OCR Rendition - approximate

Relations between Civilized and Savage Life. 325 for language. Dr. Hahn, the zealous Professor of Chemistry in the South African College, Cape Town, has, I know, made such matters his study at Mamre, in the Malmesbury district, and with the aid of other members of the South African Philosophical Society would be able, I have no doubt, to throw much light on the subject. It would be desirable to enquire, in the same manner, regarding the births and deaths, and duration of life in each family selected, and to collect as much information as possible bearing on the vital statistics of the race. I fear it will be found that, even if I am right in believing that the aggregate numbers of the race have not decreased since they came in close contact with Europeans, the rate of mortality among them will be found to be very high as compared with either the European, or with other African races. Measles and small-pox create terrible havoc among them, whenever they break out. Venereal diseases are abnormally frequent and fatal, and the destruction caused by spirit drinking is frightful, the race appearing to be unable to resist either the temptation to drink, or the ill effects of drinking, to a degree unusual even among savage races. It is difficult to draw any very distinct line between Namaquas and Hottentots. But whereas the Hottentots are generally considered as confined to the old Cape Colony proper, the Namaquas form distinct tribes, more or less independent Qf Colonial control, and in Great Namaqualand beyond Colonial jurisdiction. Hence they afford a better field for ethnological study by the Anthropologist and Philologist. But they throw less light on the immediate subject of our inquiry, the laws affecting the relations between civilized and savage life. They have been sensibly receding northwards before the advancing colonists ; and have come in hostile contact with the Damaras, a Bantu race, moving southwards and westwards, with whom they raged war, with varying success, till peace was restored, mainly through the intervention of the German missionaries. Damaras and Namaquas alike agreed to a modified English Protectorate, which led to the annexation of the port of Walwich Bay, and might have led to the settlement and partial civilization of the whole region between the lower Orange River, and the Portuguese frontier on the western coast, and from the sea to the Kalahari desert. But a change in the policy of the English Government has led to the withdrawal of the promised protectorate, and according to the latest advices, to the renewal of war between Damaras and Namaquas. Between the Namaquas and the Bechuana tribes along the banks of the Orange River and its northern tributaries as far east as Basutoland, were found the Korannas, apparently an z2