CHAP, m.] PREVIOUS HISTORY. 67 



bled to death under such circumstances. One of 

 Jonker's sons, a hopeful youth, came to a child that 

 had been dropped on the ground, and who lay 

 screaming there, and he leisurely gouged out its eyes 

 with a small stick. 



I had no reason to think that this outrage on 

 Mr. Kolbe's station was any worse than the usual 

 attacks that the Hottentots and Damaras make upon 

 one another ; but the Damaras are savages, and are 

 not supposed to know better, while Jonker is a British 

 subject, born in the colony, and his best men are 

 British subjects too. Missionaries and teachers in 

 great numbers have been amongst them, or their 

 fathers, for years and years ; and tlie home of these 

 people, though now they have trecked on to the 

 tropics, is properly on the borders of the Orange 

 River. 



I was very anxious to obtam something like an 

 authentic history of these Hottentots, and of the 

 Damaras, during the last few years, and I begged Mr. 

 Halm, who was eminently qualified to give me one, 

 to do so ; and as it will illustrate my story I will now 

 give its substance, mixed up and corrected with what I 

 have since gathered from various quarters, or made out 

 for myself. 



The agents in tliis history are Namaqua " Oerlams," 

 or Namaquas bom, Ln or near the colony, often having 

 Dutch blood and a good deal of Dutch character in 

 their veins. Among these, Jonker is a chief. The 

 Namaqua " Hottentots" look at these Oerlams with great 

 jealousy, and consider them almost as aliens ; they do not 



