46 
TRAVELS IN 
which raifed a wealthy and populous republic out of the fea, 
imprefled the minds of thofe who firft formed the fettlement. 
A temperate climate, a fertile foil, a mild and peaceable race of 
natives, were advantages that few infant colonies have pofTeffed ; 
and, as they ftill exift, may one day yet be turned to account. 
To encourage the native Hottentots in ufeful labor, by giving 
them an intereft in the produce of that labor ; to make them 
experience the comforts of civilized life, and to feel they have a 
place and a value in fociety, which the raiferable policy of the 
Dutch government denied to them, would be the fure means 
of diminifhing and, in time, of entirely removing the neceffity 
of flavery. Few negroes, in fait, have been imported fmce the 
capture, and thofe few by accident, or by fpecial permiffion : 
and as the increafed demand for colonial produce has required 
a proportional increafe of labor, they now bear moft extrava- 
gant prices. From one hundred to four hundred pounds fter- 
ling is daily paid for a flave in Cape Town ; yet it is not un- 
ufual to find from twenty to thirty in one houfe. Some of 
thefe, indeed, are artificers, and are hired out at certain rates 
for the day, week, or month. The moft a£live and docile, but 
the moft dangerous, flaves, are the Malays. They are faithful, 
honeft, and induftrious ; but fo impatient of injury, and fo 
capricious, that the flighteft provocation will fometimes drive 
them into fits of phrenzy, during the continuance of which it 
w ould be unfafe to come within their reach. The revengeful 
fpirit of a Malay was ftrongly marked by an occurrence which 
happened a fhort time ago. Conceiving that he not only had 
ferved his mafter fufficiently long, and with great fidelity, but 
had alfo paid him feveral fums of money, he was tempted to 
demand 
