The narrative of an explorer in tropical South AfricaGalton, Francis
History
The narrative of an explorer in tropical South Africa
Galton, Francis
South Africa -- Description and travel
The Europeans that have visited the country between the latitudes of
Angra Pequana and Barmen, are some ten missionaries, the same number
of traders, five or six runaway sailors, who have acted as servants to
these, and two travelling parties besides my own. The first was that of
Sir James Alexander, who explored this country upwards from the Orange
River fifteen or twenty years ago, and whom the traders and missionaries
followed; the other was that of Mr. Ruxton, the well-known American
traveller, who sailed to Walfisch Bay, but was prevented by the traders
that were there from entering further into the land, and who had to
return in the same ship that brought him. There is no difference whatever
between the Hottentot and the Bushman, who lives wild about the hills
in this part of Africa, whatever may have been said or written on the
subject. The Namaqua Hottentot is simply the reclaimed and somewhat
civilised Bushman, just as the Oerlams represent the same raw material
under a slightly higher degree of polish. Not only are they identical in
features and language, but the Hottentot tribes have been, and continue
to be, recruited from the Bushmen. The largest tribe of these Namaqua
Hottentots, those under Cornelius, and who muster now 1000 guns, have
almost all of them lived the life of Bushmen. In fact, a savage loses
his name, “Saen,” which is the Hottentot word, as soon as he leaves his
Bushman’s life and joins one of the larger tribes, as those at Walfisch
Bay have done; and therefore when I say Oerlam Hottentot or Bushman, the
identically same yellow, flat-nosed, woolly-haired, clicking individual
must be conjured up before the mind of my kind reader, but differing in
dirt, squalor, and nakedness, according to the actual term employed;
the very highest point of the scale being a creature who has means of
dressing himself respectably on Sundays and gala-days, and who knows
something of reading and writing; the lowest point, a regular savage.
Of the very smallest tribe of Bushmen I met none in my travels.
The Oerlams, then, some thirty years since, were near the Orange River,
and Jonker was a chief of secondary importance amongst them. He fought
his way into notoriety, and with success his little tribe received fresh
recruits. The Namaqua Hottentots asked his assistance in attacking
their northern neighbours, the Damaras, the pretext being constant
quarrels, the ill-treatment that their kindred the Bushmen were receiving
throughout the country, and last, not least, the fine herds of oxen that
only waited to be plundered. Jonker accordingly trecked up, helped the
Hottentots, and then settled alongside of them. His tribe now became
larger and more efficient; he bought guns and horses from the Cape with
the oxen that he stole, and continued robbing the Damaras on his own
account.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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