SOUTHERN AFRICA. lof 
vailing fashions of England brought from time to time by 
the female passengers bound to India, from whom they may 
be said to 
" Catch the' manners living as they r'lse."^ 
Neither are the other sex, while boys, deficient in vivacity 
or talent ; but for want of the means of a proper education, 
to enlarge their minds and excite in them a desire of know- 
ledge, they soon degenerate into the common routine of eat- 
ing, smoking, and sleeping. Few of the male inhabitants 
associate with the English, except such as hold employments 
under the government. This backwardness may be owing in 
part to the different habits of the two nations, and partly, 
perhaps, to the reluctance that a vanquished people must 
always feel in mixing with their conquerors. No real cause, 
however, of complaint or disaffection could possibly be al- 
leged against the English government at the Cape. No 
new taxes were imposed ; but, on the contrary, some of the 
old ones were diminished, and others modified. The demand 
and value of every production of the colony were very con- 
siderably iucreased, while the articles of import fell in their 
prices. More than 200,000 rixdollars of arrears in rent 
of land were remitted to the inhabitants by the British go- 
vernment, as vvcll as 180,000 rixdollars of dubious debts. 
They preserved their laws and their religion, both of wdiich 
continued to be administered by their own people. They en- 
joyed as great a share of rational liberty as men, bound to 
each other, and to the whole, by the ties that a state of so- 
ciety necessarily imposes, could possibly expect, and much 
greater than under their former government. Property was 
