BARROW. 211 



man's hunts were not very successful : he gave chase re- 

 peatedly to the gnu ; but that animal, by its swift bounds, 

 eluded pursuit. Herds of zebras were seen only at a dis- 

 tance ; and of all the hippopotami which he attacked, he 

 could carry off only one, three weeks old. He made a full 

 examination, however, of the rhinoceros and the quagga, 

 and brought to Europe the first precise account of that 

 wonderful and destructive insect, the termes or white ant. 

 Le Vaillant, more fortunate, conveyed to France the skin 

 of the giraffe, as well as that of a full-grown hippopo- 

 tamus. He brought also a rich collection of birds, and 

 many specimens of those beautiful and flowering shrubs 

 which spring up only amid the sands of the African desert. 



Mr. Barrow, who, in 1797, while private secretary to 

 Lord Macartney, made a tour through the Cape territory, 

 communicated more important information than any of his 

 predecessors, and exhibited for the first time a view of the 

 social condition of this remote colony. He found the Hot- 

 tentots reduced almost universally to the condition of 

 slaves, not transferable indeed, but attached to the soil, and 

 not on that account the better treated. Frequent use is 

 made of a heavy leathern thong, the lashes inflicted with 

 which are measured not by number but time. Connecting 

 this punishment with his favourite luxury, the Dutchman 

 orders the flogging of the culprit to continue while he him- 

 self smokes a certain number of pipes. Even when a Hot- 

 tentot engages for hire, the children born during this pe- 

 riod of service are destined to become slaves. Nothing, in 

 short, can more fully prove the cruel treatment of this un- 

 fortunate race, than the fact, that they do not keep up their 

 numbers, but are gradually disappearing : at present there 

 are not supposed to be more than 15,000 in the colony. 

 The few kraals of independent Hottentots, which still re- 

 main on its outer border, may perhaps amount to 10,000. 



The Dutch planters or boors occupy lots of considerable 

 extent, reaching usually to the extent of some miles in 

 every direction ; yet the nearest neighbours are engaged in 

 almost constant feuds respecting the boundaries of these 

 vast possessions. Their dissensions must doubtless be 

 greatly fomented by the mode of measuring land according 

 to the number of steps employed in walking over it. There 

 ia indeed an official pacer {felt-wagt-meestcr)i who receivei 



