The 11th November we came to anchor in Saldanha bay, in lat. 34 deg.  S. ten leagues short of the Cape of Good Hope, where there are three fresh water rivers.[33] The people came to us with great plenty of oxen and sheep, which they sold for spike nails and pieces of old iron, giving the best for not more than the value of a penny.  Their cattle are large, and have a great lump of flesh on the shoulder, like the back of a camel.  Their sheep have prodigiously large tails, entirely composed of fat, weighing twelve or fourteen pounds, but are covered with hair instead of wool.  The people are not circumcised; are of an olive black colour, blacker than the Brazilians, with black curled hair like the negroes of Angola.  Their words are mostly inarticulate, and in speaking they cluck with the tongue like a brood hen, the cluck and the word being pronounced together in a very strange manner.  They go naked, except a short cloak of skins, and sandals tied to their feet, painting their faces with various colours, and are a strong active people, who run with amazing swiftness.  They are subject to the King of Monomotapa,[34] who is reported to be a mighty sovereign.  Their only weapons are darts.

[Footnote 33:  It has been before remarked, that the Saldanha bay of the older navigators was Table bay.  What is now called Saldanha bay has no river, or even brook, but has been lately supplied by means of a cut or canal from Kleine-berg river, near twenty-five miles in length.—­E.]

[Footnote 34:  This is an error, the Hotentots having been independent nomadic herders of cattle and sheep, divided into a considerable number of tribes, and under a kind of patriarchal government.—­E.]

As the Dutchmen offered them some rudeness, they absented themselves from us for three days, during which time they made great fires on the mountains.  On the 19th of November, there came a great multitude of them to us, with a great number of cattle, and taking a sudden opportunity while bartering, they set upon us and slew thirteen of our people with their hand-darts, which could not have hurt any of us at the distance of four pikes’ length.  The Dutchmen fled from them like mice before cats, basely throwing away their weapons.  Our Baas or captain kept on board to save himself, but sent us corslets, two-handed swords, pikes, muskets, and targets, so that we were well laden with weapons, but had neither courage nor discretion, for we staid at our tents besieged by savages and cows.  We were in muster giants, with great armed bodies; but in action babes with wrens’ hearts.  Mr Tomkins and I undertook to order these fellows, according to that excellent way which we had seen in your lordship’s most honourable actions.  Some consented to go with us, though unwillingly; but most of them ran to the pottage pot, swearing it was dinner time.  We went all on board this night, except our great mastiff dog, which we could not induce to follow us, for I think he was ashamed of our cowardly behaviour.  The land here is of an excellent soil, and the climate is quite healthy; the soil being full of good herbs, as mints, calamint, plantain, ribwort, trefoil, scabious, and such like.  We set sail from Saldanha bay on the 27th of December, and doubled the Cape of Good Hope on the last day of the year.