sulted by his sovereign, the rajah of Sattarah, on the conclusion of foreign alliances: and the rajah of Sattarah had the power undoubtedly to conclude such alliances without the consent of the commander in chief of his forces. If the question be not tried by the original constitution of the Marhatta empire (namely, that, constitution under which the rajah of Sattarah was the head of the empire, and Ragejee Bhooslah the commander in chief of the forces), it must be decided by the rights of long acknowledged and actual power; and under that view of the case, the peishwah's independance must be admitted equally with that of the rajah of Berar. In either case, therefore, the right of the peishwah to contract foreign alliances without the consent of the rajah of Berar cannot be disputed." CHARACTER and MANNERS of the HOTTENTOTS. [From Mr. BARROW'S TRAVELS in SOUTHERN AFRICA.] "HA AVING finished our observations on Zwart-kop's bay and the adjoining country, the next step was to make the best of our way to the eastward along the seacoast where the Kaffers were said to have stationed themselves in the greatest numbers. An old Hottentot, who on former occasions had served as interpreter between the landrosts of Graaff Reynet and the Kaffer chiefs, had, according to appointment, joined us with his suite, consisting of about half a dozen of his countrymen. The landrost, on his joining us, invested him with his staff of office, a long stick with a brass head, on which was engraven the king's arms. By such a staff, in the time of the Dutch government, a Hottentot was constituted a captain; and, by the number they created of these captains, the ruin of their hordes was much facilitated. But they are now no more; they and their hordes have entirely disappeared, and our old captain Haasck commands in Graaff Reynet without a rival. "Twenty years ago, if we may credit the travellers of that day, the country beyond Camtoos river, which was then the eastern limit of the colony, abounded with kraals or villages of Hottentots, out of which the inhabitants came to meet them by hundreds in a groupe. Some of these villages might still have been expected to remain in this remote and not very populous part of the colony. Not one, how ever, was to be found. There is not in the whole extensive district of Graaff Reynet a single horde of independent Hottentots; and perhaps not a score of individuals who are not actually in the service of the Dutch. These weak people, the most helpless, and in their present condition perhaps the most wretched, of the human race, duped out of their possessions, their coun try, and finally out of their liberty, have entailed upon their miserable offspring a state of existence to which that of slavery might bear the comparison of happiness. It is a condition, however, not likely to continue to a very remote posterity. The The name of Hottentot will be forgotten, or remembered only as that of a deceased person of little note. Their numbers of late years have rapidly declined. It has generally been observed, that where-. ever Europeans have colonized, the less civilized natives have always dwindled away, and at length totally disappeared. Various causes have contributed to the depopulation of the Hottentots. The impolitic custom of hording together in families, and of not marrying out of their own kraals, has no doubt tended to enervate this race of men, and reduced them to their present degenerated condition, which is that of a languid, listless, phlegmatic people, in whom the prolific powers of nature seem to be almost exhausted. To this may be added their extreme poverty, scantiness of food, and continual dejection of mind, arising from the cruel treatment they receive from an inhuman and unfeeling peasantry, who having discovered themselves to be removed to too great a distance from the seat of their former government to be awed by its authority, have exercised, in the most wanton and barbarous manner, an absolute power over these poor wretches reduced to the necessity of depending upon them for a morsel of bread. There is scarcely an instance of cruelty said to have been committed against the slaves in the West-India islands, that could not find a parallel from the Dutch farmers of the remote parts of the colony towards the Hottentots in their service. Beating and cutting them with thongs of the hide of the sea-cow or rhinoceros, is a gentle punishment, though these sort of whips which they call shambos are most horrid instruments, tough, pliant, and heavy almost as lead. Firing small shot into the legs and thighs of a Hottentot is a punishment not unknown to some of the monsters who inhabit the neighbourhood of Camtoos river. Instant death is not unfrequently the consequence of punishing these poor wretches in a moment of rage. This is of little consequence to the farmer; for though they are to all intents and purposes his slaves, yet they are not transferable property. It is this circumstance which, in his mind, makes their lives less valuable, and their treatment more inhuman. "In offences of too small moment to stir up the phlegm of a Dutch peasant, the coolness and tranquillity displayed at the punishment of his slave or Hottentot is highly ridiculous, and at the same time indicative of a savage disposition to unfeeling cruelty lurking in his heart. He flogs them, not by