472 
tional reason for giving it being 
derived from their often shooting 
at game, or at an enemy, from 
this. retreat. Whoever travels 
over this treeless country, can 
scarcely forbear laughing at the 
mistake of many translators, who 
have made of this word Jbosje, a 
wood, or perhaps, forest, and 
called these people Wood- Hotten- 
tots ; or, as some of the French 
translators have it, Hommes des 
Soréts. 
The holes in the ground above- 
mentioned, which sometimes serve 
these people as beds, are only a 
few inches deep, of a longish 
round form, and even when they 
are to serve for a whole family, 
not more than five or. six feet 
wide. It is incredible how they 
manage to pack together in so 
small a space, perhaps, two grown 
persons and several children: each 
is wrapped in a single sheepskin, in 
which they contrive to roll them- 
selves up in such a manner, round 
like a ball, that all air is entirely 
kept from them. In very cold 
nights they heap up twigs and 
earth on the windward side of the 
hole; but against rain they have 
no other shelter than the sheep- 
skin. In the hot season of the 
year, they are fond of lying in the 
béds of the rivers, under the shade 
of the mimosas, the branches of 
which they draw down to screen 
them from the sun and wind. In 
this situation were they found by 
Patterson, who has pretended to 
give a sketch of what he saw, but 
it is defective on the side of accu- 
racy ; nor is it difficult to discern, 
that the sketcher has introduced a 
great deal of his own imagination 
into his picture. Household uten- 
sils they have none, unless that 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1815. 
name may be given to shells of 
tortoises, of ostriches’ eggs, and 
of gourds. Some of those who 
inhabit the neighbourhood of the 
more civilized Caffre tribes, of 
the Beetjuans, for instance, have 
knives, but they are not at all a 
necessary to them, since they ge- 
nerally eat their flesh raw, and 
chew it very little. If they dress 
it, they scarcely make it hot 
through, and bite it with their 
teeth the moment it is taken out 
of the ashes. The incisive teeth, 
therefore, of the old Bosjesmans 
are commonly half worn away, 
and have one general flat edge. 
They drink out of the rivers and 
streamlets, lying down flat on 
their bellies, even when the bank 
is‘ very steep, so that they are 
obliged to support themselves in a 
fatiguing manner with their arms, 
to avoid falling into the water. 
The Caffres, on the contrary, and 
many of the savage Hottentot 
tribes, have a way of crouching 
down to the water, and throwing 
it into their mouths with the fore- 
fingers of both hands. I do not— 
recollect ever to have seen any of 
the different savages of Southern 
Africa drinking out of the hollow 
of their hands. ™ 
As the Bosjesman lives without 
a home, and without property, he 
must be without the great medium 
of moral refinement, the social 
union. A horde commonly con- 
sists of the different members of 
one family only, and no one has 
any power or distinction above 
the rest. Every difference is de- 
cided bythe right of the strongest ; 
even the family tie is not sanction- 
ed by any law or regulation: the 
wife is not indissolubly united -to 
the husband ; but when he gives 
