CHAPTEE VI. 
THE HOTTENTOT TEIBES • 
KOBTONAS, HOTTENTOTS PEOPEK, NAMAQITAS AND (xEIQTJAS. 
THEIR DISTINCTIONS, MANNEES, CUSTOMS, AND LANGUAGES. 
Turning- to the tribes and retracing our steps 
to the South, of Africa, whilst assuming that the 
" Old Cape Colony/' (comprising the present 
Eastern and Western Provinces,) was originally 
peopled by the primitive aborigines, the " Hot- 
tentot V and " Bushmen 55 families, we now pre- 
sent the reader with an outline of these races. 
To say that this was wholly their territory, or 
that they exclusively inhabited it, can be but con- 
jectural. All that is practicable towards elucida- 
ting these points, is to gather up the few authen- 
tic historical records extant, and then endeavour 
to trace the analogy between these and other 
more Northerly tribes of the African continent. 
* The meaning of the term Hottentot is involved in some obscurity. 
It seems to be of Dutch extraction (Hot-en-tot,) and was probably 
given in reference to their language, which might have appeared to 
those who first heard it, as consisting of little better than an assem- 
blage of such unmeaning monosyllables as " hot" and " tot." 
By the Kaffirs the Hottentots are called Amaqeya and Amalau. 
The latter is properly a nickname. It signifies 'those who prefer eat- 
ing their cattle, to keeping them;' and may be regarded, therefore, as 
a Kaffir stigma on the proverbial improvidence of the Hottentot race. 
