PROGNATHOUS STOCK. 293 



nations occupy their respective territories. Of these, the principal are, 

 the Namaquas on the west, on both sides of the Gariep, or Orange 

 River ; the Koras, or Koranas, in the interior, along the higher course of 

 the Gariep and its tributary branches ; and a broken tribe of the once 

 powerful Gonaquas, which still lingers on the borders of the colony, 

 near the Great Fish River, in contact with the Amakosah Caffres. To 

 these may be added the Bushmen, Bosjemen, or Saabs, a wandering and 

 degraded offset of the Hottentot stock, scattered over the Karroos, and 

 particularly the vast barren desert, north of the Orange River, where they 

 obtain a scanty subsistence on roots, insects, and reptiles. 



In physical characters and language the Hottentot race differs, not 

 only from that of the CafFres, but from every other known people of the 

 African continent ; and if, as Professors Vater and Lichtenstein suppose, 

 Southern Africa owes its population to the influx of nation after nation 

 from the north, one being pressed onward by another following after it 

 in regular rotation, the conclusion will be, that the Hottentot race must 

 be regarded as a relic of one of the most ancient of the human denizens 

 of, at least, subequatorial Africa. 



Dr. Prichard considers the Hottentot and Bushman race as forming 

 a distinct class of the human species, distinguished from the Negro 

 race, with which they have been confounded, not only by their physiog- 

 nomy, but by the conformation of the cranium. The Hottentots, 

 according to Barrow, are well proportioned, erect, and of delicate rather 

 than muscular contour : their joints and extremities are small ; their face 

 is ugly, but varies in different families, some having the nose remarkably 

 flat, others considerably raised ; their eyes are of a deep chestnut 

 colour, long and narrow, distant from each other, the inner angle being 

 rounded, as in the Chinese, to whom the Hottentot bears a striking 

 resemblance ; the cheek-bones are high and prominent, and, with the 

 narrow pointed chin, form nearly a triangle ; their teeth are very white. 

 The women, when young, are graceful and well made ; the nipple is un- 

 usually large, and the areola much elevated ; but, immediately after 

 the birth of the first child, the breast becomes flaccid and pendent; 

 and in old age, greatly distended; the abdomen also acquires pro- 

 tuberance, and the posteriors are covered with a huge mass of pure fat. 

 Burchell's description is to the same effect ; he gives the following as 

 their characters : " Hands and feet little ; eyes so oblique, that lines drawn 

 through the corners would not coincide as being on the same plane, but 

 would intersect sometimes as low down as the middle of the nose ; space 

 between the two cheek bones, flat ; scarcely any perceptible ridge of the 

 nose; end of the nose wide and depressed; nostrils squeezed out of 

 shape ; chin long and forward ; narrowness of the lower part of the face, 

 a character of the race." The hair is of a singular texture ; it is not 



