210 SOUTHERN AFRICA. 



Supposing this assertion correct, such ignorance, whicll 

 must have sprung from profound and stupid apathy, could 

 not form any high authority on a subject so abstruse. But 

 the fact itself, as in evej-y similar case, has vanished before 

 the light of more accurate observation. The Hottentot had 

 neither temples, images, nor the pomp of a regular priest- 

 hood ; but he believed in a supreme good Being, whom he 

 viewed with distant adoration, and also in a little deformed 

 and malignant power, whom he sought to pacify by gifts 

 and sacrifices. He had the usual superstitions of unen- 

 lightened men, hailing the new and full moon not only by 

 offerings, but by shouts, cries, and dances, prolonged 

 throughout the night. He attached a sacred character to 

 certain woods, hills, and rivers, which he supposed haunted 

 by departed friends or by the spirits of the ancient heroes 

 of his tribe. Lastly, to come to the very lowest, the Hot- 

 tentots had a little shining beetle which they had exalted 

 almost into a deity. 



About the close of the last century, Southern Africa ex- 

 cited a particular interest among the lovers of natural his- 

 tory, from the brilliancy of its floral productions, and from 

 those remarkable forms of the animal kingdom, which, 

 though generally diffused over that continent, could be 

 most safely and easily studied in the vicinity of the Cape. 

 In 1778, Captain Henry Hope, who, under the authority 

 of the Dutch government, had penetrated into the interior 

 of the colony with a caravan of eighty-nine persons, pub- 

 lished at Amsterdam a work containing plates of the giraffe 

 or camelopard, the zebra, the hippopotamus, the gnu, and 

 other animals then almost unknown in Europe. Soon 

 after, the whole region was carefully surveyed by two emi- 

 nent naturalists, first Sparrman, and then Le Vaillant, — 

 the one distinguished by sound sense and accurate observa- 

 tion, the other by the splendid colouring which he suc- 

 ceeded in throwing over the narrative of his personal ad- 

 ventures. These travellers viewed with admiration the 

 elegant forms of the giraffe and the zebra, the light shape 

 and bright eye of the spring-bok, the most beautiful of an- 

 telopes, and of which herds were seen covering these de- 

 sert plains as far as the eye could reach. They were 

 struck also with tlie odd shapes of the gnu and the quagga, 

 combining as it were, the most opposite natures. Sparr- 



