The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-07-02

/ When the Dutch fixed their first post
at Cape Town in 1852, with no thought
| either of colonization or of conquest
| but for the sake of having gardens
which could supply fresh vegetables to
| the scurvy stricken crews of their ships
sailing to the east, they found three
native races inhabiting the country.
One Of these, the Bushmen, though few
in numbers, were widely scattered over
the whole of South Africa. They were
nomads of almost the lowest kind, with
a marvellous faculty for tracking and
trapping wild animals, but neither
owning cattle nor filling the soil, with
scarcely even a tribal organization, no
religion and language consisting OF
a succession of clicks. Unable to ac-
custom themselves to civilized life, and
driven out of some districts by the set
tiers and in others no longer able to
find support owing to the extinction
of game, they are now almost extinct,
though few are still left in the des-
erts of the Kalahari and northern Blu
chanaland. Before many years the
only trace of their existence will be in
the remarkable drawings of animals
with which they delighted to cover the
smooth surfaces of rocks. These draw
ings, which are found all the way from
Zambezi to the Cape and from Man
iacland to the Atlantic, are executed
in red and yellow pigments and are
often full of spirit and character.
The second race was that which the
Dutch called Hottentot They were OF
reddish or yellowish black hue, taller
than the Bushmen, butt with squat ana
seldom muscular figureS-a Thought
less, cheerful, asy-going people, VINO
royed hither and thilher with their
focks and herds as they could find
pasture They were decidedly SUI
perior to the Bushmen, whom they
hated, but quite unable to Withstand
Europeans, and their numbers rapldly
declined, partly from the loss OF 0helr
best grazing grounds, but largely also
through epidemic diseases, ana espec-
ially smallpox, which ships, toucnlng
on their way from India, brougnt lnto
the country. They are now, as olS-
tinct race. almost extinct in the Col
onv though a good deal of their blood
has passed into the mixed population
of Came Town and its neighborhood-a
incubation the other elements OF Whlch
are Malays and west coast negroes, the
descendants of slaves imported IN the
last century. Farther north, on the
south side of the Orange river, ana pc
vond it in Namagualand, small Srlpes
cognate to the Hottentots still Wanuei
over the dreary plains.
Very different from these weak busii-
men and Hottentots Was ana Is Ing
third native race, those VINO are U "a ,-t
Bantu Ca word meaning people ny
themselves and Kaff1rs by EuropedIs.
The word Kaffir is Arabic, and means
l1I- J
II is app.ied by Mussulmans not merely
to these South Africans. but to otnef
heathens, as, for instance, by the Al
e-hans TO the idolaters of kafr1stan IN
the Hindoo-Kush mountains. The For
tI1euese probably took the name from
the Arabs. whom they found already
settled on the east coast. These Bantu
trihes-if we may class those as Ban-
tus who speak the languages OF what
is called the Banru type-hll all East
Africa from the regions of the upper
Nile southwark.
Those who dwell south of the Fam.
bezi are generally strong and well
made men, sometimes as black as
gulf of Guinea negro, sometimes Verg-
ing on a brown tint: and though they
have the woolly hair and thick lips
generally characteristic CT the negro
individuals are often found among
them whose cast of features suggests
an admixture of Semitic blood. They
are more prolific than the Hottentots.
as we'll as physically stronger and bet
ter made, and they were further adj
vanced in the arts. of life. Some of the
tribes dug out ID worked iron and
copper; all of them used iron. Their
chief wealth lay in their cattle; horses
they did not possess, but where the.
land was fit for tillage they cultivated
it They had no religion. except in a
sort eli magic, and that worship of the
ghosts of ancestors which seems to be
the most widely diffused of all human
Instead Of priesthood
there were wizards or medicine men
often powerful as the denouncers of
those whom the chief wished to put to
death. Intellectually they were very
much upon the level of the native races
of West Africa.-James Bryce, NJ. P.
in Century.