ON THE DISTINCTION OF RACES OF MEN. 
549 
land which they now occupy, will probably for ever remain unknown, 
as one of those many circumstances of the Creation, the incalculably 
remote antiquity of which has veiled them, perhaps at the will of the 
Creator, with the deepest obscurity. * 
The movements and emigrations of man over the surface of the 
globe, form a subject of high interest to a reflecting mind ; and in 
tracing these, we trace the general history of the world. In the 
greater number of cases, the only records to which we can refer for 
information and guidance, are personal features, language, and ancient 
customs. Of these, the two latter are the more usually attended to 
by travellers, and frequently, as before remarked, supply the most 
valuable evidence ; but the first is certainly not of less importance, 
and has been neglected only perhaps on account of the greater dif- 
ficulty of obtaining faithful and characteristic national portraits, to 
enable us to make comparisons, for the purpose of tracing, or dis- 
coverino: amono; them, a similar or dissimilar cast of features or of 
ascertaining the comparative proportions of form and figure. To 
this task, the pen is quite inadequate, and for the performance of it 
there remains therefore only the pencil ; not, indeed, the pencil of the 
mere picture- maker who, apparently, has no higher object in view 
than to please the eye or ornament a book, and whose works, 
unfortunately, may too often deserve the name of fraudulent im- 
* It is a common opinion that the Colonial portion of the race of Hottentots, is 
yearly diminishing in number, and that it is to be feared that in time it will become 
extinct within the boundary. How far this opinion is at present supported by fact, may 
be seen by consulting the table at page 144 of this volume; by which it appears, that in 
the course of the last seven years, that part of the population of, at least one, and the 
lai'gest, district, has increased more than a fourth. But it will also be seen, that the 
numbers of the Colonists have during the same period been more than doubled ; and it 
is this slower supply of Hottentot labor, to the more rapidly increasing demands of the 
white population, which has ci-eated a scarcity of labourers of this class, and which will 
continue to operate, till it will have at length produced so great a disproportion, par- 
ticularly on the farms, that necessity will reduce the white population to supply the de- 
ficiency fi'om among themselves. It is this proportionate decrease which has probably 
given occasion to the supposition, that there has been an actual diminution of the numbers 
of the Colonial Hottentots. As far as that opinion respects the district alluded to, it is 
certainly erroneous ; and further inquiry into the subject may pi-ove that, if not altogether 
incorrect, it is apphcable only to the vicinity of Cape Town. 
