112 
HUTS OF THE HOTTENTOTS. 
13 April, 
to descend, and the darkness of evening fell upon us before we 
reached the house. The air became chilly, owing to the rain which 
had fallen during the day : the thermometer was no higher than 61° 
(12-8Reaum.; 16-11 Centig.) 
13th. The next morning we were attended by Mr. Kiister, one 
of the brethren, who conducted us along the valley, through the 
maze of gardens and fruit-trees, to exhibit tlie progress which their 
Hottentots had made in horticulture and domestic order. Warmed 
with unaffected zeal in the cause in which he was engaged, he 
displayed their success with a satisfaction and pleasure, in which we 
fully participated. The huts at Genadendal, unlike those of genuine 
Hottentot construction, which have an hemispherical shape, and are 
covered with mats, are merely a rude imitation of the quadrangular 
buildings of the colonists. Those which we saw, were generally 
from ten to fifteen feet long, and from eight to ten wide, having an 
earthen floor, and walls white-washed on their inside, composed 
of rough unhewn posts, filled up between with reeds and rushes 
plastered with mud, and the whole covered with a roof of thatch. 
The eaves being in general not higher from the ground than four or 
six feet, the doors could not be entered without stooping. A small 
unglazed window admitted light ; but there was neither chimney, 
nor any other opening in the roof, by which the smoke might 
escape. * 
Some of the huts exhibited superior workmanship, being di- 
vided by a partition-wall into two rooms, and were exceedingly 
neat and clean. A table, two or three chairs, and a box, all manu- 
factured by the Hottentots themselves, made up the principal part 
of the furniture. A few families, who had been long established 
here, lived in houses of a much better description, built of square 
sawn beams, and walls partly of bricks and partly of mud hardened 
in the sun. One house, situated in a line of huts called Molen-straat 
* The Vignette at the end of this chapter is a view of a part of the valley of Gena- 
dendal, showing the ordinary huts of the Hottentots, surrounded by plantations of peach- 
trees. The mountain there seen is a part of Zwarteberg. 
