SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
251 
Such are the advantages and the calamities of which the 
people of Sneuwberg are alternately.fufceptible. Senfible of the 
former, they bear the latter with much patience, and oppofe 
them with fortitude. They are a people that, in great mea- 
fure, feem to be apart from all the others. Not more different 
is the nature of the country than the temper and difpofition of 
its inhabitants from thofe of the lower divifions of the diftrld:. 
They are a peaceable, obliging, and orderly people ; a brave 
and hardy race of men. The conftant danger to which their 
perfons and their property are expofed will lefs admit a life of 
idlenefs and inaftivity ; and it is not in the men alone that 
their dangerous fituation has called forth the active powers, 
but the women alfo evidently polTefs more animation, and lead 
a lefs fedentary and liftlefs life, than thofe of the lower divi- 
fions. Inftances of great female fortitude have here occafion- 
ally been fhewn. The wife of one of our party having re- 
ceived intelligence, in the abfence of her hufband, that the Bof- 
jefmans had carried off a troop of their flieep, inftantly mounted 
her horfe, took a mufquet in her hand, and, accompanied by a 
fingle Hottentot, engaged the plunderers for fome time, put 
them to flight, and recovered every flieep. 
With infinitely more drawbacks on the produce of their in- 
duftry than any of their countrymen experience, the anarchy 
that prevailed in Graaft' Reynet produced no fort of difturb- 
ance among the people of Sneuwberg. They lent a material 
aflifi:ance indeed to promote the meafures of government. The 
only grievance of which I ever heard them complain, and 
which appears to be a real inconvenience to all who inhabit 
K K 2 the 
