SO Dr. Leslie's Remarks on the 



kraal seldom exceeds thirty — men, women, and children. 

 Their dwellings are formed of mats, if in the plain, just large 

 enough to creep into ; but they often reside in a high and 

 ridgy mountain, under some projecting ledge of rock, the 

 approach to which is narrow and difficult. If attacked there, 

 they seldom flee. They have no fear of death ; and, if pos- 

 sessed of a more powerful weapon, might defy the attacks of 

 the Boors, make them less frequent, and more fatal- Nothing 

 but the privations they suffer would make any one of them 

 submit to the cruelty of the farmers ; and, living as they do 

 on locusts, ants, and some farinaceous roots, there can be no 

 better proof of the insufficiency of their tiny bow, and of the 

 general inertness of their celebrated poison ; yet they are 

 themselves impressed with the conviction of its strength, and 

 they have been able to impress their enemies with a dread of 

 its effects, if not of its fatality. I have never been able to 

 procure one well authenticated relation of death pi'oduced by 

 it in man. I have known some cases of horses and dogs 

 dying from the insertion of the arrow into the leg ; but some 

 of them seemed to die rather from the effect of violent in- 

 flammation in the limb, than from any specific power in the 

 poison itself. In one instance of a dog, however, the animal 

 became stupid and insensible in a few minutes, and died in 

 twenty. Some colonists who have been wounded, assert that 

 they are subject to periodical attacks of insanity, under certain 

 states of atmospherical influence; but I believe this to be, 

 like most of their tales, quite unworthy of credit. The poison 

 of the Bushman of the Hornberg is extracted from plants, 

 and from plants only, so for as I have been able to learn. 

 In that quarter, they use no mineral poison, nor the venom of 

 snakes. Two specimens of plants used by them accompany 

 this; the bulb is a species of Heemanthus; but never having 

 seen the other plant in flower, I have been unable to learn 

 its name. Its leaf exudes a milky juice, and, cut up and 

 bled, forms a tenacious extract, which is spread on the arrow, 

 to some thickness. There is another plant which they use 

 likewise, either above or with the other two; which, together, 

 forms the strongest they procure ; its name is " mountain 

 poison." Growing on the stony hills, and very rarely to be 

 found, I have never got a specimen of it. 



Their dexterity in the use of their bow is remarkable, and 

 the distance they can shoot, with such a light arrow, is as- 

 tonishing. They will throw the arrow upwards of an hundred 

 yards, and with great correctness ; but, as might be expected, 

 it will seldom wound at such a distance; and I have known 

 a cavalry cloak protect a soldier at twenty paces. The bow 

 is not brought to the eye in shooting. They fix their eye 

 upon the object, grasping the bow with the left hand, while 



