50 TRAVELS IN 
and appearance of the young men and the young women, in 
the fame family, is inconceivably great. The former are 
clumfy in their fhape, aukward in their carriage, and of an un- 
fociable difpofition ; whilft the latter are generally of a fmall 
delicate form, below the middle fize, of eafy and unaffeded 
manners, well dreffed, and fond of focial intercourfe, an indul- 
gence in which they are feldom reftrained by their parents, and 
which they as feldom turn to abufe. They are here indeed 
lefs dependant on, and lefs fubjedt to, the caprice of parents 
than -elfewhere. Primogeniture entitles to no advantages ; but 
all the children, male and female, fhare alike in the family pro- 
perty. No parent can dihnherit a child without affigning, on 
proof, one at leaft of the fourteen reafons enumerated in the 
Juftinian Code. By the law of the colony, a community of all 
property, both real and perfonal, is fuppofed to take place on 
the marriage of two perfons, unlefs the contrary fhould be parti- 
cularly provided againft by folemn contract made before mar- 
riage. Where no fuch contrad; exifts, the children, on the 
death of either parent, are entitled to that half of the joint pro- 
perty which was fuppofed to belong to the deceafed, and which 
cannot be withheld on application after they are come of age. 
It is but juftice to the young females of the Cape to remark, 
that many of them have profited much more than could be 
expedled from the limited means of education that the place 
affords. In the better families, moft of them are taught mufic, 
and fome have acquired a tolerable degree of execution. Many 
underftand the French language, and fome have made great 
proficiency in the Englifl^. They are expert at the needle, at 
all 
/ 
