HOTTENTOT SOLDIERS. 37 



horror. Men they are, without doubt, but many look 

 more like baboons; their high cheek-bones, small eyes, 

 thick lips, yellow mummy sort of skin, with a few little 

 crumbs of hair like peppercorns stuck over their heads 

 and chins, give them a most ridiculous appearance. Their 

 short stature, rarely over five feet, and frequently less, 

 with the rough costume of untanned leather breeches, 

 &c., would make but a sorry spectacle were they to be 

 paraded in Regent-street on their rough-looking Cape 

 horses beside a troop of Life-guards. But still greater 

 would be the ridicule were a troop of the latter to be 

 transported to Africa, and then told to follow these active 

 little Hottentot soldiers through the bush, and to attack 

 the band of Kaffirs hidden in the dark kloof above : each 

 is good in his calling. 



The Cape corps is almost entirely composed of Hot- 

 tentots, and they are right well fitted for the work of fight- 

 ing the Kaffirs. Courageous and cunning, endowed with a 

 sort of instinct that seems superior to reason, they can 

 hear, see, and almost smell danger in all shapes, and are 

 ever on the watch for suspicious signs. No footmark of 

 Kaffir, wolf, lion, or elephant is passed unnoticed ; no 

 bird is seen to flit away from a distant bush without 

 apparent cause, but a careful watch is at once set up ; 

 not a dog lifts up his ears, but the Totty as the Hot- 

 tentot is familiarly called is also suspicious. 



The wild life led in Africa causes even one lately 

 removed from civilization to feel his instincts become 

 rapidly keener. 



A man who has been born and nurtured in the wilder- 



