“There is service in the church every evening, at which above 200 attend, but on the sabbath nearly 1200 assemble. The whole number under the care of Moravians at this time was rather more than 1300. On Mondays and Fridays they were instructed in singing. The catechism was the course of instruction for the adults. A school room had been built for the daily instruction of the children. The girls are received into this school in the morning, and the boys in the evening; they are educated upon Dr. Bell’s system, and many have made very considerable progress, reading the Bible in Dutch with great fluency.
“The Missionaries are naturally very anxious that the children thus educated should settle amongst them, and see them go away with great reluctance. They however seldom migrate, but marry at an early age, and settle under the immediate protection of their kind friends. We visited several of the cottages, which would have been admired for their neatness and cleanliness in any part of England.
“The Moravians receive all Hottentots from whatever part of the colony they may come, but admit with some jealousy such as have been long inhabitants of Cape Town; and this for a very obvious reason, as they have but too probably acquired habits of intemperance and profligacy, from which these were perhaps free in their savage state.
“The Boors make great complaints against the Moravians for encouraging the Hottentots in their disinclination to work, and in the preference they give to remaining in wretchedness and want in the neighbourhood of Genadendahl, to what they consider more useful labour upon the farms of the colony. The charge of indolence made against the Hottentots while in the service of the Boor may be admitted to a certain degree; but this must in a great measure be attributed to the treatment they receive from the Boor—where they are invariably overworked, wretchedly clad, and cruelly punished for the slightest offence, and even for no offence at all. This is a fearful weight in the scale, when the only counterpoise is a sufficiency of food. The wages rarely exceeded five rix dollars a month, and this payment was often withheld on the plea of a debt, for clothes, tobacco, or spirituous liquors; by which means from utter inability to pay what is demanded, the poor Hottentot became to all intents and purposes a slave for life; but even should he by the utmost exertion and frugality, succeed in getting rid of this debt, he might be involved in others, being accused of having lost an ox by carelessness, or by breaking a wagon by an accident over which he could have no control. Conviction soon followed accusation at the field Cornet’s tribunal, and unless rescued by remonstrances from influential persons, there was little hope of their ever obtaining freedom. Dr. Philip by his arduous exertions, at length broke the neck of this most odious system of tyranny, and succeeded in placing the Hottentot in a situation nearer to that of the white colonist. But among the Boors of the Cape there are many who have dealt very differently with the Hottentot; who have been just and humane towards them, and who in consequence have had occasion to speak of them in a very different manner. Instead of denouncing the whole race as indolent, dishonest, and treacherous, they have found them active, industrious, faithful, and attached in an extraordinary degree, not only to the master and his family, but to his interest, which they hazarded their lives in defence of; as has been frequently evinced by the conduct of these people in defending their master’s property or cattle from wild beasts, or from Kaffer invaders. In truth perhaps there is no description of person who has evinced more ardent gratitude and self-devotion than the Hottentot has done when under kind treatment; there was also one trait of character in itself most honourable, which was so frequently manifested as to place them very high in moral eminence, and that was their determined adherence to truth. Colonel Graham, our companion on this occasion, assured me, that during the whole time he commanded the Hottentot corps, which was some years, he remembered very few instances in which these people had recourse to falsehood; and that even in cases, when the offence from having been often repeated, must necessarily meet with punishment, it was confessed by the culprit with the same frankness as though it had been the first offence, and the confession pleaded in the hope of forgiveness. It is painful to think how much of this native morality of character has been lost, by communication with civilized Europeans.
“I confidently believe, that were the Hottentot always treated with kindness and paid his just due, his labour would far exceed the work assigned him, and that he would be, when uncorrupted by bad example, a most valuable and attached servant. Of this there are many instances, not only in the memory, but in the actual experience of respectable persons at the Cape.
“The Hottentots are in general remarkably intelligent, and are very quick sighted in discovering the track or footsteps of wild animals; they will even trace the steps of man over wild and extensive heaths, so covered with a stunted vegetation as to leave no apparent traces. Their vision is also particularly correct and clear. These last mentioned faculties seem to be possessed in a high degree by all savages, a circumstance easily accounted for by the supposition that their faculties are sharpened by the necessity of exerting them to the utmost, in the absence of those aids, which invention in civilized states has rendered so universal, and so indispensable.
“A Hottentot delights in the chase, a pursuit he was born to; and he is admirably adapted to it from his almost intuitive knowledge of the haunts and habits of wild animals, to whom he is a most formidable enemy.
“We have already adverted to the corps formed entirely of Hottentots, and in justice to them we should give the opinion formed of these people by General Sir James Craig, by whom they were embodied. It has already been given in the excellent and accurate work of Mr. now Sir John Barrow, but it should, whenever the Hottentot character is brought before the public, be referred to. ‘Never were people more contented, or more grateful, for the treatment they now receive. We have upwards of three hundred, who have been with us nearly nine months. It is therefore with the opportunity of knowing them well that I venture to pronounce them an intelligent race of men. All who bear arms exercise well, and understand immediately and perfectly whatever they are taught to perform. Many of them speak English tolerably well. We were told that so great was their propensity to drunkenness, we should never be able to reduce them to order or discipline; and that the habit of roving was so rooted in their disposition, we must expect the whole corps would desert the moment they had received their clothing. With respect to the first, I do not find they are more given to the vice of drinking than our own people; and as to their pretended propensity to roving, that charge is fully confuted by the circumstance of only one man having left us, since I first adopted the measure of assembling them, and he was urged to this step by having lost his firelock. Of all the qualities that can be ascribed to a Hottentot, it will be little expected that I should expatiate upon their cleanliness, and yet it is certain, that at this moment our Hottentot parade would not suffer in comparison with that of some of our regular regiments. The clothing perhaps may have suffered more than it ought to have done, in the time since it was issued to them, from their ignorance of the means of preserving it; but those articles which are capable of being kept clean by washing, together with their arms and accoutrements, which they have been taught to keep bright, are always in good order. They are now likewise cleanly in their persons; the practice of smearing themselves with grease being entirely left off. I have frequently seen them washing themselves in a rivulet when they could have in view no other object but cleanliness.’[24]
“The Missionaries having received many who had belonged to the corps, are very rigid in prohibiting the use of fire arms amongst the people, lest they should be led away from the habits of industry they are anxious to bring them to, by their pursuit of game.
“Besides the schools there are two workshops in which the young Hottentots learn the useful craft of the blacksmith, and the carpenter. The work done here is highly creditable to them, and were there a great demand for their labour, they would soon equal the European artificers. Chairs, tables, bureaus, and other cabinet work, as well as cutlery of every common description is the produce of these workshops. They also build excellent wagons, and are accounted capital wheelwrights. The smith’s house (a Hottentot) was in remarkable good order. They have also among them many respectable masons and thatchers. Their houses produce a very picturesque effect, as seen under the mountains, neatly white-washed. The white-wash is made by pouring boiling water upon bran, and then letting it run off upon lime.