any given number of lashes, but by time; and as they have no clocks nor substitutes for them capable of marking the smaller divisions of time, he has invented an excuse for the indulgence of one of his most favourite sensualites, by flogging them till he has smoked as many pipes of tobacco as he may judge the magnitude of the crime to deserve. The government of Malacca, according to the manuscript journal of an intelligent officer in the expedition against that settlement, has adopted the same custom of forging by pipes; and the fiscal or chief magistrate, or some of his deputies, are the smokers on such occasions. "By a resolution of the old gevernment, as unjust as it was inhuman, a peasant was allowed to claim as his property, till the age of five-and-twenty, all the children of of the Hottentots in his service to whom he had given in their infancy a morsel of meat. At the expiration of this period the odds are ten to one that the slave is not emancipated. A Hottentot knows nothing of his age; he takes no note of time.' And though the spirit that dictated this humane law expanded its beneficence in favour of the Hottentot by directing the farmer to register the birth of such children as he may intend to make his slaves, yet it seldom happens, removed as many of them are to the distance of ten or twelve days' journey from the Drosdy, that the Hottentot has an opportunity of inquiring when his servitude will expire; and indeed it is a chance if he thinks upon or even knows the existence of such a resource. Should he be fortunate enough to escape at the end of the period, the best part of his life has been spent in a profitless servitude, and he is turned adrift in the decline of life (for a Hottentot begins to grow old at thirty), without any earthly thing he can call his own, except the sheep's skin upon his back. "The condition of those who engage themselves from year to year is little better than that of the other. If they have already families, they erect for them little straw-huts near the farm-house. Their children are encouraged to run about the house of the peasant, where they receive their morsel of food. This is deemed sufficient to establish their claim to the young Hottentots; and should the parents, at the end of the term for which they engaged, express a desire to quit the service, the farmer will suffer them to go, perhaps turn them away, and detain their children. "Those who are unmarried and free are somewhat better in their situation than the others, though not much. The pitiful wages they agree for are stopped upon every frivolous occasion. If an ox or a sheep be missing, the Hottentot must replace them; nor would he be suffered to quit his service till he has earned the value of them. An ox, or a couple of cows, or a dozen sheep, worth forty or fifty shillings, are the usual wages of a whole year; and it frequently happens that a bill for tobacco or brandy is brought against them to the full amount. "In such a situation, and under such circumstances, it may easily be supposed that the Hottentot has little inducement to engage in marriage. Those who do so have seldom more than two or three chil dren; and many of the women are barren. This, however, is not the case when a Hottentot woman is connected with a white man. The fruit of such an alliance is not only in general numerous, but are beings of a very different nature from the Hottentot, men of six feet high and stout in proportion, and women well made, not ill-featured, smart, and active. These people, called bastaards, generally marry with each other, or with persons of colour, but seldom with Hottentots; so that it is probable this mixed breed in a short time will supplant that from which they are descended in the female line. The Hottentot girls in the service of the colonists are in situations too dependant to dare to reject the proffered embraces of the young peasantry. "It has frequently been observed that a savage who dances and sings must be happy. With him these operations are the effects of plea surable surable sensations floating in his mind: in a civilized state, they are arts acquired by study, and practised at appointed times, without having any reference to the passions. If dancing and singing were the tests by which the happiness of a Hottentot was to be tried, he would be found among the most miserable of all human beings; I mean those Hottentots living with the farmers of Graaff Reynet in a state of bondage. It is rare to observe the muscles of his face relaxed into a smile. A depressed melancholy and deep gloom constantly overspread his countenance. Á Ghonaqua man and a young Hottentot girl from Sneuwberg, both of them in the service of one of the farmers who crossed the desert with us, were the only two I had hitherto met with who seemed to have any taste for music. They had different instruments; one was a kind of guitar with three strings stretched over a piece of hollow wood with a long handle; it was called in their language gabowie. The other instrument was extremely simple it consisted of a piece of sinew or intestine twisted into a small cord, and fastened to a hollow stick about three feet in length, at one end to a small peg, which, by turning, brings the string to the proper degree of tension, and at the other to a piece of quill fixed into the stick. The tones of this instrument