the experiment of human perfectability on the banks of the Susquehannah; where our little society, in its second generation, was to have combin ed the innocence of the patriarchal age with the knowledge and genuine refinements of European culture: and where I dreamt that in the sober evening of my life, I should behold the Cottages of Independence in the undivided Dale of Industry, "And oft, soothed sadly by some dirgeful wind, Strange fancies! and as vain as strange!" And are there not young men in our land, who, unless lost beyond hope of recovery, on the enchanted ground of abstract principles and inalienable rights, to whom the following passage, from the same essay, may be perti.. nently addressed? "But Oh! there were thousands as young and as innocent as myself, who, not like me, sheltered in the tranquil nook or inland cove of a particular fancy, were driven along with the general current! Many there were, young men of loftiest minds, yea the prime stuff out of which manly wisdom and practicable greatness is to be formed, who had appropriated their hopes and the ardour of their souls to mankind at large, to the wide expanse of national interests, which then seemed fermenting in the French Republic as in the main outlet and chief crater of the revolutionary torrents; and who confidently believed, that these torrents, like the lavas of Vesuvius, were to subside into a soil of inexhaustible fertility on the circumjacent lands, the old divisions and mouldering edifices of which they had covered or swept away-Enthusiasts of kindliest temperament, who to use the words of the Poet (having already borrowed the meaning and the metaphor,) had approached" -"the shield Of human nature from the golden side, R. R. GURLEY. REMARKABLE ERROR. The following, is extracted from a Review of a "Defence of the American Colonization Society, by the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen," and which is ascribed to Dr. Abraham L. Cox, of New York, an enthusiastic member of the Anti-Slavery Society: "We are astonished to learn that the great majority of the Colonists are emancipated slaves, liberated by Southern owners.' This is undoubtedly incorrect. The African Repository speaks only of 3000 Colonists-more than that number have never gone there; and of this number, 1200 were Africans taken from slave ships captured on the ocean, and not liberated by Southern owners: 1200 have been enticed or coerced away, and there remains but 800 liberated slaves to complete the population of the Colony. We are credibly informed, by returning Colonists, that of this 3000 persons, not more than 1700 are to be found; so that the Colony has not increased, but has actually suffered a diminution of 1300 persons." The truth is, that instead of 1200 Africans taken from slave ships, somewhat less than 300 have been sent from the United States; and these, with from 2 to 300 others, rescued by Mr. Ashmun from slave factories on the coast, constitute what are called "the recaptured Africans." The present population of the Colony was, according to a statement furnished, on authority of the late Agent, for the last Report, 2816. Although but about 800 slaves have been liberated, expressly for the purpose of being sent to Liberia, yet Mr. Frelinghuysen's statement may be viewed as correct, when we consider that large numbers of the emigrants sent out from under the protection of the friends in North Carolina, and from various parts of the South, were not born free. REVIEW: KAY'S TRAVELS IN CAFFRARIA, [From the Edinburgh Review, January 1834.] Travels and Researches in Caffraria: describing the character, Customs, and Moral Condition, of the Tribes inhabiting that portion of Southern Africa: With historical and topographical Remarks, illustrative of the State and Prospects of the British Settlement on its Borders, the introduction of Christianity, and the Progress of Civilization. By STEPHEN KAY, Corresponding Member of the South African Institution. 12mo. London: 1833.* Ever since the appearance of Mr. Barrow's well-known work on Southern Africa, at the commencement of the present century, an increasing interest has been felt in Europe in regard to the native tribes of that country. Mr. Barrow had the merit of first bringing under our observation, by clear and graphic description, freed from the exaggerations of credulity and romance, the distinguishing characteristics of the two remarkable races known to Europeans by the appellations of Hottentots and Caffers. The Swedish travellers Thunberg and Sparrman, indeed, had pre NOTE. We subjoin the following passages from the Introduction to Mr. KAY's work: -[EDITOR REPOS.] "Cairaria, as exhibited in many of our old maps, constitutes one of the largest divisions of the vast continent of Africa, being bounded on the north by Negroland and Abyssinia; on the west by part of Guinea and Congo; on the eastern side by the Indian Ocean; and