SOUTHERN AFRICA. 405 
the Barroloos is still untrodden ground for the European 
. traveller, who may in futare be inchned to prosecute further 
discoveries in Southern Africa. 
To know that such societies exist in this miserable quarter 
of the globe, as those above described, must be pecuharly 
interesting to those who have long been exerting theii- elo- 
quence and their influence to meliorate the condition of the 
suffering African. They furnish a complete refutation of an 
opinion that has industriously been inculcated, and which 
unfortunately is but too prevalent, that slavery is his unalter- 
able lot ; and that it Avould still exist, as it always had existed, 
were Europeans to discontinue their abominable traffic in these 
unhappy creatures. Such an opinion, in justification of a 
crime against humanity, is just on a level with that of a 
Dutch boor who told Governor Jansen, on remonstratins: 
with him on his cruelty towards the Hottentots, that there 
could be no harm in maltreating those heathens, as the 
women evidently carried about with them the mark which 
God set upon Cain. Not one of the tribes of natives be- 
tween the Cape of Good Hope and the extreme point that 
lias hitherto been discovered in the interior of Southern 
Africa — not a single creature, from the needy and savage 
Bosjesman to the more civilized Booshiiana, has tlie most 
distant idea of a state of slavery. On the contrary, they have 
all been found in the full enjoyment of unbounded freedom. 
There is no compulsion used among these people to oblige an 
individual to remain even in the horde to which he belongs^ 
contrary to his inclination ; being always at liberty to depart 
with his property, and join another society that may suit him 
