to be rich in gold and other valuable metals.
Some trials have been made; but as yet no mines have been discovered,
or at least none in such situations as would permit their being worked
to advantage.

Mynheer van Steel, who was lately governor of this colony, travelled
over the country, and examined it with much attention. He caused
gardens to be laid out, and pleasure-houses to be built, in several
places; but the peasants who were employed in building these houses
and cultivating these gardens, sent over a representation and
complaint to the company, alleging that these works were prejudicial
to their private affairs, and prevented them from being able to
maintain their families; upon which that governor was immediately
recalled. His discoveries, however, were of great consequence, having
made the interior country known to the Dutch, together with the
nations or tribes by whom it is inhabited. These, so far as yet
discovered, consist of seven different tribes, all comprehended under
the general denomination of _Hottentots_. The first of these, and
least considerable, who live in the neighbourhood of the Cape, have
no chief, and are mostly either in the service of the company, or are
employed as servants by the townsmen, or by the peasants and farmers
in cultivating the lands, or tending their flocks and herds. The
second tribe inhabit the mountains, or, more properly speaking,
dwell in the caverns of the mountains, being thieves and robbers by
profession, and subsist entirely by plundering the other Hottentots,
with whom they are perpetually at war; yet never rob or molest the
Christians. The other tribes are called the _Great_ and _Little
Maqua_, and the _Great_ and _Little Kriqua_[2], and the _Caffres_.
The words _Maqua_ and _Kriqua_ signify king or chief, and these four
tribes are continually engaged in war against each other; but when
any one nation is in danger of being totally ruined, other tribes
immediately take up its cause; and these rude tribes seem to have a
notion of maintaining a kind of balance of power.

[Footnote 2: These tribes are known in geography by the names of
Namaquas and Briquas, the latter being also called Booshuanas. The
second tribe in this account are named Bosjemans by the Dutch.--E.]

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 catt