SOUTHERN AFRICA. 95 
" We carry you now, but by-and-by it will be your turn 
" to carry us " The proportion of slaves to whites, of 
both sexes and all ages, in the town, is not more than two 
to one : but that of slave men to white men is near five 
to one. 
The field slaves belonging to the farmers are not, how- 
ever, nearly so well treated as those of the town ; yet in- 
finitely better than the Hottentots who are in their employ. 
The farmer, indeed, having a life-interest in the one, and 
only five-and-twent}'^ years in the other, is a circumstance 
that may explain the difference of treatment. The one, also, 
is convertible property, an advantage to which they have not 
yet succeeded in their attempts to turn the other. The 
country slaves, notwithstanding, are ill fed, ill clothed, work 
extremely hard, and are frequently punished with the greatest 
severity ; sometimes with death, when rage gets the better 
of prudence and compassion. 
The bad effects that a state of slavery invariably produces 
on the minds and habits of a people, who have the misfor- 
tune to be born and educated in the midst of it, are not less 
felt at the Cape than in the warmer climates. Among the 
upper ranks it is the custom for every child to have its slave, 
whose sole employment is to humour its caprices, and to drag 
it about from place to place lest it should too soon discover 
for what purposes nature had bestowed on it legs and arms. 
Even the lower class of people think it would be degrading 
to their children to go out as servants, or be bound as ap- 
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