CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOTTENTOTS. 159 
collected by M. Bleek in bis Bushman’s Researches, as possessing 
a very problematical value. 
A new indication may be furnished, I think, by their 
domestic animals. At the time of the discovery of the Cape 
the Hottentots possessed both sheep and oxen. 
Sheep were originally entirely unknown to the Caffres and 
to the Bechuanas, as also, if I am not mistaken, to the Damaras 
and to the Ovampo. 
The indigenous race of sheep of the Hottentots, which has at 
present, perhaps, entirely disappeared from the Cape countries, 
was the sheep with a big tail, identical, apparently, with the 
Ovis platyura. This Ovis platyura, from what I have heard 
from Mr. Horst, comes from the hot parts of Western Asia 
and the south of Bnssia, whence it has been imported into 
certain parts of Africa. The Hottentots were in possession of 
this sheep before the arrival of the Europeans ; had they not 
brought it with them on leaving Asia ? If the identity of the 
big- tailed sheep of the Cape with the Ovis platyura could be 
placed beyond doubt, it would be, in my opinion, a very 
important indication as to the question of the origin of the 
Hottentots. 
The possession of this sheep-race proves still more. In the 
north of the Cape country we do not find any sheep. The 
middle part, including the northern Transvaal, seems entirely 
unfit for rearing these animals. Amongst the known causes 
we can quote the poisonous qualities of the pasturage, the 
presence of the tsetse fly, and of special pneumonias. It 
would, therefore, have been difficult, if not impossible, for 
the Hottentots to move on from the North to the South on 
the firm soil of the Cape. 
Cattle were reared by the Caffres and Bechuanas as well 
as the Hottentots. As to the Caffres, I believe that they 
possessed particular breeds of oxen (Zulu and Boeskop races) ; 
as to the Hottentots I have not been able to discover anything 
of the kind. 
The Europeans got to know the Hottentots only at the end 
of the fifteenth century. As I have said already, the popula- 
tion of the Cape was then only thin. According to an estimate 
founded on the statements of travellers, I believe that the total 
of Hottentots at that period did not surpass 200,000. This 
number, which I should even feel inclined to reduce, is certainly 
only small for a people, which was, for a long series of centuries, 
in circumstances so favourable to its multiplication. 
Moreover, it would be a very strange lusus naturae, that 
could have produced at the Cape a race so characteristic, so 
different from all neighbouring people, and showing so much 
analogy with the Mongolian race. 
