author of such unparalleled brutality, the general ordered him instantly to yoke his oxen to his waggon, and, placing the boy by his side, to drive directly to his head-quarters. Here he gave orders to the farrier of the 8th regiment of light dragoons to strike off the irons from the boy, an operation that required great nicety and attention, and to clench them as tight as he could on the legs of his master, who roared and bellowed in a most violent manner, to the inexpressible satisfaction of the bye-standers, and, above all, to that of the little sufferer just relieved from torment. For the whole of the first night his lamentations were incessant; with a Stentorian voice a thousand times he vociferated, Myn God! is dat een maniere cm Christian mensch te handelen!'My God, is this a way to treat Christians! His, how ever, were not the agonies of bodily pain, but the bursts of rage and resentment on being put on a level with one, as they call them, of the Zwarte Natie, between whom and the Christian Mensch they conceive the difference to be fully as great as between themselves and their cattle, and whom, indeed, they most commonly honour with the appellation of Zwarte Vee, black cattle. Having roared for three days and as many nights, at first to the great amusement, but afterwards to the no less annoyance, of the whole camp, he was suffered to go about his business on paying a heavy penalty in money for the use of the boy, whom he had abused in so shameful a manner." We have selected this single example from many, because the horror which the crime excites is in some degree compensated by vindictive pleasure at its punishment. Unhappily this volume affords many examples of like barbarity, or even worse, but none of such righteous retribution. To enumerate them would be inflicting useless pain. It is sufficiently characteristic of these wretches to say, that in this petty war with the insurgent Hottentots and Kaffers, orders were issued by the landrost of one of the districts to the commandant of the boors, that no unnecessary cruelty should be exercised upon the prisoners; and that the dead carcases of the enemy should not be violated; as had usually been the practice of the evil-disposed boors, by cutting them with knives, lashing them with waggon whips, and hacking them with stones. Some of the original laws of the settlement have contributed to barbarize the colonists, or at least to impede their improvement. The system of loan lands, which is the most ancient tenure, has prevented the growth of villages. "When application was intended to be made for the grant of a leasehold farm, the person applying stuck down a stake at the place where the house was meant to be erected. The overseer of the division was then called to examine that it did not encroach on the neighbouring farms; that is to say, that no part of any of the surrounding farms were within half an hour's walk of the stake; or in other words, that a radius of about a mile and a half, with the stake as a centre, swept a circle which did not intersect any part of the adjoining farins. In such case the overseer certified that the loan farm applied for was tenable, otherwise not. And as it generally happened that the site of the house was determined by some spring or water-course, the stake was so placed that the circumference of the circle described left a space between the new, and some adjoining farm, of one, two, or more miles in diameter. This intermediate space, if less than three miles in diameter, was considered as not tenable, and, consequently, if any per son (willing to pay the established rent for a smaller quantity of land than government allowed) applied for such intermediate piece of ground, his application was sure to be rejected. Whether the government had any design of dispersing the people by such an absurd system, under the idea of keeping them more easily in subjection, I can't pretend to say; but it thought proper to encourage the continuance of the system, which is in full force to this moment." The first step towards civilizing mankind is to collect them together, and groupe their settled habitations; but where this dissocializing system prevails, no such aggregation can take place. By another curious law, whenever a settler thought proper to marry, he must bring his mistress to Cape Town for the cere mony, though their dwelling should be at the remotest extremity of the colony. Oftentimes the young woman is intrusted to the care of her future husband, as her parents cannot accompany her on such a long journey; and it very commonly happens that he debauches her on the way, and leaves her to return how she can he himself pays a certain fine for his breach of faith, and the young woman is not considered as much the worse for such a misadventure. All this must tend to occasion or perpetuate a general coarseness of feeling, and laxity of morals. The old punishments, like those under the French monarchy, were calculated to make a nation cruel: every species of torture that malignant and diabolical ingenuity could invent, was exercised upon the criminal (if he happened to be black) as long as any signs of life remained in him; he was then torn limb from limb, and the several parts hung upon posts erected for the purpose, in the most public parts of the high road. The implements of torture used at these executions, captain Percival tells us, were destroyed by our peopie, as disgraceful to human nature: a noble anecdote of the English character, and worthy to be preserved in history. The practice of torture too, to extort confession, was abolished by the conquerors. It was productive of a singu lar consequence: by the laws of Holland, as of some other countries, confession of the crime is indispensably necessary to the execution of the sentence; but most of the condemned criminals, during our government, finding that this confession was no longer extorted from them by torments, persisted in denying the crimes of which they were convicted; preferring a life of hard labour, with a diet of bread and water, to an untimely death. From these Christian Mensch, as they think proper to call themselves, and believe themselves to be, let us turn to the original natives of Caffraria, a country, says