Travels in India (Tavernier) 157.2.1

157.2.1

When they see vessels arriving they drive cattle to the shore and bring what they have to barter for tobacco, spirits, and beads of crystal and agate, which are cheap at Surat, and for some hardware. When they are not content with what is offered them they immediately take to flight, and at the sound of a whistle from their mouths all their animals follow them, and you see no more of them. Some persons on one occasion, seeing them fly, fired musket-shots in order to slay the cattle, but since then, for some years, these Cafres have not brought their beasts, and there has been much trouble experienced in inducing them to return. It is a great convenience for the vessels which touch there to obtain supplies, and the Dutch have had good reason for building a fort there. There is now a fine village inhabited by people of all nationalities who live with the Dutch, and all kinds of grains which are brought thither, both from Europe and Asia, on being sown, grow much better than in the places from whence they have been brought. It is a very good country which is, as I have said, at the 35th degree and some minutes of latitude, and it is neither the air nor the heat which makes these Cafres so black as they are. Desiring to know the explanation of it, and wherefore they smell so strongly, I inquired from a young girl who was taken as soon as her mother had brought her forth, and was nursed and reared in the fort, being as white as one of our European women.