southward by the Cape of Good Hope. But the part now occupied by the numerous nations generally designated Kaner is much more limited, and lies altogether on the southern side of the equator; while far more limited still is that portion of it which our most extended explorations at present embrace, forming a comparatively small tract indeed.Those of its tribes with which we have become somewhat acquainted, and to whom the following series of observations more immediately refer, lie along the eastern coast from our colonial boundary in 33 degrees south lat. northwards. "Happening one day accidentally to enter into conversation with a certain gentleman on various subjects connected with the interior of this country, he put into my hand a pamphlet, written by Capt. B. Stout more than thirty years ago, and republished in London about the year 1820. The author appears to have been a naval officer and an American; on the title-page of his work he is announced as the "late Commander of the American East Indiaman named the Hercules, lost [in 1796] on the coast of Caffraria, within a few miles of the river Infanta." "Towards the close of his "interesting description" of the regions through which he and his shipwrecked companions travelled, after being cast ashore on their way to the colony, with a feeling truly national he warmly recommends their immediate colonization by Americans. This measure, however, if at all approved of, was not adopted by the President of the United States, the Hon. John Adams, to whom his narrative was addressed. What the reason might be which weighed with the latter against such a project, is an inquiry of comparatively small importance; but the arguments by which our author urges his suggestion particularly arrested my attention: plans having been brought into operation, and effects produced, the very opposite of those which he seems to have contemplated."-Page 15-16. It is a singular circumstance that both those appellations are nicknames. Mr. Barrow, speaking of the Hottentots, says, "The name even that has been given to this people is a fabrication. Hottentot is a word that has no place nor meaning in their language; and they take to themselves the name, under the idea of its being a Dutch word. Whence it has its derivation, or by whom it was first given, I have not been able to trace. When the country was first discovered, and when they were spread over the southern angle of Africa, as an independent people, each horde had its particular name; but that by which the collective body of the nation was distinguished, and which at this moment they bear among themselves in every part of the country, is Quarque.'-Travels, vol. i, p. 100. In the same manner, the word Caffer, Kaffre, Caffre, was originally a term of contumely, (being the Arabic Chafer, liar, infidel,) employed by the Moorish and Arabic inhabi viously furnished some authentic notices of the tribes within the limits of the Cape Colony; but these respectable writers were too exclusively devoted to the cultivation of natural history, (then rendered popular in Europe by the genius of their countryman Linnæus,) to spare more than a few desultory remarks on the character and condition of the human inhabitants of that region. The lively and amusing travels of Vaillant, on the other. hand, were too much alloyed with egotistical frivolity and romance to secure the confidence, or satisfy the judgment, of sensible men-even when, as in many particulars, he adhered pretty closely to truth and nature. Mr. Barrow sketched these tribes with a more forcible and manly hand; and he held up to the indignation of the civilized world, with an energy which did him honour, the oppressions to which those within and around the Colony had been subjected by the Dutch-African settlers. He was, moreover, the first European traveller of any eminence who penetrated into the country of the Caffers, and had an opportunity of delineating that people as they appeared in their own pastoral hamlets. His excursion into Caffraria was a hurried one; and his description of the inhabitants has proved to be in some points inaccurate; but still, as a graphic outline of the peculiar features of the race, it is a picture not less true to nature than it is ably executed. A few years subsequent to Barrow, Professor Lichtenstein, the German traveller, published a more detailed account of the frontier Caffers, which, on the whole, strongly corroborated the favourable report of the former.Lichtenstein, moreover, extending his researches farther to the north, brought us acquainted with the Bechuana branch of the same great family; and showed the strong probability that this race would be found to extend over a large portion of the almost unknown regions of Southern Africa. Subsequent discoveries have fully confirmed the truth of this surmise.The researches of Burchell and Thompson, of the Missionary