old sir Thomas Herbert, "full of black-skinned wretches, rich in catle, abounding with the best minerals and with elephants; but miserable in demonomy." As for their demonomy, if the good old knight could have foreseen what they now suffer from the Christian Mensch, he would have thought less of their possible danger from the devil. The black skin indeed is a more irremediable evil; we may hope to change their religion, and save them from the devil-but who is to change their completion, and save them from the slavemerchants? for till the Ethiop can be washed white, lord Liverpool, and the duke of Clarence, and the Dutch boors, will insist upon it, that the Zwarte Natie, the black people, are to be considered as Zwarte Ver, black cattle. If Mr. Barrow is to be credited; and never have we perused an author whose good sense, good feelings, and deliberatng judgment, entitled him more fully to unlimited credit; a more gentle or docile race than the poor Hottentots does not exist, nor any class of men, savage or civilized, in whom the moral sense seems to be less degraded. "A Hottentot is capable of strong attachments; with a readiness to acknowledge, he possesses the mind to feel, the force of a benevolent action. I never found that any little act of kindness or attention was thrown away upon a Hottentot; but, on the coatrary, I have frequently had occasion to remark the joy that sparkled in his countenance, whenever an opportunity occurred to enable him to discharge his debt of gratitude. I give full credit to all that Monsieur le Vaillant has said with regard to the delity and attachment he experienced from this race of men; of whom the natural character and disposition seem to approach nearer to those of the Hindus than any other nation." Mr. Barrow fell in with a large party of these people most whimsically accoutred. Some wore large cocked hats, with green or blue breeches of Dutch make, the rest of the body naked; some had jackets of cloth over their sheepskin covering; and others had sheep-skins thrown over linen shirts. They readily declared that they had been plundering the boors. "On making enquiry into the particulars of the unpleasant transaction that had taken place, one of the Hottentots, called Klaas Stuurman, or Nicholas the Helmsman, whom they had selected for their chief, stepped forwards, and, after humbly entreating us long oration, which contained a history of to hear him without interruption, began a their calamities and sufferings under the yoke of the boors; their injustice, in first deprive ing them of their country, and then forcing their offspring into a state of slavery; their cruel treatment on every si, ht occasion, which it became impossible for era to par any longer; and the resolution they had English troops should leave the county. Tast therefore taken to apply for redress before the their employers, suspecting their nier dou, had endeavoured to prevent such application by confining some to the house, threatening to shoot others if they attempted to escape, or to punish their wives and children in their absence. And, in proof of what he advanced, he called out a young Hottentot, whose thigh had been pierced through with a large musquet ball but two days before, tired at leave his service. This act, continued he, him by his master for having attempted to among many others equally cruel, resolved us at once to collect a sufficient force to de prive the boors of their arms, in which we have succeeded at every house which has fallen in our way. We have taken the superfluous clothing in lieu of the wages due for our services; but we have stripped none, nor injured the persons of any, though,' added he, shaking his head, we have yet a great deal of our blood to revenge." A party of these insurgents, (and when that name is applied to men struggling against oppression, be it in Switzerland, or St. Domingo, or Caffraria, it is a most honourable appellation); a party of these insurgents having put a body of boors to flight, took their wives and children prisoners. No injury was offered them; but, on the contrary, as on all similar occasions, says Mr. Barrow, they were treated with respect. They even dispatched a Hottentot after the fugitives, to say that if they chose to ransom them for a small quantity of powder and lead, and a dozen head of cattle, they should instantly be delivered up. One of the party recognizing the Hottentot, thus sent to them, to have once been in his service, and recollecting he was now standing before him in the shape of an enemy, and defenceless, snatched up his musquet, and shot him dead on the spot. It was reported, and believed, that in consequence the women and children were all put to death; and these very boors who believed that this retaliation had been exercised upon their wives and children, went to an Englishman's house, which had been left undisturbed by the insurgents, plundered it, drank all the wine and spirits they could find there, and then fell to dancing upon the green. The prisoners, how ever, notwithstanding the murder of the messenger, were given up; for the negroes said to them, they disdained to take away the lives of the innocent; but they should soon find an opportunity of avenging the death of their countryman upon their husbands, together with the many injuries and oppressions under which they had so long been labouring -Had this fact occurred in Grecian history, how often would it have been quoted for admiration! The Kaffers, as of different origin, are of different character, yet possessing many of the same virtues. An open and manly deportment, says Mr. Barrow, free from suspicion, fear, or embarrassment, seems to characterize the Kaffer chiefs. Though extremely good humoured, benevolent, and hospitable, they are neither so pliant nor so passive as the Hottentots. A remarkable instance of courage and prompt resolution was displayed by these people, when they had been instigated by the rebel boors to attack general Vandeleur's camp. Finding it useless to oppose their long missile weapons against musquetry, they rushed forward with only the iron part of the hassagay in their hands, They had perceived of how much greater advantage was a short weapon to a muscular arm, than a long missile