522 AUSTRALIAN NEGROES. 



The Hottentot race, or Quaiqua, is characteristic of Southern 

 Africa. Its origin appears of remote antiquity ; but it formerly 

 dwelt further to the north, and has been driven back towards the 

 south by the progress of the more warlike Kaffirs. The Hottentots 

 are of low stature ; their skin is a yellowish-brown. Their head is 

 long, with projecting forehead and cheek-bones ; flat nose, thick lips. 

 Their women are hideous in face and deformed in body ; as they 

 grow old they grow stout, and a truly monstrous embonpoint invades 

 the posterior part of their person. Morally, they are in an abject 

 condition, which must be attributed rather to their sloth and wretched- 

 ness than to any lack of intelligence. Their sole garment is the 

 carross, a kind of sheepskin mantle. They live in such low huts that 

 they can only enter them by crawling. Some Hottentot tribes culti- 

 vate the soil, or depasture herds of cattle ; such are the Baydyds, 

 established on the banks of Lake Ngami ; the Namaquas, who are 

 distinguished into "the great" and ''the little;" and the Koranas, 

 who roam along the Orange River. The most miserable members 

 of this family are the Sosjesmans, or Bushmen, who inhabit 

 the Kalahari Deserts, between the Cape Colony and Kaffraria. 

 The total number of the Hottentot race probably does not exceed 

 150,000. 



I have said that the Negroes of Australia and Papouasia were 

 wholly distinct from those of Africa. And, in fact, I can hardly admit 

 that it could ever have been possible for the latter to colonize the 

 Australian continent and the adjacent islands. What, then, is the 

 origin of the Australians and the Papuans ? According to some 

 anthropologists, they are descended from that strange race of savages 

 which still exists in Hindostan, in the Nielgherries, and the Te'rai, 

 between Palmoco, Sumbhulpoor, and the sources of the Nerbudda. 

 But whence came the latter ? On this subject all historical tradi- 

 tion is dumb, and science knows not what to think of those black- 

 skinned savages, with the face of an ape, a body covered with red 

 hair, disproportionably long arms, a protuberant belly, and who 

 live in the trees like the orangs and the gibbons. 



