20 LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



and savage men and animals have again preserved them from the know- 

 ledge of civilized nations for many centuries. 



In speaking of the Hottentots, we usually associate with the name 

 the natives who are found within the boundaries of Cape Colony, and are 

 employed by the Europeans in agricultural and other pursuits. These 

 have lost many of the characteristics of savage life and have picked up 

 not a few civilized accomplishments, which can hardly be said to be an 

 improvement on the native habits they have abandoned. For several 

 generations they were actually slaves, and even up to a recent period they 

 were slaves in all but the name. Their language, when they have forgotten 

 or neglected the language of their fathers, is a broken English or Dutch, 

 hardly so intelligible to the stranger as the broken English of the 

 American nigger. They are a tall, strong, and hardy race, and 

 make good soldiers, and have done signal service in assisting our 

 troops in putting down the numberless risings of the bold and warlike 

 Kaffres. 



The discipline and confinement of a military life at the depdts prove very 

 irksome to these sons of the wilderness, but during a campaign they have, 

 with very few exceptions, proved themselves excellent soldiers. The com- 

 plexion of the Hottentot is not so dark as that of the native Africans of the 

 West, and many of the tribes of Southern and Central Africa, nor have they 

 the same round full faces. The nose is very much depressed, so that the 

 mouth and lips project in many cases beyond it ; the cheek bones are high, 

 and the comparatively full brow gives token of considerable intelligence. 

 The hair is hard and dark, and when not worn long, resembles tufts of black 

 wool. The eyes are small and usually black, the part surrounding the 

 ball being a yellowish white. The huts or dwelling houses of the Hotten- 

 tots within the Colony are greatly superior to those in use by the Hotten- 

 tots and other native tribes beyond the colony, and are built in imitation 

 of the houses of Europeans, although they are of much less solid construc- 

 tion. Their innate love of freedom leads them to prefer living in the 

 country, although of late years many of them have settled in the towns, 

 where they are employed in all kinds of manual labour. They are orderly 

 members of the community unless when they indulge in ardent spirits 

 when they become noisy and unruly. A very large number of them have 

 become Christians, and give their children an elementary education. Much 

 of this is due to the missionaries specially sent out to them, and to the 

 resident clergymen who minister to the European population. In their 

 gardens they cultivate vegetables of various kinds. The women attend to 

 the gardens and save a little money by working at times for the farmers, 

 and by weaving mats made from a kind of sedge found in the rivers and 

 streams. Their clothing is, for the most part, of English manufacture, and 



