HOZOUANAS, a wandering people, whose country, according to M. Vaillant, is situated between 16° and 20° E. Long., but in what latitude appears to be unknown, although it is extremely probable that it commences about the 23rd parallel, and stretches towards the north a considerable way. It is the opinion of the above-mentioned author, that the Houzouanas are the origin of all the eastern and western tribes of the Hottentots; and as to the Houzouanas themselves, they seem wholly ignorant of their own origin; for when they are interrogated upon this subject, their answer invariably is, that they live in the country which their ancestors inhabited, which in point of information is no answer at all. They have been often confounded by the planters with the Bochmen, who are not a distinct people, but a band of fugitives and freebooters. The Houzouanas have nothing in common with them, and only form alliances among themselves. So great are their courage and habits of plunder, that all surrounding nations are afraid of them, and even the very Hottentots, according to Vaillant, tremble to enter their territories. They are often guilty of shedding human blood, yet this does not appear to originate from an innate love of carnage, but merely for the purpose of making just reprisals.

They survey the adjacent countries from the summits of their mountains, and make incursions to carry off cattle or slaughter them upon the spot; but although they rob, they never kill, except in their own defence, or by way of retaliation, so that they are by no means the unrelenting cannibals which some have represented them. Like the Arabs, who are also plunderers, they adhere with unshaken fidelity to their engagements, and the traveller who puts himself under their protection by civilly purchasing their services, may rest assured of being defended to the last drop of their blood; which is more than can be said for the people of many countries professing to be civilized.

Amidst all this superiority to the other natives of Southern Africa, their stature is low, so that a person among them measuring five feet four inches in height, is considered as very tall;—a proof that intellectual excellence is not always to be met with in men of a gigantic stature. Their complexion is not so black as that of the Hottentots, but their heads are rounder towards the chin. The heat of the climate renders clothing unnecessary, and the constant habit of going naked, makes them equally indifferent to the burning sands of the level country, or the frost and snow of the lofty mountains. They have no weapons but bows and arrows, in the use of which they display remarkable dexterity. Their huts appear as if cut vertically through the middle, so that it would require two of them exactly. Howard, ly to make one of the Hottentots. The Houzouanas are remarkably nimble, considering the climbing of mountains as nothing more than an amusement; and they conducted M. Vaillant, that traveller informs us, over such tremendous precipices as the Hottentots would have deemed wholly impassable. The practice of making signals by means of nocturnal fires, is known in all savage countries; but the Houzouanas are said to display such uncommon sagacity and prudence in the arrangement and variations of position from time to time, as to render it impossible for the surrounding tribes to penetrate their designs.