The Hottentots are certainly the ugliest race on earth, and the first view of them causes a feeling of almost horror. Men they are, without doubt, but many look more like baboons; their high cheek-bones, small eyes, thick lips, yellow mummy sort of skin, with a few little crumbs of hair like peppercorns stuck over their heads and chins, give them a most ridiculous appearance. Their short stature, rarely over five feet, and frequently less, with the rough costume of untanned leather breeches, etc., would make but a sorry spectacle were they to be paraded in Regent-street on their rough-looking Cape horses beside a troop of Life-guards. But still greater would be the ridicule were a troop of the latter to be transported to Africa, and then told to follow these active little Hottentot soldiers through the bush, and to attack the band of Kaffirs hidden in the dark kloof above: each is good in his calling.
The Cape corps is almost entirely composed of Hottentots, and they are right well fitted for the work of fighting the Kaffirs. Courageous and cunning, endowed with a sort of instinct that seems superior to reason, they can hear, see, and almost smell danger in all shapes, and are ever on the watch for suspicious signs. No footmark of Kaffir, wolf, lion, or elephant is passed unnoticed; no bird is seen to flit away from a distant bush without apparent cause, but a careful watch is at once set up; not a dog lifts up his ears, but the Totty—as the Hottentot is familiarly called—is also suspicious.
The wild life led in Africa causes even one lately removed from civilisation to feel his instincts become rapidly keener.
A man who has been born and nurtured in the wilderness, therefore, must be far superior to the freshly transplanted European, who finds that he has to commence the A, B, C, under these very men whose appearance would at first produce only a feeling of contempt for their prowess.
A deadly hatred exists between the Kaffir and the Hottentot, and both are equally expert in the bush, where an Englishman is so rarely at home.
In fair fighting the British soldier has proved that no country produces men fit to cope with him; but let him be cautious of ambuscades and bush-fighting.
A naval officer, who was in a fort on the west coast of Africa, happened to be attacked by the natives, but as his fort was a stronghold that the barbarians could make nothing of, they were easily repulsed. Elated with his successful defence, he sallied out, and gave them a good drubbing on some open ground near. But not contented with this triumph, he must needs follow them up into the bush, where he was defeated with great slaughter. His jaw-bones are now said to be beating the big drum of Ashantee.
Our victories over the barbarians of Africa have not been so very great, but that we might condescend to take a useful lesson from these men, savages as they are.
Any man who has seen the Kaffirs or Hottentots approach dangerous game,—their perseverance, courage, activity, and hardihood, combined with caution and cunning, may easily understand that they could employ these gifts in a manner that would make them anything but despicable enemies.
There is a recklessness about the Hottentot which the Kaffir does not possess, the former being a thorough spendthrift. Give him ammunition for his defence, and he will blaze away at tree or bush, air or ground, until it is all expended, and with no other object or reason than for amusement, or thinking that a Kaffir might be near.