144 
TRAVELS IN 
hundreds in a gronpe. Some of thefe villages might ftill have 
been expe<5ted to remain in this remote and not very populous 
part of the colony. Not one, however, was to be found. There 
is not in the whole extenfive diftridt of GraafF Reynet a fmgle 
horde of independent Hottentots ; and perhaps not a fcore of 
individuals who are not actually in the fervice of the Dutch. 
Thefe weak people, the moft helplefs, and in their prefent con- 
dition perhaps the moft wretched, of the human race, duped out 
of their pofTeffions, their country, and finally out of their 
liberty, have entailed upon their miferable offspring a ftate of 
exiftence to which that of flavery might bear the comparifon 
of happinefs. It is a condition, however, not likely to con- 
tinue to a very remote pofterity. The name of Hottentot 
will be forgotten or remembered only as that of a deceafed 
perfon of little note. Their numbers of late years have rapidly 
declined. It has generally been obferved that wherever Euro- 
peans have colonized, the lefs civilized natives have always 
dwindled away, and at length totally difappeared. Various 
caufes have contributed to the depopulation of the Hottentots. 
The impolitic cuftom of hording together in families, and of 
not marrying out of their own kraals, has no doubt tended to 
enervate this race of men, and reduced them to their prefent 
degenerated condition, which is that of a languid, liftlefs, 
phlegmatic people, in whom the prolific powers of nature 
feem to be almoft exhaufted. To this may be added their 
extreme poverty, fcantinefs of food, and continual dejedlion of 
mind, arifing from the cruel treatment they receive from an 
inhuman and unfeeling peafantry, who having difcovered 
rhemfelves to be removed to too great a diftance from the feat 
of 
