Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/106

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six or eight thousand sheep, of which they drive great droves to town every year; but lions and buffaloes, and the fatigue of the journey, destroy numbers of their cattle before they can bring them so far. They commonly take their families with them in large waggons covered with linen or leather, spread over hoops, and drawn by eight, ten, and sometimes twelve pair of oxen. They bring butter, mutton-tallow, the flesh and skins of sea-cows (hippopotamus), together with lion and rhinoceros' skins, to sell. They have several slaves, and commonly engage in their service several Hottentots of the poorer sort, and (as we were told) of the tribe called Boschemans or Bushmen, who have no cattle of their own, but commonly subsist by hunting or by committing depredations on their neighbours. The opulent farmers set up a young beginner by intrusting to his care a flock of four or five hundred sheep, which he leads to a distant spot, where he finds plenty of good grass and water; the one half of all the lambs which are yeaned fall to his share, by which means he soon becomes as rich as his benefactor.

Though the Dutch company seem evidently to discourage all new settlers, by granting no lands in private property, yet the products of the country have of late years sufficed not only to supply the Isles of France and Bourbon with corn, but likewise to furnish the mother country with several ship loads. These exports would certainly be made