travellers, Campbell, Philip, Moffat, Kay, and others, and some cursery notices in the recent work of Capt. Owen, all combine to render it manifest, that the interior of the continent, from the country of the Hottentots northward to the tropic, and possibly far beyond it, is occupied by cognate tribes of the same race; who 'all adhere so constantly to the construction and elements of a common language, as to be mutually intelligible to each other, notwithstanding the variety of their dialects.' It is not, however, our purpose, on the present occasion, to enter upon the wide field of geographical and ethnographical investigation, to which this topic would naturally lead us. We may find, perhaps, ere long, a more appropriate text-book than the present work to engage us in discussions of this nature-which, as respects the interior of Africa, are not less interesting than they are difficult. At present we mean to confine ourselves to narrower limits. Mr. Kay, who is a Missionary of the Wesleyan Methodist Society, entitles his work, "Travels and Researches in Caffraria;' not omitting, however, to notice in his preface, the vagueness of the term, Caffraria; and stating that the tribes to whom his observations more directly refer 'lie along the eastern coast from our colonial boundary, in 33 degrees south lat. northwards.' This indication is itself sufficiently vague; but we discover tants of the north-eastern coast to designate all the tribes of south-eastern Africa who had not embraced the Mohammedan faith; and from them the term was adopted by the early European navigators. Lichtenstein, when describing the tribe who border on the Cape Colony, the Koosas, as he terms them (more properly Amakosa,) remarks, that "These people are exceedingly offended at being called Caffers, and have the more reason to ob ject to it, since in their language ƒ is a sound that occurs but seldom-ff and y, never.'Vol. i, p. 250. in the sequel that the author comprises under it the eastern coast as far as Delagoa Bay, and the interior of the continent as far as the territory of the Murutzi tribe, which approaches the tropic. The fact is, the terms Caffer and Caffraria are altogether arbitrary and conventional, and are restricted or extended according to the caprice or peculiar notions of travellers and geographers; while, by the Cape colonists, Cafferland, or Caffraria, is usually employed to denote exclusively the territory occupied by the frontier clans of Amakosa. But Mr. Kay's observations refer almost exclusively to the three contiguous tribes of Amakosa, Amatembu, and Amaponda, with the exception of a few cursory remarks on the Zoolu and Bechuana nations. The three first mentioned tribes occupy the country from the eastern frontier of the Colony to the vicinity of Port Natal. Though divided into several independent clans, they are clearly the same people. Their language, manners, and customs are so exactly similar, that scarcely a shade of difference can be detected between them. Mr. Kay resided among them, at the different stations lately planted by his Society, for several years; and it is the character and condition of these three tribes, designated under the general name of Caffers, that form the special object of his 'Researches.' This author concurs with former travellers in describing the Caffers as a very fine race of men. They are tall, robust, and generally well proportioned. Their heads are handsomely formed, and their countenances bear a much greater resemblance to those of Europeans than either to the Hottentot race, or the negroes of Western Africa. Their colour is a clear dark brown; their hair is black, but decidedly woolly, and resembling that of the Hottentots. Their address is frank, cheerful, and unembarrassed; and "they have a firmness of courage and an open manly demeanour, altogether free from that apparent consciousness of fear and of suspicion which generally characterises uncivilized nations. The females are not so handsome as the men. They are rather low in stature, strong-limbed, and muscular. Their features, however, are generally pleasing, and sometimes beautiful; they have remarkably fine teeth; and they are for the most part exceedingly good-humoured and cheerful, excepting when enfeebled by age or sickness, or depressed by some calamity. There is a natural sprightliness, activity, and vivacity about them, which greatly distinguishes them from the Hottentot females, and from those of most nations that are but little advanced in civilization. The clothing of both sexes consists entirely of the skins of beasts, curried and prepared in such a manner as to preserve the hair or fur, and at the same time render them perfectly soft and pliable. The ingubo or mantle, is formed of the dressed hide of an ox, or heifer, cut into a particular shape; it hangs loose from the shoulders, and is the ordinary dress of all classes. The chieftains have robes of leopards' or