spear, whose slow motion through the air makes it easily to be avoided. Some curious and important information concerning the interior of their country is contained in the following extracts from the official report of the commissioners, sent by the British government in 1801, to endeavour to procure a supply of draught oxen. ground, that were laid out and cultivated "Passing through several large tracts of like so many gardens, we arrived about noon at the city of Leetakoo, not a little astonished to find, in this part of the world, a large and populous city. We proceeded to the residence of the chief, whose name was Mooliaban, where we found him, with the elders of the place, seated on a plain that A was enclosed with a wood.... he offered he conducted us to his habitation, and inus some curdled milk. After the reception troduced us to his wife and children; here also we saw numbers of women, who gazed at us with astonishment. His house, like all the rest of the town, was built in a circular form, being about sixteen feet in diameter. The bottom part, to the height of four feet from the ground, was stone laid in clay, and wooden spars erected at certain distances. On the east side of the circle, about the fourth part of the house was open, the other three parts entirely closed. round pointed roof covered the whole in the form of a tent, well thatched with long reeds, or with the straws of the holcus From the centre to the back part of the house, a circular apartment is made off, with a narrow entrance into it, where the head of the bers of the family sleep in the fore part, or family takes his nightly rest; the other membetween the large and small circles of the house. All the houses were enclosed by pallisades; and the space between these and the dwelling serves for a granary and store for their grain and pulse. These granaries were constructed in the form of oil jars, of baked clay, the capacity of each being at the least two hundred gallons; and they were supported on tripods, composed of the same material, which raised them about nine inches above the ground. They were covered with a round straw roof erected on poles, and sufficiently high to admit an opening into the jars, the upper edges of which were from five to six feet from the ground. We walked through the town, and observed that both within it, and on every side, were planstitutes the principal food of the camelopartations of that species of mimosa which condalis. We estimated the city to be, in its circumference, as large as Cape Town, with all the gardens of Table Valley; but it was impossible to ascertain the number of houses, on account of the irregularity of the streets, and lowness of the buildings, but concluded they must amount somewhere between two and three thousand, of the same kind, but not so large, as that of the chief. The whole population, including men, women, and children, we considered to be from ten to fifteen thousand souls. Tracing our route from the last place in the Rogeveld, upon Mr. Barrow's inap, and continuing the same scale, we calculated the situation of Leetikop to be in latitude 20° 30′ south, and longi tude 27° 00′ east from Greenwich." "The commissioners, from whose report I have above quoted, were informed at Leetakoo that another powerful tribe of the same nation, called the Baroloos, dwelt at the distance of eight or ten days' journey farther to the northward. Reckoning the average of a day's journey to be twenty miles, we shall find the Baroloos inhabiting the country under the southern tropic; and we may conclude, from the following information which Mr. Truter received of this people, that they are not the last to the northward. He was told, That they were of a kind and friendly disposition; that their town was so extensive, that if a person set out in the morning from one extremity, and travelled to the other, he would not be able to return before the following day; that this town contained many thousand inhabitants; that the people were very ingenious in carving of wood, and that they had furnaces for smelting both copper and iron; that they were exceedingly rich in cattle; their gardens and lands were better cultivated, and their dwellings much superior to those of Leetakoo.' The Damaras also, whom I mentioned in my former travels to be in possession of the art of smelting copper from the orc, as well as I could collect from report, are inhabitants of the tropic; and they are complete Kaffers, differing in nothing from those on the eastern coast. I should suppose, therefore, that a line drawn from the 24th parallel of latitude on the east coast, to the 20th on the west, may mark the boundary, or nearly so, between the Kaffers and the negroes." Of this interesting expedition we are encouraged to expect an account from Mr. Somerville. The Kaffers seldom taste animal food, curdled milk is their chief diet; to this they sometimes add a few gramineous roots, berries of various kinds, the seeds of the Strelitzia Regina, and the pith of a large palm to which botanists have given the name of Zamia. Yet they are a tall and strong race, affording, says the author, a clear proof that animal food is by no means necessary to promote the growth of the human species, or to add strength of fibre to the mus cular parts of the body. The Dutch boors, who gorge themselves with ani. mai food, are indeed enormously corpu lent, but possess neither strength nor activity: on the contrary, the peasantry of the north-west coast of Ireland, a tall, and strong, and brawny people, subsist on butter milk and potatoes. It is fairly inferred from their example, and from the Kaffers, that difference of climate has no power to alter the general principle, and that the same cause produces the same effect in the northern parts of Europe, and in the southern corner of Africa." We have dwelt the more at length upon this interesting chapter, and the topics connected with it which occur in the other parts of the volume, as this is the part which most corresponds to the title of the work. The political chapters may be more briefly summed up, though matter so important is not to be lightly hurried over. Mr. Darrow proceeds to consider the importance of the Cape of Good Hope, as a military and