CAFFRES CALCUTTA. 



337 



hands. Unprincipled war has degenerated into ra- 

 pine on a smaller scale, rapine into robbery, robbery 

 into larceny, and the habit thus acquired, particu- 

 larly if deemed honourable, could not fail of being 

 finally exercised with considerably less discrimina- 

 tion as to subjects, than might have been the 

 honest intention in the outset. The African tribes 

 generally, it may be noticed, have credit among 

 travellers for no small share of this disordered ac- 

 quisitiveness, and it is no where so rife as with 

 those nations which have suffered most from the 

 slave-trade. Crime, like disease, is contagious. 



The government of the Caffres resembles that 

 of the North American natives, and indeed that of 

 most of the African tribes. It is ostensibly demo- 

 cratic, and substantially despotic, respectively in 

 the highest degree ; the personal superiority of the 

 chiefs, and the advantage they derive from tradi- 

 tionary authority, being for the most part sufficient 

 to enable them to treat their subjects with the 

 most unqualified, though only customary, severity 

 of discipline or imposition, as the case may be. 

 By personal superiority, we mean simply such quali- 

 fications as create personal influence among such 

 barbarians as the Caffres. The principal ones are 

 energy and cunning. 



The degradation of the female sex is considered 

 by Dr Robertson the characteristic of the savage 

 in all countries. If the degree of it fairly indicate 

 that of the grossness of his barbarism, the Caffres 

 must be low indeed in the human scale. No where 

 are women, as such, such perfect slaves ; no where 

 are they so much used as mere chattels. Even the 

 building devolves on them, as well as the digging, 

 sowing, planting and reaping. The common price 

 of a bride, is from five to ten head of cattle, though 

 one of high birth, as the term is, much as in 

 civilized countries we speak of the descendant of 

 a famous horse, will bring five or six times that 

 amount. After marriage comes endless drudgery, 

 till the woman is fortunate enough either to be worn 

 out with her slavery, or to be left a widow. In- 

 deed, the tyranny of custom follows her even be- 

 yond that of her husband, for not only is she com- 

 pelled, on his decease, to retire alone into the wil- 

 derness for a considerable time, under pretext of 

 mourning, whatever the season or her condition 

 may be, but, the only dowry allotted her from 

 his property is a new garment from the hide of one 

 of his oxen. Even the husband's hut is destroyed, 

 so that the first care of the widow, on her return, 

 must be to erect a new one, as usual, with her own 

 hands. That the Caffre women, under all these 

 circumstances, are able to maintain a reputation 

 rather superior to that of savages generally, for 

 vivacity of manners, is a marvel worthy of study. 

 The triumph of nature, however, over man, does 

 not last through life. Even the personal beauty of 

 the young is here, as among the Western Africans 

 described by Major Laing, pretty soon changed into 

 even " disgusting ugliness." 



All savages are more or less belligerent, and per- 

 haps the South Africans, though less bloodthirsty 

 than many other nations, are as much as any in this 

 respect the victims of custom and circumstances. 

 Their neighbours on all sides are barbarous like 

 themselves, valuing their cattle as dearly, and as 

 ready to fight for them, in defence or in depreda- 

 tion, excepting only the frontier population of the 

 European colony. The character of this frontier 

 population may be known from its name. It is bad 

 enough every where, enough effectually to pre- 



vent the civilization of any conterminous people, . 

 but here, the very beau ideal of bastard barbarism. 

 The Caffres and the Dutch boors, the latter ex- 

 tremely ignorant and rude, remote from the super, 

 vision of even the colonial government, and living 

 in the most scattered manner conceivable, have 

 always been tugging at each others' throats. Un- 

 fortunately, the English, although only thirty-five 

 years in possession of the colony, have during that 

 short period outstripped, in their horrible oppression 

 of the natives, even the cold-blooded cruelties of the 

 Dutch boors of the last century. No British tra- 

 veller has denied this, so far as we know, and most 

 of them confirm it in explicit terms. Among these 

 may be named Thompson, Barrow, Pringle, Dr 

 Philip, and the Rev. Stephen Kay. Lieutenant 

 Rose, in his Four Years in South Africa, states 

 that official orders have been issued, " that all Caf- 

 fres appearing within the proclaimed line should be 

 shot." Again, " the crime was individual, but the 

 punishment general ; the duty of the commanders 

 was to destroy, to burn the habitations, and to 

 seize the cattle ; and they did their duty." " I hate 

 the policy that turns the English soldier into the 

 cold-blooded butcher of the unresisting native" &c. 

 Such, is the testimony of an officer for some time 

 stationed on the Caffre frontier, and officially cog- 

 nizant of the transactions he thus describes. 



CALCUTTA. (a.) An account showing the 

 total amount of the import and export trade of Cal- 

 cutta in 1836-37, and 1837-38; showing also the 

 amount of the trade with each country, and the 

 proportion per cent, which the trade with each 

 country bears to the total amount of the trade 

 Bell's Review of the Commerce of Bengal for 

 1836-37 and 1837-38. 



IMPORT TRADE. 



