Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/497

Rh which they meet with upon the road. Great as these conveniences are, the people who come from afar must do little more than live, as there is no trade here, but in a few articles of provisions, which are sent to the East Indies, and curiosities. They can bring nothing to market but a little butter, such skins of wild beasts as they have been able to procure, and perhaps a few kinds of drugs.

There remains nothing but to say a word or two concerning the Hottentots, so frequently spoken of by travellers, by whom they are generally represented as the outcast of the human species, a race whose intellectual faculties are so little superior to those of beasts, that some have been inclined to suppose them more nearly related to baboons than to men.

Although I very much desired it, I was unable to see any of their habitations, there being none, as I was universally informed, within less than four days' journey from the Cape, in which they retained their original customs. Those who come to the Cape, who are in number not a few, are all servants of the Dutch farmers, whose cattle they take care of, and generally run before their waggons: these no doubt are the lowest and meanest of them, and these alone I can describe.

They were in general slim in make, and rather lean than at all plump or fat: in size equal to Europeans, some six feet and more; their eyes not expressive of any liveliness, but rather dull and unmeaning; the colour of their skins nearest to that of soot, owing in great measure to the dirt, which, by long use, was ingrained into it, for I believe that they never wash themselves. Their hair curled in very fine rings like that of negroes, or a Persian lamb's skin, but hung in falling ringlets seven or eight inches long. Their clothes consisted of a skin, generally of a sheep, and round their waists a belt, which in both sexes was richly ornamented with beads and small pieces of copper. Both sexes wore necklaces, and sometimes bracelets, likewise of beads, and the women had round their legs certain rings made of very hard leather, which they said served to defend