APPENDIX.

THE HOTTENTOT GOD.

The worship of the beetle by the Hottentots has been disputed. No doubt
it has not been their practice during the last fifty years. But that it
existed in more ancient times, is (I think) abundantly proved by the
evidence of trustworthy writers. Kolben, for example, has the following
explicit statement, made from his own experience.

"The Hottentots adore as a benignant Deity, a certain insect, peculiar
(it is said) to the Hottentot countries. This animal is of the
dimensions of a child's little finger; the back green, the belly
speckled white and red. It is provided with two wings and two horns.
To this little winged Deity, whenever they set eyes on it, they render
the highest tokens of veneration. If it honours their kraal with a
visit, the inhabitants assemble round it with transports of devotion, as
if the Lord of the Universe was come among them. If the insect happens
to alight on a Hottentot, he is looked upon as a man without guilt, and
distinguished and reverenced as a saint and the delight of the Deity
ever after. They declared to me that if this deified insect had been
killed, all their cattle would certainly have been destroyed by wild
beasts, and they themselves, every man, woman, and child of them,
brought to a miserable end."--_Kolben_, volume one, page 99.

KAFFIR PROPHETS.

The scriptural curse of the "false prophet" has never been more
strikingly fulfilled, than in the instance of the Kaffir nation in the
year 1856. A false prophet, named Umhlahara, professed to have received
a revelation from heaven through the visions of a girl, commanding the
Kaffirs to kill the whole of their cattle, and promising that, in the
event of their obedience, all their forefathers, together with their
cattle, should rise to life again, that they should regain their
ascendancy in the land, and live in plenty and prosperity for evermore.
The object of this audacious imposture was to reduce the whole nation on
a sudden to such a state of suffering that, in their desperation, they
would burst in upon the settlements of the white men, and everywhere
exterminate them. It is strange that in a country where the flocks and
herds constitute the sole wealth of the people, such an attempt should
have succeeded. But it did so to a considerable extent, at all events.
Those who had contrived it, however, had made one fatal omission. They
ought to have concentrated the whole people on the