naval station, in a commercial point of view, and as a depot for the southern whale fishery. The cession of this conquest is not so much to be imputed to Mr. Addington, as to the directors of the East Indian company: he only followed the example of his predecessors in consulting the interest and inclination of Leadenhall and Threadneedle streets, instead of, or in opposition to, the public. To prove that the retention was of no use wixatever to their commerce or their concerns in In dia, they forbade the commanders of all the ships in their employ, in the most positive terms, to touch at the Cape, either in their outward or in their homeward passages; except such as, on the return voyage, were destined to supply the settlement with Indian goods. English seamen could bear this; but in war time the Lascars frequently constitute more than two thirds of the crew; their chief sustenance is rice, oil, and vegetables, and they are ill calculated to suffer a long privation of their usual diet, and still less to bear the cold of the southern ocean, especially in the winter season: the Cape was the half-way house to which they looked on for fresh supplies, the resting place where a few days were to recruit their health and spirits. "And the event proved that such a half-way house, to such people, was indispensably necessary; for the direc tors were obliged to countermand their order, as far as it regarded those ships that were navigated by the black natives of India." There occurred also one memorable instance of the importance of this resting place to European troops. The 22d and 34th regiments arrived there in a very sickly state. The same ships, after being properly washed, scour ed, and fumigated, and the crews completely refreshed, carried on other troops to their destination, without the loss of a single man; and those regiments, which on their arrival had excited the pity of every one who saw them, became in the course of two years very fine regiments, fit for service in any part of the world. Upwards of two thousand men were shipped from the Cape at a few days' notice, to join the army of India against Tippoo; they took the field the day after their landing, and contributed very materially towards the conquest of Seringapatam. Twelve hundred men were sent to accompany sir Home Popham's expedition to the Red Sea; they also were embarked almost at a moment's warning, and were, all landed at Cossir fit for immediate service. Ten years ago the East India company had it in contemplation to establish a depêt for their recruits. "The principal_regulations proposed for such depositary of troops, as contained in Historie View of Plans for British India,' were the following::-That the age of the company's recruits should be from twelve to fifteen or twenty, because at this period of life, the constitution was found to accomimodate itself more easily to the different variations of climate. That the officers of the police should be empowered to transfer to the depôt all such helpless and indigent youths as might be found guilty of misdemeanours and irregularities approaching to erimes-that the said officers of police, and others, should be authorized to engage destitute and helpless young men in a service, where they would have a comfortable subsistence, and an honourable employment-that the young men so procured should be retained in Great Britain, at a depôt, for a certain time, in order to be instructed in such branches of education as would qualify for the duty of a non-commissioned officer, and in those military exercises which form them for immediate service in the regiments in India. Now of all the places on the surface of the globe; for the establishment of such a depôt, the Cape of Good Hope is preeminently distinguished. In the first place, there would be no difficulty in conveying them thither. In every month of the year, the outward-bound ships of the company, private traders, or whalers, sail from England, and the fewer that each ship carried, the greater the probability would be that perhaps, no place on the face of the earth in none died on the passage. And there is, every respect so suitable as the Cape for forming them into soldiers. It possesses, among other advantages, three that are invaluable: healthiness of climate, cheapness of subsistence, and a favourable situation for speedy intercourse with most parts of the world, and particularly with India." The Cape is the only military station. that we have possessed of late years, where government was enabled to make a saving by feeding the soldier; that is, where the ration, or settled proportion of victuals, could be furnished for a sum of money less than that which is stopped out of his pay in consideration of it. The averaged annual expence of the military force there, during the seven years which we maintained it, amounted to 255,5971. 7s. But, says Mr. Barrow, it would be the height of absurdity to say, that even this sum, moderate as it is, was an additional expence to government in consequence of the capture of this settlement; since it is not only composed of the expences of maintaining the garrison, and the contingencies and extraordinaries of the army, but it includes likewise the pay, the subsistence, and the clothing of an army of five thousand men, who must have been fed, clothed, and paid in any other place. Even in peace, the half pay of the commissioned officers would alone have amounted to from 100,000l. to 150,000. In peace, 25 or 30,000l. would be the extent of the contingent and extraordinary expences of the Cape, and if that sum could not be defrayed out of the expence of the colony, that colony indeed must be most miserably misgoverned. Mr. Barrow proves, from the receipts under lord Macartney, that we might reckon upon a net annual revenue of 100,000. currency. In the next chapter it is considered as a naval station: first, as a port for refreshing and refitting the ships of the East India company; secondly, as a station for ships of war, commanding the entrance into the Indian seas; thirdly, as affording, by its geographical position, a ready communication with every part of the globe. On points so apparently self-evident it would be needless to enlarge; nor need we enter minutely |