cruelly in the succeeding migrations and
conquests of South Africa. They fought desperately in self-defense; they
saw their women and children carried into bondage and they themselves
hunted like wild beasts. Both savage and civilized men appropriated their
land. Still they were brave people. "In this struggle for existence their
bitterest enemies, of whatever shade of color they might be, were forced
to make an unqualified acknowledgement of the courage and daring they so
invariably exhibited."[34]

Here, to a remote corner of the world, where, as one of their number said,
they had supposed that the only beings in the world were Bushmen and
lions, came a series of invaders. It was the outer ripples of civilization
starting far away, the indigenous and external civilizations of Africa
beating with great impulse among the Ethiopians and the Egyptian mulattoes
and Sudanese Negroes and Yorubans, and driving the Bantu race southward.
The Bantus crowded more and more upon the primitive Bushmen, and probably
a mingling of the Bushmen and the Bantus gave rise to the Hottentots.

The Hottentots, or as they called themselves, Khoi Khoin (Men of Men),
were physically a stronger race than the Abatwa and gave many evidences of
degeneration from a high culture, especially in the "phenomenal
perfection" of a language which "is so highly developed, both in its rich
phonetic system, as represented by a very delicately graduated series of
vowels and diphthongs, and in its varied grammatical structure, that
Lepsius sought for its affinities in the Egyptian at the other end of the
continent."

When South Africa was first discovered there were two distinct types of
Hottentot. The more savage Hottentots were simply large, strong Bushmen,
using weapons superior to the Bushmen, without domestic cattle or sheep.
Other tribes nearer the center of South Africa were handsomer in
appearance and raised an Egyptian breed of cattle which they rode.

In general the Hottentots were yellow, with close-curled hair, high cheek
bones, and somewhat oblique eyes. Their migration commenced about the end
of the fourteenth century and was, as is usual in such cases, a scattered,
straggling movement. The traditions of the Hottentots point to the lake
country of Central Africa as their place of origin, whence they were
driven by the Bechuana tribes of the Bantu. They fled westward to the
ocean and then turned south and came upon the Bushmen, whom they had only