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Updated: May 6, 2025
Dampier says: "There were several things like haycocks standing in the Savannah, which at a distance we thought were houses, looking just like the Hottentots' houses at the Cape of Good Hope; but we found them to be so many rocks." Dampier and his companions may have mistaken some anthills for rocks.
The gnoos that had been seen were the common kind called by the Dutch colonists "wildebeests" or wild-oxen, and by the Hottentots "gnoo" or "gnu," from a hollow moaning sound to which these creatures sometimes give utterance, and which is represented by the word "gnoo-o-oo."
"I think your plan very good," replied Alexander; "besides, we shall not have our waggons properly laden and arranged until we have been out three or four days." "One thing is absolutely necessary, which is, to have a guard kept every night," said Swinton; "and there ought to be two men on guard at a time; for one of them is certain to fall asleep, if not both. I know the Hottentots well."
One of the Hottentots was wounded by an arrow in the neck; but that was the only accident which occurred to any of the party, and this was not known to our travellers until after their arrival at the encampment, when it was almost daybreak; and then, tired with the fatigues of the night, all were glad to obtain a few hours' rest.
"Won't say a word about him, sir," replied Bremen, who then went and gave the directions. The Hottentots and Bushmen, accompanied by the dogs, then went into the reeds, and their shouting and barking soon drove out some of the buffaloes on the opposite side, and the reports of the guns were heard.
"If I had a rope round the necks of every mother's son of 'em, wouldn't I serve 'em as old Julus Cesar did the Hottentots? Wouldn't I though! But what could they say or do about it, Mr. Graves." "They'd pretty quick put it on to us in their temperance papers about the good device we had. They'd talk pretty fast about the serpent that seduced Eve, and all that. No, blast 'em!
Several Hottentots immediately hurried back with him to help in unloading the wagon, and by degrees they all slipped away except Bremen, Swanevelt, who was cutting out the tusks, and Omrah, who remained perched upon the huge carcass of the animal, imitating the trumpeting and motions of the elephant, and playing all sorts of antics.
The elephant, the most sagacious, flees the sound of fire-arms first; the gnu and ostrich, the most wary and the most stupid, last. The first emigrants found the Hottentots in possession of prodigious herds of fine cattle, but no horses, asses, or camels.
The former, confined to the desert, remain nomad hunters and present no step of advance beyond the Akka and other equatorial tribes. The Hottentots, on the contrary, have made an important step of progress. While still nomads and addicted to hunting, they have domesticated cattle and sheep and become essentially a herding people, though mentally the lowest race of herders on the face of the earth.
I saw the gigantic "river-horse," wallowing through the flood, and dragging his clumsy body out upon the bank. Of these I observed two sorts for it is a fact, though scarce known to naturalists, that there are two distinct kinds of the hippopotamus found in the rivers of Western Africa the one least known being a much smaller animal than the hippopotamus of the Nile and the Hottentots.
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