SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
8i 
young people have no meetings at fixed periods, as in moft 
country-places, for mirth and recreation. No fairs, no dancing, 
no mufic, nor amufement of any fort. To the cold phlegma- 
tic temper and inactive way of life may perhaps be owing the 
prolific tendency of all the African peafantry. Six or feven 
children in a family are confidered as very few ; from a dozen 
to twenty are not uncommon ; and moft of them marry very 
young, fo that the population of the colony is rapidly in- 
creafing. Several, however, of the children die in their 
infancy, from fwellings in the throat, and from eruptions 
of the fame kind they are fubject to in the Cape. Very few 
inftances of longevity occur. The manner of life they lead 
is perhaps lefs favorable for a prolonged exiftence than the 
nature of the climate. The difeafes of which they gene- 
rally die in the country are bilious and putrid fevers and 
dropfies. 
The men are in general much above the middle fize, very 
tall and ftout, but ill made, loofely put together, aukward, and 
inadlive. Very few have thofe open ingenuous countenances 
that among the peafantry of many parts of Europe fpeak their 
fimplicity and innocence. The defcendants of French families 
are now fo intermarried with thofe of the original fettlers, that no 
diftindiion, except the names, remains. And it is a remarkable 
fa£t that not a word of the French language is fpoken or under- 
ftood by any of the peafantry, though there be many ftill liv- 
ing whofe parents were both of that nation. Neither is a 
French book of any kind to be feen in their houfes. It would 
feem as if thefe perfecuted refugees had ftudied to conceal from 
M their 
