Although these hydrographical notices of the environs of
Saldanha bay and the Cape of Good Hope are by no means perfectly
accurate, probably vitiated in the abbreviation of Purchas, they
distinctly shew, that the bay named Saldanha by our early voyagers, was
that now called Table bay:
This latter is twelve or thirteen leagues
from the Cape, nearly as in the text, while that now called Saldanha bay
is twenty-seven leagues distant. The near neighbourhood of False bay is
incontestible evidence of the fact, being only three leagues distant;
while our modern Saldanha bay is more than twenty leagues from False bay
as the crow flies. - E.]
In former time, Saldanha bay was very comfortable to our navigators,
both outward and homeward-bound, yielding them abundance of cattle and
sheep, by which their weak and sick men in former voyages were easily
recovered and made strong. These used to be brought down by the savage
inhabitants, and sold for mere trifles, as an ox for a piece of
hoop-iron fourteen inches long, and a sheep for a much shorter piece. It
is now quite otherwise; but, from my ignorance of the language of the
natives, I have not been able to ascertain the cause. Whether it may
have proceeded from the too great liberality of the Dutch, spoiling
the trade, which indeed they are apt to do in all places where they
come, as they only consider their present occasions; or whether it may
have been that the cattle formerly brought down in such abundance were
plunder taken from each other in wars then raging, which made them
greedy of iron to make heads for their lances and darts, which now by
peace or reconciliation they have little need of. However this may have
been, all our bribes or contrivances should only procure at this time
four old lean cows, for which they would not take iron in payment, but
thin pieces of copper six inches square. We got likewise six or seven
sheep, for pieces of copper three inches square, cut out of a kettle. Of
this copper they made rings, six or eight of which made very bright they
wear on their arms.
These people are the filthiest I have ever seen or heard of; for,
besides other uncleanness, which most people clear off by washing, this
people, on the contrary, augment their natural filth, anointing their
bodies with a nasty substance, which I suppose to be the juice of herbs,
but seems on their bodies like cow-dung; and with which the wool of
their heads is so baked, as to seem a scurf of green herbs. For
apparel, they wear the tail of a cat, or some other small beast,
hanging before them, and a cloak of sheep-skin, which hangs down to the
middle of their thighs, turning it according to the weather, sometimes
the drest side, and sometimes the hair next the body; for their sheep
have hair instead of wool, and are party coloured like calves.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 341 of 424
Words from 178035 to 178541
of 221842
