COUNTRY OF THE HOTTENTOTS. 201 



is always appointed by the horde, and his power is limited. In their 

 councils his advice prevails, if it be judged good ; if not, no regard 

 is paid to it. When they are about to go to war, they know neither 

 rank nor divisions ; each attacks or defends after his own manner; 

 the most intrepid march in the van : and when victory declares itself, 

 they do not bestow upon one man the honour of an action which has 

 proved successful by the courage of all : it is the whole nation that 

 triumphs. 



" Of all the people whom I ever saw (observes our author) the Go- 

 oaquas are the only nation that can be considered as free ; but they 

 will perhaps be soon obliged to remove to a greater distance, or re- 

 ceive laws from the Dutch government. All the land to the east be- 

 ing in general good, the planters endeavour to extend their posses- 

 sions in that quarter as much as they can, and their avarice doubtless 

 will some day succeed. Misery must then be the portion of these 

 happy and peaceable people ; and every trace of their liberty will be 

 destroyed by massacres and invasions. Thus have all those hordes 

 mentioned by old authors been treated ; and, by being often dismem- 

 bered and weakened, they are now reduced to a state of absolute de- 

 pendence on the Dutch. The existence of the Hottentots, their names, 

 and their history, will therefore in time be accounted fabulous ; un- 

 less some traveller, who may possess curiosity enough to induce him 

 '0 discover their remains, should have the courage to penetrate into 

 the remote deserts inhabited by the great Nimiquas, where rocks 

 more and more hardened by time, and old and barren mountains, do 

 not produce a single plant worthy to engage the attention of the spe- 

 culative botanist. 



"A physiognomist, or, if the reader pleases, a modern wit, would 

 entertain his company by assigning to the Hottentot, in the scale of be- 

 ings, a place between a man and the ourang-outang. I cannot, how- 

 ever, consent to this systematic arrangement; the qualities which I 

 esteem in him will never suffer him to be degraded so far ; and I 

 have found his figure sufficiently beautiful, because I experienced the 

 goodness of his heart. It must indeed be allowed, that there is some- 

 thing peculiar in his features, which in a certain degree separates 

 him from the generality of mankind. His cheek-bones are exceed- 

 ingly prominent ; so that his face being very broad in that part, and 

 the jaw-bones, on the contrary, extremely narrow, his visage conti- 

 nues still decreasing even to the point of the chin. This configura- 

 tion gives him an air of lankness, which makes his head appear very- 

 much disproportioned, and too small for his full and plump body. His 

 flat nose rises scarcely half an inch at its greatest elevation ; and his 

 nostrils, which are excessively wide, often exceed in height the ridge 

 of his nose. His mouth is large, and furnished with small teeth well 

 enamelled and perfectly white : his eyes, very beautiful and open, in- 

 cline a little towards the nose, like those of the Chinese : and to the 

 sight and touch his hair has the resemblance of wool ; it is very short, 

 curls naturally, and in colour is as black as ebony. He has very little 

 hair, yet he employs no small care to pull out by the roots part of 

 what he has ; but the natural thinness of his eye-brows saves him 

 from this trouble in that part. Though he has no beard but upon the 

 upper lip, below the nose, and at the extremity of the chin, he never 

 fails to pluck it out as soon as it appears. This gives him an effemi- 

 nate look ; which, joined to the natural mildness of his character, 

 destroys that commar»dinfr fierceness usual among savages. The wo- 



Vol, II D d 



