OCR Rendition - approximate

324 SIR H. B. FRERE.-On the Laws affecting the nearly pure Hottentot blood within 300 miles of Cape Town than there were when Van Riebeek first founded the Dutch Colony. I was struck with the very small numbers of natives in each tribe as estimated by the early voyagers, and summing up the numbers of those tribes whose territorial limits could be defined, it seemed to me that there were now, within those limits, as many, if not more, people of apparently genuine and unmixed Hottentot descent, than there were when the traveller wrote. This will not appear surprising if, setting aside for the moment the theory that the race must be dying out, we consider the great area of country required to support a nomad population subsisting mainly by the chase, as compared with the area required to support the same numbers living as labourers on farms or vineyards. The official returns as far as they go confirm this view. The early Dutch travellers speak of the Hottentots as numbering about 6,000 souls. Sir J. Barrow in 1798 estimated them at 1,500. An official return in 1806 gave male Hottentots, 9,784 ; females, 10,642 ; total, 20,426. In 1824 .. .. .. 31,000 In 1865 .. .. 81,589 In 1875 .. 98,561 But in the earlier returns slaves of other races were apparently included, and many of mixed races included in the later official census, as Hottentots. Dr. Theophilus Hahn estimated the Namaquas at 17,000 in Great Namaqualand and Damaraland. The point, however, as to whether the Hottentots of pure race in the Cape Colony are or are not dying out admits, I think, of being more clearly ascertained than by simple observation uncorrected by carefully collected statistics. It is useless to attempt any test by means of ordinary census returns, for few will register themselves as Hottentots who can possibly class themselves under any more respectable heading. But there are more than one of the large Moravian settlements specially devoted to the maintenance of Hottentots, and where the missionaries possess an unusual amount of knowledge of the p3rsonal history of their flock. Such are, Mamre, Gnadendhal, and others, at either of which it would be possible to obtain a fairly accurate history of the descent and other particulars of ethnological import-regarding probably two thousand of the people in and around the station. The enquiry should be made personally, in house to house visitation, by a competent scientific reporter, who is acquainted with some of the leading points. to be investigated in dealing with the problems of Anthropology, with an eye for variations of physical features, and an ear