ORIGIN OF THE BUSHMEN. 
33 
in other authentic documents, still preserved in 
the Colony, which amply prove, not only the 
likehood of diminution in the numbers of the 
native tribes, but also the actual existence then 
of the Bushmen family, as distinct from the 
Hottentots, and at enmity with them. 
This allusion is here noticed, because these 
people are said to have been descended from 
Hottentots ; who, from the oppression of the first 
colonists, were driven out from them to live in 
the caves. 
But, speaking of these people even then, 
Van Eiebeck remarks in his journal, " They 
never had any other means of subsistence than 
plunder; and their stock was not their own 
property but plundered from the Saldanhars, 
who, on that account, pursued them on every 
opportunity, and, on coming up with them, put 
them to death without mercy, and threw them 
to the dogs." They were subject to no other 
power than that of the arrow and the assegai, 
upon which they chiefly depended, and they 
treacherously plundered many people of their 
cattle and women; which robbery and abduc- 
tion of women is much practised in war by all 
these tribes. 
From these observations, it may be gathered 
that the Bushmen were then in existence, as a 
distinct tribe, amongst the aborigines of Africa, 
D 
