Book I. 



AGRICULTURE IN AFRICA. 



181 



above a year, they either died or returned completely ruined and disappointed- Neither 

 the climate or mode of culture, indeed, are at all calculated for liritons : for French, 

 German, or Italian peasantry, they may do much better. 



1108. In the interior of the -country are many tribes of whom little or nothing is 

 known ; but some of which are every now and then brought into notice by modern 

 travellers. Some have been visited, for the iirst time, by the missionary Campbell ; and 

 the account he gives of their agriculture, manufactures, and customs is often very 



curious. It is astonishing how 

 ingenious he found some tribes 

 in cutlery and pottery; and 

 the neatness and regularity of 

 rhc houses of others is equally 

 temarkable. In one place the 

 .houses were even tasteful ; they 

 [were conical, and enclosed by 

 large circular fences, {Jig' 181.) ; 



and he found them threshing out the corn on raised circular threshing-floors (a), with 



flails, much in the same manner as we do. 



1 109. The unimproved Hotten- 

 tots form their huts {Jig. 182.) 

 of mats bound on a skeleton of 

 poles or strong hoops (Jig. 183.) 

 Their form is hemispherical ; 

 they are entered by a low door, 

 which has a mat shutter, and the\ 

 are surrounded by a reed-or mat! 

 fence to exclude wild animals' 

 and retain fuel and cattle. At- 

 tempts to introduce European 

 forms of cottages have been 

 made by the missionaries, which, 



with a knowledge of the mere 



useful arts, will no doubt in time humanize and refine them. The missionary Kiishe 



183 conducted Burchell along tlie valley of 

 Genadendal, to exhibit the progress which 

 the Hottentots under his instruction had 

 made in horticulture and domestic order. 

 The valley is a continued maze of gardens 

 and fruit trees. ''The huts {Jig. 184.), une 

 like those of Hottentot construction, ar- 

 a rude imitation of the quadrangular build- 

 ings of the colonist. They are generally 

 from ten to fifteen feet long, and from eight to ten wide, having an earthen floor and 



walls white- washed ..:=^~^^^^ ^^ ^^=-^^='^^^==r==.. 184 



on their inside, com- 

 posed of rough un- 

 hewn poles, filled up 

 between with reeds 

 and rushes plastered 

 with mud, and the 

 whole covered with 

 a roof of thatch 

 The eaves being in 

 general not higher 



from the ground than four or six feet, the doors could not l)e entered without stooping. 

 A small unglazed window admitted light, but there was neither chimney nor any other 

 opening in the roof by which the smoke might escape." {BurcheWs Travels, i. 112.) 



1110. The cattle of all the Hottentot and other tribes are kept in circular folds during night ; 

 and it is remarkable that these folds are the only burial places known to be in use among 

 that people. " Corn is preserved in Avhat may be termed large jars, of various dimen- 

 sions, but most commonly between four and five feet high and three wide. The sliape 

 of these corn jars is nearly that of an eggshell, having its upper end cut off: sometimes 

 their mouth is contracted in a manner which gives them a great resemblance to an 

 European oil jar. They are formed with stakes and branches fixed into the ground and in- 

 terwoven with twigs ; this frame- work being afterwards plastered within and without with 

 loam and cow .dung. Frequently the bottoms of these jars are raised about six inches or a 

 foot above the ground ; and the lower part of the stakes being then uncovered gives tliem 



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