SOUTHERN AFRICA. 93 
bers. An old Hottentot, who on former occasions liad served 
as interpreter between the landrosts of Graaff Reynet and 
the Kafter Chiefs, had, according to appointment, joined us 
"with his suite, consisting of about half a dozen of his coun- 
trymen. The iandrost, on his joining us, invested him with 
his staff of office, a long stick with a brass head on which was 
engraven the king's arms. By such a staff, in the time of the 
Dutch government, a Hottentot was constituted a captain ; 
and, by the number they created of these captains, the ruin 
of their respective hordes was much facilitated. But these 
captains are now no more ; they and their tribes have en- 
tirely disappeared, and our old Captain Haasheck commands in 
Graaff Reynet without a rival. 
Twenty years ago, if we may credit the travellers of that 
day, the country beyond Camtoos river, which was then the 
eastern limit of the colony, abounded with kraals or villages 
of Hottentots, out of which the inhabitants came to meet 
them by hundreds in a groupe. Some of these villages might 
still have been expected to remain in this remote and not very 
populous part of the colony. Not one, however, was to be 
found. There is not in fact in the whole extensive district 
of Graaff Reynet a single horde of independent Hottentots ; 
and perhaps not a score of individuals who are not actually 
in the service of the Dutch. These weak people, the most 
helpless, and in their present condition perhaps the most 
wretched, of the human race, duped out of their possessions, 
their country, and their liberty, have entailed upon their mi- 
serable offspring a state of existence to which that of slavery 
might bear the comparison of happiness. It is a condition, 
