and rivers up to this day tell us of battles once fought, such as Khami and Khams, Battlefield, Kho-||oa-tes, You cannot catch me;" Khotoas, the last one caught; Kxixas, peace; Huritamas, "I am not afraid." Other names again bear testimony to the love for dancing and singing, like Gaî||nais and !Gaî||naixas, “Good, pleasant singing," Axals, "Reed-dance." "Reed-dance." And even sentimental feelings seem to be as characteristic of them as of the writers of fashionable novels now-a-days. ||||ōs, “ Dying from love," has probably been the scene of a very tragical love affair. Prophets (gebo-aogu, i.e., seers) could tell to new-born children as well as to heroes their fate, and this important institution was in the hands of the greatest and most respected old men of the clan. We shall see hereafter that Heitsieibib, Tsu-llgoab and the Moon, all were endowed with the power of prophecy. I have already shown in the forms derived from khoi, that the Khoikhoi are able to form abstract words. This distinguishes them most favourably from all the Bushmen tribes, and proves how high their mental development must have been before they emigrated from their primitive territory. I shall give only a few specimens. E, to think, from ‡ani to cut to pieces, to slaughter, hence, ‡eis (‡anis), the thought; ‡eï-‡eî-sen, to consider, to think over again ; ‡ei-‡ei-sen-s, the result of one's own consideration, idea, perception. Ī, to appear, to shine; îsib, form, shape, likeness, appearance; isa and ixa, full of form, beautiful, pretty, handsome. Si, to come, to arrive; sĩ (from sini), to cause to arrive— i.e., to send; sisen, to send oneself-i.e., to work; German, sich anschicken. A, yes; ama, true; amab, truth; amasib, truthfulness, love of truth. INams, love, fondness; nam namsa, fond, dear; Inam, to love. IAmo, eternal, endless, lamosib, eternity. This Jamo is derived from la to be sharp, to be pointed; hence Jamo, the end, the point; o is used as the a privativum in Greek, and means without. Thus lamo, what is without end. Khom, to have mercy; Ikhoms, mercy. lu, to forget; lũ, to forgive-i.e., to forget the hatred. ‡Khā, to refuse; ‡khaba, stubborn, wicked; ‡khabasib, wickedness, badness. Why missionaries have committed the absurdity of forming from a Hebrew root the word eloxoresa-i.e., being without élohim is to me a riddle, when we have a very pregnant Khoikhoi word to express wicked and wickedness. Tsã, to feel; tsãb, the feeling, taste, sentiment; tsãļkha, to feel with-i.e., to condole; tsâ-khasib, condolence (German Mitgefühl). Anu, clean, neat; but anu, sacred, pure, refined, handsome, beautiful; also anuxa; anusib, holiness, sacredness, purity. To show what the Khoikhoi mean by anu and апиха, I may give the following conversation I once had with an old Namaqua. A girl, a niece of his, used to bring daily some milk to my camp. Her lovely face and the pure expression of the eyes had struck me repeatedly, and I could not help being complimentary to the old It was indeed one of those faces man. "Which tell of days in goodness spent, I used in my conversation the word îsa (beautiful), when the old man almost indignantly said, "No, every girl can be isa, but such an appearance as hers we call anuxa (full of purity)." This was amongst Khoikhoi who had no missionary yet, and who still lived in national primitive independence. Nothing, however, is more convincing of the abstract power of the Khoikhoi language than the great number of names for the various divisions and subdivisions of colours. The colour itself is isib-i.e., appearance. It must be remembered that the colours named in the following are not all which are known to the Khoikhoi, which must surprise the more if we recollect that they have been collected in the most barren territory of South Africa, in Great Namaqualand. For this reason we need not doubt that, among the other tribes, not only the same words were in existence, but that also more subdivisions were known. Be this however as it may, we are told that Demokritus knew only of four colours, and that in China the number of colours was originally five, while we shall learn from the following that the Khoikhoi distinguished very strictly between 'ļuri, white, ‡nū, black, lam, green, lawa (laua, Java), red, thoa, blue, hai, fawn-coloured, huni, yellow, gama, brown, khan, grey, naitu, "garu, dotted. Then we have the following subdivisions-uri-huni, whitish-yellow, lurisi, whitish, dotted, 13 2 nu-lho, black-patched, 'nu-Igaru, blacknu-‡ura, black-shining (German, schwarzschillernd), lava-‡ura, red-shining, lava-‡gani, with white and red patches, lawa-lho or Igi-lho, chestnut-colour, Javara or Javaya, reddish, 