68 OERLAMS AND EUROPEANS. [chap. m. 



approve of their intelligence and mixed blood, but 

 nevertheless make common cause with them against 

 the Damaras. 



It must be recollected that Hottentots are yellow, 

 and not at all black. I could pick out many com- 

 plexions far fairer than that of my own sunburnt face 

 among them. But the Damaras are quite dark, though 

 their features are good and seldom of the negro type. 

 Oerlam was a nickname given by Dutch colonists to 

 the Hottentots that hung about their farms ; it means a 

 barren ewe — a creature good neither for breeding nor 

 fattening, a worthless concern, one that gives trouble 

 and yields no profit. However all things are relative, 

 and what these Oerlams were to the Dutchmen, that 

 the Namaqua Hottentots are to the Oerlams. 



The Europeans that have visited the coxintry between 

 the latitudes of Angra Pequana and Barmen, are some 

 ten missionaries, the same number of traders, five or 

 six runaway sailors, who have acted as servants to 

 these, and two travelling parties besides my own. 

 The first was that of Sir James Alexander, who 

 explored this country upwards from the Orange River 

 fifteen or twenty years ago, and whom the traders and 

 missionaries followed ; the other was that of Mr. 

 Euxton, the well-known American traveller, who sailed 

 to Walfisch Bay, but was prevented by the traders that 

 were there from entering further into the land, and 

 who had to return in the same ship that brought him. 

 There is no difference whatever between the Hottentot 

 and the Bushman, who lives wild about the hiUs in 

 this paii; of Africa, whatever may have been said or 



