289 



civilized Europe, which has long laid claim to the sole 

 possession of these attributes. 



" The CafFres possess immense herds of black cattle, from 

 the produce of which they derive the main part of their 

 subsistence. On our expedition to the Quagga's Plain, we 

 fell in with several parties of them passing from one kraal to 

 another. They indulged us with a taste of their sour milk, 

 of which, though I, for one, gulped down a considerable 

 draught, I was not much delighted with the flavour. They 

 preserve it in leathern bags; and as these extraordinary 

 vessels are never scalded, and but seldom emptied, the fer- 

 mentation constantly going on within them partakes more 

 of the putrefactive than of the acetous. In the art of 

 cookery, the CaflPres are about as far advanced as Homer's 

 heroes were at the siege of Troy : they broil their beef- 

 steak and carve it with the Assagay, holding one end in 

 the left hand, and the other between their teeth. They never 

 use salt; but it is alleged, that in lieu of it, they roll the 

 steak in cow-dung before it is broiled. Notwithstanding 

 high authority for the existence of a similar practice, I could 

 not help doubting its prevalence in this country: the more so, 

 as I never observed any of our visitors making use of this 

 singular condiment; and I enquired of several persons who 

 had seen their manner of feeding in their own country, who 

 invariably asserted the contrary. 



" The CafFres practise circumcision, but how the ceremony 

 came to be adopted in such a remote corner of the world, it 

 would be almost idle even to guess ; though a late intelligent 

 traveller has endeavoured to trace it to the coasting voyage of a 

 tribe of Bedouins from the deserts of Arabia. The same author 

 has detected, in the Boschmen, the genuine descendants of the 

 Pigmies, expelled by the Cranes from the banks of the 

 Nile; and he has been equally felicitous in clearing up the 

 genealogy of the Hottentot race, which he unhesitatingly 

 identifies with the Chinese. The early migrations of the human 

 race have afforded ample scope for antiquarian dispute; and 

 much learning has been fruitlessly expended in elucidating 

 what must remain for ever obscure." 



VOL. II. u 



