Such of the Hottentots as have submitted to the Hollanders are called the Company’s Hottentots.  The Dutch send every year fifty or sixty persons to trade among the Hottentots, who purchase their cattle, giving them in exchange arrack, tobacco, hemp, and such other things as they have occasion for; by which means a good understanding is kept up.  These Hottentots of the Company are often attacked by the other tribes, and, when no longer able to defend themselves, their king or chief comes down to the Cape, attended by a small escort of his subjects, to demand assistance.  He goes immediately to the governor, having in his hand the staff of command given him by the Company, decorated with their arms, and holding it in his hand, demands assistance.  If the governor does not think proper to grant his request, but endeavours to shift him off with fair words, he throws down his staff saying, in bad Dutch, Voor my, niet meer Compagnies Hottentot; that is, “For me, I will no more be the Company’s Hottentot.”  The governor generally sends him home with an escort of troops, as it is the interest of the company to be on good terms with these chiefs, who are always ready to do any service required of them.

The Hottentots are a very stupid and brutal people.  They rub their bodies all over with rancid grease, which gives them a very bad smell, so that you may nose them at a considerable distance.  Their children are all born perfectly white; but being constantly rubbed with grease, and exposed to the sun, they grow by degrees quite brown, and almost black.  When a woman brings forth twins, one of them is immediately condemned to death, and is tied to a tree, where it is left to expire.  Some of them have a custom of extirpating one testicle in their male children, as soon as they are able to bear the operation, in hope of preventing them afterwards from begetting twins.  They seem to have little or no religion; yet they frequently look with admiration at the heavenly bodies, saying, “He who governs these is certainly a being of infinite power and wisdom.”  In many respects they are more like beasts than men, being abominably nasty in their persons, and, taking them altogether, they are certainly one of the meanest nations on the face of the earth.  They are short and thick-set, with flat noses like a Dutch pug dog, very thick lips, and large mouths, having very white teeth, but very long and ill set, some of them sticking out of their mouths like boar’s tusks.  Their hair is black, and curled like wool.  They are very nimble, and run with incredible speed.  They are generally covered with a sheep’s skin, each man having a quiver full of arrows on his back, and a bow in his hand.  Immediately on coming in sight of an enemy, they set up a dreadful cry, leaping, dancing, and skipping about, and throwing themselves into the most frightful postures.