ETUNOLOGY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 245 



river Mapoula, whose mouth is in Delagoa Bay. The Caffres are divided 

 into four great nations: Ama-Kosa, Ama-Temba, Ama-Ponda, and Ama- 

 Zula. 



The Caffres are cheerful, frank, and manly, and engaged principally in 

 rearing cattle, less in hunting and farming ; the herds constituting their 

 chief means of support. Amongst them are found traces of a belief in a 

 higher being, and in inferior spirits ; but they have no regular worship. 

 Circumcision is general amongst the Caffres. Their clothing consists of 

 the skins of animals, which these people understand how to reduce to 

 softness and pliancy. Their weapons are a spear, a broad shield of buffalo 

 hide, and a short club ; sometimes also a kind of sword. In their wars, 

 which are not very bloody, the Caffres show respect to the female sex, and 

 also treat European women that fall into their hands in a very humane 

 manner. To European missionaries, merchants, and travellers, they always 

 manifest friendship, provided they are not, met in company with a detach- 

 ment of enemies. The Europeans, notwithstanding all this, show little 

 justice or humanity towards them, but on the contrary subject them even 

 to the most shameful cruelties. 



The Hottentots (pi. I, fig. 16), whom we have already described, inhabit 

 the southern end of Africa. 



When the Dutch (in the 17th century) set foot upon this section of 

 South Africa, as friends of the natives, the latter gave for toys and a few 

 bottles of gin, as much land as was required for a small settlement, Th(s 

 natives, at that time, were a tolerably numerous nation, living in prosperity 

 on the produce of their herds, and divided into many tribes, each under ita 

 own chief They called themselves Quaique ; the name Hottentot was 

 entirely unknown to them, and its origin is not ascertained. A sheepskin 

 cloak served as a dress by day, and as a covering during the night. Cell- 

 like huts, constructed of piles and boughs, and covered with beech mats, 

 protected them from the effects of the weather, and could easily be carried 

 from one spot to another, by means of their pack oxen. Their weapons 

 consisted of a light spear, and a bow with poisoned arrows. For half a 

 century, perhaps, the Europeans remained true to what they had promised, 

 and manifested no hostility towards the natives. After this period, how- 

 ever, they broke their friendship, endeavored to enlarge their settlement, 

 and hence waged war against the remote tribes, gradually taking possession 

 of a great part of the Cape Land, driving back the tribes of the Namaquas, 

 Corannas, and Bushmen, into the barren deserts, and not even permitting 

 them to pasture their herds in the less fertile regions ; so that these poor 

 creatures were at length no longer able to keep cattle, and their herds also 

 passed into the possession of the robbers who had seized upon their pas- 

 tures. Having lost their possessions in this manner, they were constrained 

 to become bondmen to the Dutch, and thus finally saw themselves 

 deprived of personal liberty, and treated in the most cruel manner, by the 

 Europeans. Hence it is not surprising that a nation, so innocuous, so 

 gentle and quiet by nature, sometimes arm themselves in order to regain 

 their liberty. In later times, since 1828, they have been placed in the same 



ICONOGRAPHIC ENCYCLOPAEDIA. VOL. III. 27 417 



