92 BRITISH SO I'TH AFRICA AND THE TRANSVAAL 



with wlioni the white man lias to deal. When the Dutch settlement 

 was first formed at the Cape, southern and southwestern Africa was 

 occupied ])y Hottentots and Bushmen. The latter were the aboriginal 

 inliabitants of the country, hut had been driven into the less fertile 

 and desert regions of the southwest by the Hottentots, who were in 

 turn being pressed from the north and east by the Bantu tribes. 



The Bushmen are a race of pygmies, seldom much over four feet in 

 height. They are brown in color, with tufted wool on the scalj), 

 sparkling eyes, high cheek l^ones, and small feet and hands. They 

 are of the same race as those met with 1^}' Stanley on his Central 

 African journe}', and there is no doubt that they belong to the same 

 race as the pygmies described by Herodotus, the Greek historian, as 

 l>eing " found beyond the Libyan deserts." The Bushmen can be 

 classed with the Australian aborigines as the lowest race in the human 

 scale, even the negritos of the Phili[)i)ine Islands being of a slightly 

 higher grade. 



The Hottentots are of larger stature than the Bushmen, brown in 

 color, with faces thinner than those of the Bantu tril)es, high cheek- 

 bones, and projecting lips, with tufted, wooly hair. Many of them in 

 Cape Colony are the descendants of slaves, and the race there has l)een 

 so long associated with the Dutch farmers that their language has 

 practically died out, and most of them have adopted European dress. 



The most important race of South Africa, however, is the Bantu, 

 which is the generic name given to all the Katir and Zulu triljes of 

 South and Central Africa. These Bantu tribes are believed to be the 

 result of an intermingling of a Libyan or Arab race with the typical 

 negroes of western Africa. In them the nose is more prominent and 

 the cast of the face higher than in the pure negro. The principal 

 divisions of this people in the country treated of in this paper are the 

 Kafirs, Zulus. Swazis, Basutos, and Mutabeles ; but as the Kafirs are 

 the people most in evidence in Natal, the Boer Republics, and eastern 

 South Africa, I will discuss them chiefly. 



The name Kafir is of Persian origin, and is that ai)plied l^y Moham- 

 medans to all who reject the faith of Islam. It was in use along the 

 coast of the Indian Ocean when the Portuguese explorers arrived on 

 the east coast of Africa, and has passed from them to the English and 

 Dutcli. among whom the w(M"d Kafir is generally used to signify any 

 colored native who is not the descendant of an imported negro slave. 

 They are really tiie peoj'le of the Amacosa tribe of the great Bantu 

 nation. Most of these tribes derive their names from that of their 



