GENERAL REMARKS 
US flit 
RACES INHABITING SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
TTiRoi GHorr the various districts and regions of Africa, southward of the Tropic of Capricorn, we find to exist, 
after careful investigation, hut two distinct aboriginal races of men, designated as the Hottentots and the Kafirs. 
The former, as far as we can judge from analogy of colour and physical peculiarities, appear to belong to the 
Mongolian race, and were, undoubtedly, the most ancient inhabitants of the land. After the discovery of the Cape of 
Good Hope by the Portuguese navigator, Bartholomew Diaz, the Dutch, in 1G52, made settlements on the south-western 
angle of the African Continent. At that period all the vast extent of territory now distinguished as the Cape Colony 
and belonging to the British crown, was then inhabited by Hottentots, whose origin and history are involved in much 
doubt and obscurity, l'hc whole, race is totally distinct from all other African tribes of which we have any knowledge; 
ami, from the yellow colour of their skin, their peculiar physiognomy, and the distinct character of their language, it 
is evident that they have arisen from a race differing widely from that of their dark-skinned neighbours. The Hottentots 
include the aboriginal inhabitants of the Cape Colony, south of the Gariep or Orange River, extending eastward formerly 
as far as the Pish River and the Keiskamma, where they were met by the Kafirs: the Namacjuas, occupying Great 
Namaqua Land, beyond the Orange River, extending along the western coast up to Walwich Bay and the Damaru 
country, aud inland towards the. Great Kalagari Desert; the Korannas, who are scattered along the hanks of the 
Orange River, and are to be met with, stretching in a north-easterly direction, as far as the kingdom of the Amazulu 
Katirs; and, lastly, the Bushmen, who are the most remarkable portion of the Hottentot race; they lead a nomadic 
life, and are to be found scattered thinly among all the Bechuana tribes of the interior, as far north as the Mampoor 
Lake, eight hundred miles beyond Latakoo. In the fastnesses of the Quathlamba mountains fa snowy range dividing the 
country of the Zulus and eastern Kafirs from the Basuto and Bechuana territory), are still to be found the liaroa , 
• u men of the bushes. I lie desert wastes and barren rocky glens of the mountains are the refuge of the Bushmen, 
who are the most degraded and the weakest portion of the Hottentot family. At the present time, nowhere but in Great 
Namaqua Land does the race enjoy full freedom, and its dispersion over the arid plains and along the banks of the 
desert-flowing rivers of the interior, would lead us to suppose that it was once the sole possessor of all the southern 
poition of the African continent, and that the Kafirs have taken from them, by superiority of force, the territory they now 
inhabit. Formerly the Hottentots were powerful, riel., and comparatively happy, living in pastoral ease and abundance 
on the produce of their herds and flocks; they did not, like the Kafirs, cultivate the ground, their only care being devoted 
in the management of their cattle. They were then divided into many tribes and subdivisions, each under a patriarchal 
government or rule; but the settlement of the Cape of Good Hope by Europeans was the commencement of their 
disorganisation and subsequent slavery and ruin. The Gonaquas were a tribe (now extinct, though formerly numerous 
and powerful) consisting of a people of mixed Hottentot and Kafir descent; and the dialect now spoken by the frontier 
Kafirs partakes, in a certain degree, of the Hottentot “click," a peculiarity probably dermal from their intermixture with 
the latter race. 
We meet with Hottentot and Bushmen drawings in all the caves of South Africa, generally consisting of rude 
representations of elephants, ostriches, antelopes, and the human figure, coloured with clay or ochre-, these (he Kafir tribes 
ascribe to the H»roan<h or people of the south, while they say, as for themselves, they have come from the north and the 
north-east. In speaking of 1 he different tribes they thus express themselves: “First appeared the Hottentots, then the 
Kafir-, and lastly the BechUamis (who also belong to the Ziugian family equally with the Kafirs), The Hottentots adopted 