10am-‡ura, green-shining (for instance, the colour of the Naja Haje); "‡gama-lho, browndotted, gama-lgaru, the same, gama-thoa, brownishblue (the colour of Bucephalus Capensis); 1+gama-‡ura, brown-shining, like the Vipera Cornuta. The colour of the rainbow is always lam, green; only in two cases I heard that it was considered to be lava, red. of the rainbow is tsawirub and dabitsirub. In Bible translations of missionaries we read lavi-hanab. This is very incorrect, and nothing else but a verbal translation of rain-bow. As to tsawirub, the etymology is not quite clear; tsawib is the ebony-tree, which much resembles in appearance the weeping willow; the leaves are dark green, ‡nu-lam, and tsabaxa bile-coloured, from tsabab, the bile. Now it is difficult to say whether the The name ebony-tree has been called after the green colour of the bile, and also whether the rainbow, tsawirub, received its name from tsabab. Uri is a derivative from the original ļu, and certainly has with lubus, egg, the root ļu in common; consequently luri means egg-coloured, and the egg par excellence, the ostrich egg, is white. The same root for white and egg we had in the Ai Bushman language. !Am, green, means originally springing up, or shooting forth, like in German ausschlagend, used for the fresh green leaves; ļa, to hit, ‡nou-la, and ‡nou-lan, to beat -to hit, German, treffen; ||nau-la and Inau-lan to hear -to hit, ie., to understand; mũ-la and mũ-lan, to see or to look to hit, i.e., to observe, to perceive, to acknowledge. Ava, red, is nothing else but [aua, bloodcoloured, from Jau, to bleed, or lau-b, blood. Huni is yellow, that is, the colour of clay or ground, from !hu-b, ground, earth, clay. Gama, brown, is the colour of gab, originally ‡gamab, the colour of a vley; the vley is a water-pond, which is dry in the winter, and then the bottom shows a brown colour. Khan, grey, is the colour of the khani, Bos elaphus. Nai-tu is the colour of the Inaib, giraffe and also of the zebra. Garu is dotted like a leopard, hence this animal is called Igarub. The other name of Igarub, leopard, however, is more significant; he is also called yoasaub, the markmark— scratcher, from xoa to scratch, and saũ to mark, to imprint. I cannot conclude this chapter without adding some remarks on Khoikhoi poetry, and on the so-called “Reeddance," tab, to which in the following chapters repeatedly reference will be made. The Khoikhoi have two kinds of poetry, sacred and profane. The sacred hymns, as well as the profane songs, are sung accompanied by the so-called Reed-music. or Reed-dancers. The sacred hymns are generally prayers, invocations, and songs of praise in honour of Tsullgoab, Heitsieibib, and the Moon; and such sacred songs, 66 and the performance with dancing is called Igeib while the general profane songs are called ||nai-tsanati, and to perform them with a dance on reed-pipes, or better, barkpipes, is ‡aba xaîre. The profane reed-dances or reedsongs are of a very different nature. Either the fate of a hero who fell in a battle or lost his life on a hunting expedition, is deplored; and on such an occasion a performance is connected with it. In such a case the performances have much in common with the medieval German Singspiel." We can also compare them with our modern operas. If an illustrious stranger visits a place, he is often welcomed with a reed-dance while entering the place. Thus the first Moravian missionary, George Schmidt, who came to the Heisiqua Hottentots. in the Calodon district, was received with a reed-dance. The Dutch Governor van der Stell, on his journey to the Copper Mountains, the present Copper mines, was honoured in the same way. Hop, a burgher of Stellenbosch, who in Governor Ryk van Tulbagh's time went on an expedition to Great Namaqualand, received the congratulations of the Habobes at the foot of the Kharas mountain in a grand reed-dance performance. Alexander received the same honours from his Namaqua host, the famous Jonker Afrikaner |Haramūb; and up to this time the traveller, if he only understand how to fraternize with them, will gladly be admitted to witness their simple merry-making. If chiefs have become unpopular by some whimsical or despotic orders, very soon the tongue of the women-of whom a Khoikhoi proverb says "that they cannot be as long quiet as it takes sweet milk to get sour "--will lecture him in a sarcastic reed-song. Once I saw a chief sitting by, when the young girls sung into his face, telling him "that he was a hungry hyena and a roguish jackal; that he was the brown vulture who is not only satisfied with tearing the flesh from the bones, but also feasted on the intestines." On another occasion, a very old |