CHINESE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 20

CHINESE IN SOUTH AFRICA

HOTTENTOTS DESCENDED FBOM THEM.

That pure Hottentots, .of whom only 40 surviye, are the descendants of Chinese and Bushmen is maintained by Profesßor Schwarz, of Bhodes University, South Africa, in the "-National Ecview," in an article dealing with early Chinese contact* with South Africa. These Hottentots are guineagold iv colour, and they have the distinctive Mongolian eye. It is known that Chinese junks, driven south of Cape Oorriontes, on the east coast, were unable to beat back against the currents, and were swung first south, then north to the Namaqualand coast. These southern Chinose were adventurous seamen. About 100 B.C. Bilk reached India and tho shores of the Mediterranean, but their junks were very limited, and, it was not till Bartholdmeu Dias invented the square-rigged ship that the Portuguese were able to approach tho east coast of South Africa from the south. It is thought that these exiled crews settled down with the Bushmen and made the best of things. Tho Hottentots, their possible descendants, though comparatively much higher in the social order, are traditionally very friendly with- the Bushmen, whose love of storytelling and music they share. The Hottentot lias an extraordinary capacity for building in stone. Other tracc3 of Chinese mining activities are found. Nanking china is found at Mombasa and other spots in East Africa, and with Sofala a trade in gold and ivory was carried on. At Inyanga are terraced gardens thought to have been constructed under Chinese supervision. The foreigners evidently taught the Bantu to mine for gold, until Lobenguela effectively discouraged interest by issuing a decree that to mine for gold was equivalent to calling the chief a liar, an edict which, proved effectual. Mining on the east coast has left hints 6l the influence of the mysterious Queen of Sheba in place names ending in "sabi." Some scholars have surmised that she was the master mind who inspired Solomon and Hiram, King of Tyre, to open the port of Eziongeber, on the Bed Sea, as an outlet for the gold of Africa. King Solomon's mines, like other discoveries, may prove to have been anticipated by fiction.