MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
bery. Wholly unaccustomed as 
these people are to any ideas of 
property, or to any of the other 
ties that bind civilized society, 
possessors of no other wealth than 
their bow and arrows, their whole 
attention turned only te satisfying 
their animal necessities in the 
quickest and most convenient 
manner, ought it to be considered 
as a matter of very great reproach 
to them, that they are ready to 
take what they want, wherever 
it isto be found? The situation 
of their neighbours, 1 readily 
grant, is not rendered more pala- 
table by this reflection ; and even 
though they do not feel their at- 
tacks to be very atrocious, they 
are not the less justified, nor is it 
the less incumbent on them, to de- 
fend to the utmost themselves and 
their property. In this very cir- 
cumstance lies the principal ob- 
stacle to the Bosjesmans ever be- 
ing civilized ; and it is certain, 
that there are not, over the whole 
globe, any savages whom it would 
be more difficult to inspire with 
new ideas, or to form to new 
habits. 
To say all that might be said 
upon this subject, without suffer- 
ing myself to run into a wearisome 
amplification, would be almost 
impossible. I shall therefore re- 
strain my pen to giving some few 
of the leading featuresin the modes 
of life, and character, of the sa- 
vages in question ; these, con- 
nected with such particulars as are 
already known to the public, and 
such as may be hereafter given, 
will enable them to form satisfac- 
tory results, ‘The Bosjesman has 
no settled residence; his whole 
life is passed in wandering from 
place to place; it even rarely 
47] 
happens that he passes two nights 
together on the same spot. One 
exception may, however, be found 
to this general rule, and that is, 
when. he has eaten till he is per- 
fectly gorged; that is to say, 
when he has for several days to- 
gether had as much as his almost 
incredible voracity can possibly 
eat. Such a revelry is followed 
by asleep, or at least a fit of in- 
dolence, which will continue even 
for weeks, and which at last be- 
comes so delightful to him, that 
he had rather buckle the girdle of 
emptiness round him, than sub- 
mit to such an exertion as going 
to the chace, or catching insects. 
He is fond of taking up his abode 
for the night in caverns among 
the mountains, or clefts in the 
rocks ; in the plain he makes him- 
self a hole in the ground, or gets 
into the midst of a bush, where 
bending the boughs around him, 
they are made to serve as a shelter 
against the weather, against an 
enemy, or against wild beasts. A 
bush that has served many times 
in this way as the retreat of a Bos- 
jesman, and the points of whose 
bent boughs are beginning to 
grow again upwards, has per- 
fectly the appearance of an. ims 
mense bird’s nest. In this state 
many sorts of the pliant tarconan- 
thus, abundance of which grow on 
the other side of the Great River, 
are often to be found; and if they 
have been recently inhabited, hay, 
leaves, and wool may be seen, 
forming the bottom of the nest- 
It is this custom which has given 
rise to the name by which the sa- 
vages in question are now known; 
Bosje signifying in African Dutch 
a shrub or bush; Bosjesman, con- 
sequently, a dush-man. An addi- 
