Miscellaneous Intelligence. 219 



features they can find. There are some spontaneous productions of tlir 

 earth, of the bulbous kind, which they also eat; particularly the catnip, 

 -vhith is as large as a child's head, and the baroo, about the size of an apple. 

 There arc also some little herries which are eatable, and which the women 

 so out to gather ; but the men are too idle to do this. 



The Boschemen frequently forsake their aged relations, when removing 

 from place to place for the sake of hunting. In this case they leave the old 

 person with a piece of meat, and an ostrich egg-shell full of water : as soon 

 us this little stock is exhausted, the poor deserted creature must perish by 

 hunger, or become the prey of the wild beasts. Many of these wild Hot- 

 tentots live by plunder and murder, and are guilty of the most horrid and 

 atrocious actions.— Transactions of the Missionary Society, vol. 2. p. 8. 



Home Colonization.— The number of persons supported under the Home 

 Colonization System in Holland is stated to amount to nearly 20,000, and 

 this great good has been mainly effected by the benevolent zeal and inde- 

 fatigable exertion of one individual within a period of ten or eleven years. 

 This individual is Major-General Van den Bosch. In the course of military 

 service, he was quartered for a considerable time in the Island of Java, 

 where he purchased an estate, and applied himself to the business of farm- 

 ing. It happened that a number of Chinese emigrants, under the superin- 

 tendence of the mandarin Tjan-hoeck, an experienced agriculturist, settled 

 near him. General Van den Bosch soon perceived, that, with all his care, 

 the crops of his Chinese neighbours always far exceeded his own, and he 

 was induced to enter into partnership with Tjan-hoeck, in order to become 

 acquainted with his mode of cultivation, and avail himself of its advantages ; 

 by this means he so improved his estate as to be enabled to sell it for six 

 times its original cost when he returned to Europe. The General has since 

 published two works on the subject of Home Colonies ; the first on the prac- 

 ticability of instituting, in the most advantageous manner, a general pauper 

 establishment in the kingdom of the Netherlands, in which he explains the 

 experiments and the processes tried and adopted by his Chinese friend in 

 Java ; and the second, in 1822, on the modes of proceeding introduced by 

 him into the great colony of Frederiks-Oord. which ought to be the hand- 

 buch or manual of all future founders of "colonies at home."— "The King 

 of the Netherland," says Air. Jacob, "was occupied, in 1817, with an exten- 

 sive plan for bringing into productive cultivation an extensive district of 

 waste between Maestricht and Breda. His attention was drawn to the com- 

 munication of General Van den Bosch, and his patronage was extended to 

 the infant project. A public meeting was held at the Hague in the begin- 

 ning of 1818, when the Society of Beneficence was formed. When the laws 

 of the Society had received the sanction of the King, a public communica- 

 tion was made, and the governors of provinces, with the military and civil 

 heads of departments, and other local authorities, were invited to aid the 

 institution by becoming members of it, with the addition of all other bene- 

 volent persons who were disposed to do so. By these means more than 

 20,000 individuals were added to the Society, and subscriptions collected 

 amounting to upwards of £ 5830 sterling. The Society, when satisfied that 

 the funds at their disposal would be sufficient to warrant their proceeding 

 with the experiment they had projected, purchased the estate of the Wester- 

 bech Sloot, near the town of Steenwyk, on the confines of the three provinces 

 of Friesland, Overyssel, and Dreuthe. The estate contained somewhat more 

 than 1200 English statute acres of heath-land, about one-sixth of which had 

 been converted into fields, or was covered with bad wood. This estate cost 

 £4660 sterling. A small stream, the Aa, which runs through it, was made 

 navigable for boats; buildings for a store, a school, a spinning-house, and 

 dwellings for fifty-two families, consisting from six to eight individuals each, 

 were speedily erected. The communes sent some indigent families to 

 occupy the houses, who ceased from that time to be a burden on them. All 

 these operations were commenced early in September, 1818, and on the 10th 

 November following, the colonists entered upon their new habitations, 

 flic following estimate of the expense of the outfit of each family was made 

 before Frednks-Oord was begun to be settled, and by a fundamental 

 of the Society, the estimate cannot be permitted in am case to bi 

 eded: — 



