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Seven Years in South Africa.

may be accounted for in a great degree by the larger or smaller size of the brain.

The Hottentots, Griquas, and Korannas may perhaps not inaptly be compared to children that allow themselves to be attracted by anything that amuses them, and clutch at whatever takes their fancy. For this reason alone, in spite of anything they may acquire of the mechanical arts of reading and writing, they must be unfit to be admitted as yet to the privileges of a civilized race. It seems to me indispensable that before they can be held entitled to the ordinary rights of citizenship they must be cultivated to receive correct views about labour, capital, and wages, to appreciate better methods of husbandry and architecture, to take more pains about the cleanliness of their persons, and especially to recognize the moral principle that should guide their transactions alike amongst themselves and with the white men.

Hitherto the worst obstacle to civilization has been superstition; nor can I believe that much will be accomplished towards the elevation of the natives until they are brought to understand that the supply of the necessaries of life is not dependent upon the influence of magicians, fetishes, and rain-doctors.

I ventured to point out to the Government that a different future awaited the South African negroes from that of the North American Indians, and that accordingly we ought to protect them from some of the abuses by which the latter were decimated. For one thing, there ought to be restrictions put upon the sale of brandy to the black population in the colony; but more than this, there should