SOUTHERN AFRICA. 369 
who, with a waggon and his whole family, his slaves, his 
Hottentots, his cattle and his sheep, was travelling leisurely 
from the Orange river towards the skirts of the colony. The 
disinclination of these people to establish themselves on a 
particular spot, and to live in any sort of comfort, is very 
remarkable, and can onl^^ be explained on the principle of an 
irresistible charm which unbounded liberty and unrestrained 
possession exert on the human mind, and which operates 
most powerfully on him who has never known the pleasures of 
social life. It is a well known fact, that numbers of the French 
officers in America, led by the impulse of this principle, 
retired into the Indian settlements, threw aside their clothing, 
painted and tatooed their bodies and became, in every 
respect, savages of a much worse description than the natives, 
by uniting with their new condition all the vices of civilized 
life. To rove about the desert wilds of Africa, to harass and 
destroy the harmless natives, to feast on game procured by 
their Hottentots, and to sleep and loiter away the day Avhile 
jolting in his waggon, are to the Dutch boor among the 
most exquisite pleasures he is capable of enjoying. By indo- 
lence and gluttony, from the effects of a good climate and a 
free exposure to air, these people usually groAv to a monstrous 
size ; and if suffered to continue their present uncontrolled 
mode of life, they may ultimately give birth to a race of Pata- 
gonians on the southern extremity of Africa, not inferior in 
stature to their tall brethren on the opposite coast of America. 
Continuing their journey on the 28th and 29th over a 
rugged country and a constant succession of hills, whose 
surfaces were strewed with a greater abundance of stones 
3 B 