panthers' skins, which they wear on all occasions of state or ceremony; but it is usual for them to have these borne by a retainer, while the chief himself goes about in an ordinary cloak of ox hide. The ingubo is the only raiment worn by the men;and being quite open in front, and often thrown entirely aside when they are engaged in any active occupation, it can scarcely be said to serve any purpose of decency. The men have in fact no sense of indecorum in entire nudity, and appear to consider the use of any covering round the loins as unmanly. Mr. Kay says, he has 'been told by the old men, that their ancestors were accustomed to wear a small apron when occasion required them to throw off the ingubo or cloak; and that it is but of late years, comparatively, that this relic of decency has been entirely laid aside. The custom seems to have been abolished under the idea of its being too feminine, and incompatible with that fierce and barbarian boldness, which, in their view, constitutes magnanimity.' The more inland and northern tribes, he adds, all wear the waist covering, and regard the southern Caffer as a 'tiger' for abandoning it. The dress of the females is much more modest and becoming. Besides the ingubo, which only differs from that of the men by having a long flap dependent from the collar behind, ornamented with rows of buttons, they wear a leather kilt or apron, (kio,) and also a covering of finer leather (imbeka) over the bosom. Except in cases of old age, childhood, or females giving suck, it is considered extremely unbecoming for a woman to have the bosom uncovered. A head-dress is also always worn before strangers. This consists of a sort of cap or turban, formed of the skin of a small blue antelope, called iputi. It is ornamented with a large quantity of variegated beads, arranged according to a regular pattern, white and light blue being the prevailing colours; and the author remarks, that the contrast with the bronze countenance of the wearer, is far from disagreeable; though he thinks the shape of the turban too masculine and helmet-like to accord with European ideas of feminine softness. Although there are no changes in the form or texture of the dress, and each female carries her entire wardrobe about her person by day, and has no other bed-clothes at night, yet here, as in every other quarter of the world, female vanity and love of ornament find an appropriate mode of display. The quantity and costliness of personal decorations form the great marks of distinction in the Caffrarian world of fashion. Bracelets of native ivory; rings of iron and copper for the arms and ankles; ear-drops of glass beads or copper; festoons of small Cyprea shells; strings of beads, sometimes to the number of 100 or 150, hung round the neck, and stitched upon the turban, the imbeka, and the kio, constitute the grand distinctions of female quality, and consideration. In other respects, there appears to be but little difference of condition or privilege of rank among the females of these tribes. Like the women of almost all barbarous nations, they are regarded and treated as drudges. From the wife of the king or chieftain, to the meanest retainer, it is considered their peculiar duty to cultivate the ground to dig, sow, plant, and reap; to manufacture rush-mats, baskets, and earthen pots for cooking; and to aid the pack-oxen in conveying their provisions and household gear on occasions of removal, while the men devote themselves to the more dignified pursuits of war, hunting, and the care of their cattle. The houses or huts of the Southern Caffers, are of very rude construction, and far inferior to those of the Bechuanas and other interior tribes. They are framed of branches or saplings planted in the ground, bent together in the form of a bee-hive, thatched with grass or rushes, and plas tered inside with a mixture of sand and cow dung. The size of this cabin (inhlu) varies from six to ten or fifteen feet in diameter: it has neither window nor chimney. The height is seldom sufficient to enable a tall man to stand upright in it. The pastoral and migratory habits of the people induce them to pay little regard to the comfort or conveniency of their habitations; and 'the climate,' says Mr. Kay, 'is so fine and warin in general, that the day is usually spent in the open air; it is only the night shade, bad weather, or sickness, that will induce them to remain much within doors; and when the last of these causes operates as the occasion of their confinement, the scene is melancholy indeed!' Their huts are generally associated in clusters of six, ten, or a dozen, which, with a common cattlefold or two, form a hamlet or village (umzi.) The favourable position of the cattle-fold (ubuhlanti,) which is also the usual place of public assembly, is considered of far more importance, than either beauty of situation, or contiguity to their cultivated grounds. |