are produced by apply. ing the mouth to the quill, and are varied according as the vibratory motion is given to the quill and string by inspiration or expiration. It sounds like the faint murmurs of distant music that comes o'er the ear,' without any distinct note being made out by that organ. This in strument was called the gowra. "Of the very few Hottentots in the district of Graaff Reynet, who, besides our interpreter, had preserved a sort of independance, and supported themselves, partly by the chace, and partly from the la bours of their children who were in servitude, was a small party of four or five old men who paid us a visit near the woods of Bruyntjes Hogté. These men carried the ancient wea pons of their nation, bows, and quivers charged with poisoned arrows. The bow was a plain piece of wood from the guerrie bosch, ap. parently a species of rhus; and sometimes the hassagai wood is used for the same purpose. The string, three feet long, was composed of the fibres of the dorsal muscles of the springbok twisted into a cord. The stem of an aloe furnished the quiver. The arrow consisted of a reed, in one extremity of which was inserted a piece of highly-polished solid bone from the leg of an ostrich, round, and about five inches in length; the intent of it seemed to be that of giving weight, strength, and easy entrance to this part of the arrow. To the end of the bone was affixed a small sharp piece of iron of the form of an equilateral triangle; and the same string of sinews that bound this tight to the bone, served also to contain the poison between the threads and over the surface, which was ap plied in the consistence of wax or varnish. The string tied in also at the same time a piece of sharp quill pointed towards the opposite end of the arrow, which was not only meant to increase the difficulty of drawing it out, but also to rankle and tear the flesh, and to bring the poison more in contact with the blood. The whole length of the arrow was barely two feet. There are several plants in South Africa from from which the Hottentots extract their poisons by macerating the leaves or branches, and inspissating the juices, either by boiling or by exposure to the heat of the sun; but the poison taken from the heads of snakes, mixed with the juices of certain bulbous-rooted plants, is what they mostly depend upon. This party of old men had killed a hartebeest with a poisoned arrow by wounding it in the thigh. The animal had run about half an hour after receiving the wound before it fell. They immediately cut away the flesh round the wound, when it has been made with a poisoned arrow, and squeeze out the blood from the carcass; in which state they know from experience that the flesh taken into the stomach will do them no injury. "The ancient manners and primitive character of this extraordinary race of men are, no doubt, much changed since their connexion with the colonists; and the nearer they are found to the capital and the parts most inhabited by Europeans, the less they retain of them. If at any time they composed societies governed by laws, swayed by customs, and observant of religious ceremonies, many of which, as related among the fables of ancient voyagers, and revived by some modern travellers, were so absurd and extremely ridiculous as to create strong doubts of their existence, they have now so completely lost them that no one trace remains behind. The name even that has been given to this people. is a fabrication. Hottentot is a word that has no place nor meaning in their language; and they take to themselves the name under the idea of its being a Dutch word. When they were spread over the southern angle of Africa, each horde had. its particular name; but that by which the whole nation was di stinguished, and which at this moment they bear among themselves in every part of the country, is Quaiqua. From living together in particular clans, and, in later times, from mixing with different people, the Hottentots of one district differ very considerably from those of another. The part of the country we now were in, being the last that was colonized, was inhabited most probably by such as had retained more of their orignal character than the others: and it is those to whom the following remarks are meant to apply. It is "Low as they are sunk in the scale of humanity, their character seems to have been very much traduced and misrepresented. true there is nothing prepossessing in the appearance of a Hottentot, but infinitely less so in the many ridiculous and false relations by which the public have been abused. They are a mild, quiet, and timid people; perfectly harmless, honest, faithful; and, though extremely phlegmatic, they are kind and affectionate to each other, and not incapable of strong attachments. A Hottentot would share his last morsel with his companions. They have little of that kind of art or cunning that savages generally possess. If accused of crimes of which they have been guilty, they generally divulge the truth. They seldom quarrel among themselves, or make use of provoking language. Though naturally of a fearful and cowardly disposition, they will run into the face of danger if led on by their superiors; and they suffer pain with great patience. They are by no means deficient in talent, but they possess little exertion to call it into action: the want of |