530 ON THE ORIGIN OF THE CAFFRE RACE. 
undetermined, there is no sufficient reason why they should not be 
regarded as the aborigines of the countries which they now inhabit. 
The name of * Caffre,' which signifies, ' an infidel,' is of Arabic extrac- 
tion, and appears to have been bestowed by Mahometans, on the 
natives of the southeasternmost coast of Africa, in allusion to their 
ignorance of Islamism. As the inhabitants of the coast to the east of 
the Cape Colony, are generally acknowledged to be men of the same 
race as that to which this name had formerly been given, there can- 
not be the least hesitation in considering the Bichudnas as Caffres 
also *, although speaking a diflTerent language, and following different 
customs. In features and person, they bear so close a resemblance, 
that, on a subsequent occasion, when I had an opportunity of seeing 
several hundreds of that nation which I have distinguished as the 
' Caffres proper f ,' I could easily have imagined myself to have been 
again surrounded by the inhabitants of Litakun, and have fancied 
that I again beheld many of my former Bachapin acquaintances. 
Although the languages of these two people are very distinct, yet in 
both may be found many words which seem to have had a common 
origin ; and some which are exactly the same, or which differ but little. 
The Sichuana language, however, draws a line of separation between 
them, knd proves that for many centuries the history of the Bichuana 
nations or tribes, has had little connexion with that of the more 
southern divisions of the Caffre race. The practice of circumcision, 
as a custom handed down among them from time immemorial 
though apparently having no reference to religious rites, is on the 
one hand, considered as a proof of their descent from some more 
civilized Mahometan nation ; while on the other, I am more inclined 
to view their close woolly hair, as a natural and stronger proof of 
their having always been, as they now are, a genuine African race X • 
* See Vol. I. p. 582. 
•j- In distinguishing those African tribes which inhabit the country immediately adjoin- 
ing the eastern boundary of the Cape Colony, as the Caffres proper, I merely comply with 
the common custom of the colonists ; without pretending to decide the question, whether 
they, or the Bichuanas, be the more genuine Caffres, 
\ See also page 373. 
