777, 1778, 1779, that this state of affairs was then obtaining, as 

 indeed we know it did obtain all through the years. Lieut. Wm. 

 Paterson, in the narrative he published in 1790, i^age 85. tells us: 



" It is not very uncommon for the Caffres and Chonacqua.s 

 to quarrel, which generally ends in an engagement. In thefe 

 encounters feveral hundreds of the Caffres fometimes unite 

 to oppofe their enemies, who very feldom bring a propor- 

 tionable force into the field. But the dexterity with which 

 the Hottentots ufe their bows and arrows, and the practice of 

 poifoning the latter, render them very dangerous enemies to 

 those who only use the Haffagai. The difputes between 

 thefe people generally originate about cattle, of which both 

 nations are extremely avaricious." 



Summing uj) the position then, we find that the trials and 

 triumphs of the Hottentot races were inextricably associated with 

 the cattle factor — a factor which, being an instrument of com- 

 merce as well as an inducement to war, operated in Ijoth the 

 spheres of peace and war, and in the end of the day cannot but 

 be regarded in the light of actual fact as being largely responsible 

 for the extermination of the race. 



(c) THE BANTU 



were the third race with which the early voyagers came into 

 contact. Healthy and vigorous and prolific, they were of a quite 

 different type to the other aborigines. Agriculture was practised 

 — by the women. Witchcraft held a central place in the tribal 

 life, and great numbers were put to death on charges of sorcery, 

 in consequence. 



The men spent their time in hunting, or in raiding the neigh- 

 bouring cattle folds. Indeed, in nearly all cases the tribal feuds, 

 and wars, were directly traceable to this factor ; some neighbour- 

 ing tribe had specially good cattle upon which envious eyes were 

 cast, and the growing temptation culminated in a night raid with 

 the capture of cattle — and then endless rounds of reprisals and 

 counter reprisals. Indeed before going out to war it was quite 



