HOT 



316 



HOT 



Hot-house, specting these, as well as concerning the use of tan- 

 Hottentots. ner s_b a rk and decayed tree leaves in forming hot-beds, 

 see HORTICULTURE, 257, 355, &c. 



HOT-HOUSE. See HOIITICULTURE, Index. 

 HOTTENTOTS, an extraordinary people in the 

 southern extremity of Africa, originally occupying the 

 territories around the Cape of Good Hope. They are 

 altogether au insulated tribe, confined to a small cor- 

 ner of the African Continent, and bearing no resem- 

 blance either to the Negro race along the western coast, 

 or to the Caffre nation to the eastward. Various con- 

 Origin, jectures have been proposed, but nothing very satis- 

 factory has yet been established respecting their origin, 

 or affinity. Kolben, in full consistency with his multi- 

 tude of marvellous stories on the subject, affirms that 

 they have a tradition among themselves of having been 

 thrust upon the promontory of the Cape or t of some 

 narrow passage ; and, as a narrow passage might signi- 

 fy a door- way or window, he forthwith concludes, that it 

 could be nothing else than the window of Noah's ark, 

 out of which they crept. Mr Barrow considers them as 

 approaching nearest in colour, and in the construction 

 of the features, especially in the shape of the eye, to the 

 Chinese or Tartar race ; and'accounts for this relation by 

 supposing them to have proceeded from the Egyptians, 

 who have been not improbably represented as origi- 

 nally the same people with the Chinese. In support 

 of this opinion, he adduces the strong resemblance be- 

 tween the physical character of the Bosjesmans or real 

 Hottentots, and the descriptions given by ancient wri- 

 ters, particularly by Diodorus Siculus, of the Egyp- 

 tians and Ethiopians, especially of the Pigmies and Tro- 

 glodytes, who are said to have dwelt in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Nile. The early Portuguese writers, also, 

 mention a colony of Chinese in the vicinity of SofFala ; 

 and the natives in the interior of Madagascar are de- 

 scribed as a small race of Tartars, resembling the Hot- 

 tentots in stature, colour, and countenance. The name 

 Name. Hottentot, though frequently represented as their na- 

 tive appellation, is now ascertained to be of modern fa- 

 brication, and has no place or meaning in their own 

 language. They take it to themselves, under the idea 

 of its being a Dutch word ; and it is conceived to have 

 been applied at first as a term in some degree imitative 

 of the remarkable clacking made by them in speaking, 

 which is said to sound like hot or tot. Each horde had 

 formerly its particular name, as the Attaquas, Hessa- 

 quas, Houtiniquas, Namaquas, and Coranas ; but the 

 designation by which the whole nation was distinguish- 

 ed, and which they still bear among themselves in 

 every part of the country, is Quaiquae. 



-Country oc- T' le whole of the Hottentot country, comprehend- 

 cupiedby ing all the different tribes of the race, extends along 

 the Hotten- the east coast to the 32 of S. Latitude, and to the 

 tots. 25 on the West. None of the first discoverers of 



the Cape of Good Hope, nor of the early Portuguese 

 navigators, had much communication with the na- 

 tives ; and the Hottentots were scarcely known to 

 Europeans till about the year 1509; when Francisco 

 D'Almeyda, Viceroy of India, returning home after 

 his quarrel with Albuquerque, landed at Table Bay, 

 and was killed, along with seventy of his people, 

 in a scuffle with the natives. A Portuguese captain, 

 having touched on the coast, about three years af- 

 terwards, planned the following cowardly scheme of 

 avenging his countrymen. He landed a piece of ord- 

 nance loaded with grape shot as a pretended present to 

 the Hottentots ; and while the unsuspecting natives 

 were crowding around the engine, the brutal Portu- 

 guese fired off the piece by means of a rope which was 

 attached to it, and viewed with savage delight the 

 mangled carcases of the deluded creatures, who had 

 trusted their professions of friendship. They were oc- 

 casionally visited for refreshments by the English, Por- 

 tuguese, ami Dutch traders in their voyages to the 

 East Indies, till the establishment of a colony among 

 them by the last mentioned nation, in the year 1650. 

 They made little opposition to the new settlers ; and 

 were soon induced, by their passion for brandy and 

 tobacco, first to sell their country and cattle, and next 

 to become themselves the servants of the purchasers, 

 for the purpose of guarding those flocks and herds, 

 which had so recently been their own property. " These 

 wretched people, duped out of their possessions and 

 their liberty, have entailed upon themselves and their 

 offspring a state of subjection, which is comparatively 

 worse than slavery ; inasmuch as, in consequence of 

 their not being transferable property, their immediate 

 value is diminished, and their treatment less tempered 

 by the self-interest of their oppressors. In the remoter 

 parts of the colony especially, they are subjected to 

 cruelties, which have not been surpassed in the worst 

 of the West India islands. Instant death is not unfre- 

 quently the consequence of that brutal rage, to which 

 they are exposed. To fire small shot into their legs or 

 thighs is no unusual punishment. One of the gentler 

 chastisements, which they endure, is to be lashed or 

 rather bruised with thongs, cut from the hide of the 

 sea-cow or rhinoceros, which are nearly as hard and 

 heavy as lead. With these horrid instruments they 

 are flogged at leisure, not by a number of blows, but 

 by a period of torture ; and the savage master makes it 

 one of his favourite recreations to regulate the time of 

 their suffering, by smoking as many pipes of tobacco as 

 he deems proportionate to the offence. * These boors 

 or Dutch farmers are authorised by an old law of the 

 colony to claim as their property all the children of the 

 Hottentots in their service, to whom they may have 

 given in their infancy a morsel of meat ; and, though 

 the same regulation directs their emancipation at the 



Hottentots. 



First noti- 

 ces of by 

 Kuropeans, 



Condition 

 under the 

 Dutch co- 

 lonists. 



* Among many instances of the cruel treatment to which the helpless Hottentots are daily exposed, the following are recorded by Mr 

 Barrow as peculiarly striking : " We had scarcely parted from these people, when, stopping at a house to feed our horses, we by accident ob- 

 served a young Hottentot woman with a child in her arms lying stretched on the ground in a most deplorable condition. She had been 

 cut from head to foot with one of those infernal whips, made from the hide of a rhinoceros nr sea-cow, known by the name of Samboes, 

 in such a barbaroua and unmerciful manner, tnat there was scarcely a spot on her whole body free from stripes ; nor had die sides of the 

 little infant, in clinginc; to its mother, escaped the strokes of the brutal monster." " The only crime alleged against her was the attempt 

 to follow her husband, who was among the number of those of his countrymen that had determined to throw themselves npon the protec- 

 tion of the English." " The next house we halted at upon the road presenter! us with a still more horrid instance of brutality. We ob- 

 served a fine Hottentot boy, about eight years of age, sitting at the corner of the house, with a pair of iron rings clenched upon his legs, of 

 , the weight of ten or twelve pounds ; and they had remained in one situation for such a length of time, that they appeared to be sunk into 

 the leg, the muscle being minified both above and below the rings. The poor creature was so benumbed and oppressed with the weight, 

 that, being unable to walk with ease, he crawled on the ground. It appeared, upon inquiry, that they had been rivetted to his legs more 

 than ten months ago." The fellow shrunk from the inquiries of the indignant general ; he had nothing to allege against him, but that 

 he had always been a worthless boy ; he had lost him so many sheep, he had slept when he ought to watch the cattle, and such like frivo- 

 lous charges of a negative kind," &c. 



