In All The Gardens It Hung On The Trees Thicker
Than The Leaves.
Never did I behold such a profusion of fruit and
vegetables.
But first I must tell what struck me most, I asked one of the
Herrenhut brethren whether there were any REAL Hottentots, and he
said, 'Yes, one;' and next morning, as I sat waiting for early
prayers under the big oak-trees in the Plaats (square), he came up,
followed by a tiny old man hobbling along with a long stick to
support him. 'Here', said he, 'is the LAST Hottentot; he is a
hundred and seven years old, and lives all alone.' I looked on the
little, wizened, yellow face, and was shocked that he should be
dragged up like a wild beast to be stared at. A feeling of pity
which felt like remorse fell upon me, and my eyes filled as I rose
and stood before him, so tall and like a tyrant and oppressor,
while he uncovered his poor little old snow-white head, and peered
up in my face. I led him to the seat, and helped him to sit down,
and said in Dutch, 'Father, I hope you are not tired; you are old.'
He saw and heard as well as ever, and spoke good Dutch in a firm
voice. 'Yes, I am above a hundred years old, and alone - quite
alone.' I sat beside him, and he put his head on one side, and
looked curiously up at me with his faded, but still piercing little
wild eyes. Perhaps he had a perception of what I felt - yet I
hardly think so; perhaps he thought I was in trouble, for he crept
close up to me, and put one tiny brown paw into my hand, which he
stroked with the other, and asked (like most coloured people) if I
had children. I said, 'Yes, at home in England;' and he patted my
hand again, and said, 'God bless them!' It was a relief to feel
that he was pleased, for I should have felt like a murderer if my
curiosity had added a moment's pain to so tragic a fate.
This may sound like sentimentalism; but you cannot conceive the
effect of looking on the last of a race once the owners of all this
land, and now utterly gone. His look was not quite human,
physically speaking; - a good head, small wild-beast eyes, piercing
and restless; cheek-bones strangely high and prominent, nose QUITE
flat, mouth rather wide; thin shapeless lips, and an indescribably
small, long, pointed chin, with just a very little soft white
woolly beard; his head covered with extremely short close white
wool, which ended round the poll in little ringlets. Hands and
feet like an English child of seven or eight, and person about the
size of a child of eleven. He had all his teeth, and though shrunk
to nothing, was very little wrinkled in the face, and not at all in
the hands, which were dark brown, while his face was yellow.
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