Peculiar Social Customs of the Cajfres. 213 



family. As a proof of the legitimacy of a child, there is said 

 to exist a kind of milk trial. Notwithstanding considerable 

 trouble in endeavouring to procure information, we were un- 

 able to obtain a very lucid idea of this singular experiment : 

 it consists in the father giving the infant, in the bottom of his 

 hand, directly after its birth, some cow's milk to drink, and 

 if the child refuses the draught it is considered illegitimate. 

 Caffre women very rarely salute their husbands with a kiss, 

 except after a long separation, and even then only on the 

 cheek — never on the lips. 



In the ethnographical part a detailed description will be 

 presented of this most peculiar race, of whom the Bushmen are 

 evidently only a decrepid branch. Here it will suffice to 

 observe that a girl, only sixteen years of age, was noticed, 

 whose father was a degenerate Hottentot, and whose mother 

 was a Bush woman. The girl measured 4 feet Q\ inches, and 

 weighed 7"5lbs. Another Bushwoman, thirty years of age, 

 measured 4 feet 9 inches. All the individuals we saw of this 

 race were remarkable for their exceedingly small hands and 

 feet. 



One week of our stay at the Cape was devoted to an excur- 

 sion into the interior. On the 1st October, early in the morn- 

 ing, we left Cape Town in a light two- wheeled vehicle, drawn 

 by four horses — a turn-out which certainly seemed better suited 

 for a drive in Hyde Park than a journey, however short, in 

 South Africa : for who would suppose that the principal roads 

 on the southernmost point of the most unknown quarter of the 



