APR. I771 HOTTENTOTS 439 
which they meet with upon the road. Great as these 
conveniences are, the people who come from afar must do 
little more than live, as there is no trade here, but in a few 
articles of provisions, which are sent to the East Indies, and 
curiosities. They can bring nothing to market but a little 
butter, such skins of wild beasts as they have been able to 
procure, and perhaps a few kinds of drugs. 
There remains nothing but to say a word or two con- 
cerning the Hottentots, so frequently spoken of by travellers, 
by whom they are generally represented as the outcast of 
the human species, a race whose intellectual faculties are so 
little superior to those of beasts, that some have been 
inclined to suppose them more nearly related to baboons 
than to men. 
Although I very much desired it, I was unable to see 
any of their habitations, there being none, as I was 
universally informed, within less than four days’ journey 
from the Cape, in which they retained their original customs. 
Those who come to the Cape, who are in number not a few, 
are all servants of the Dutch farmers, whose cattle they 
take care of, and generally run before their waggons: these 
no doubt are the lowest and meanest of them, and these 
alone I can describe. 
They were in general slim in make, and rather lean 
than at all plump or fat: in size equal to Europeans, 
some six feet and more; their eyes not expressive of any 
liveliness, but rather dull and unmeaning; the colour of 
their skins nearest to that of soot, owing in great measure to 
the dirt, which, by long use, was ingrained into it, for I 
believe that they never wash themselves. Their hair curled 
in very fine rings like that of negroes, or a Persian lamb’s 
skin, but hung in falling ringlets seven or eight inches 
long. Their clothes consisted of a skin, generally of a sheep, 
and round their waists a belt, which in both sexes was 
richly ornamented with beads and small pieces of copper. 
Both sexes wore necklaces, and sometimes bracelets, likewise 
of beads, and the women had round their legs certain rings 
made of very hard leather, which they said served to defend 
