OEIGHSF OF HOTTENTOTS. 
135 
That the Hottentots are the aborigines of 
South Africa, is as certain as that the Kaffirs 
are foreigners and intruders upon its soil. And 
that nearly all the districts, which are now ex- 
clusively in the hands of the Kaffirs, were ori- 
ginally in the possession of the Hottentots is 
deducible from the fact, that several of the 
mountains, rivers, and passes in Kaffraria, and 
on the frontier, still possess Hottentot names : 
such as "Bushman's river," "Ol'phant's Hoek," 
"Vische, or Fish river," u Huish Dooms," 
&c, &c. 
How far interior this nation spread at the 
period when the country first became known to 
Europeans is uncertain, as few of the first set- 
tlers were explorers far into the land. Most 
possibly, however, the districts now within the 
Cape Colony, were then inhabited by these 
people, and this we gather from the following 
gleanings from authentic documents : — 
When this Southern promontory was first 
colonized by Europeans, a.d. 1652; (as has been 
already stated,) these Hottentots were found re- 
sident on, and around, the present site of Cape 
Town. After some little litigation and resis- 
tance, having ceded the lands there to the Dutch 
settlers, they retired from them towards the 
interior of the continent ; travelling along the 
Southern and Eastern coast ; but returning, in 
