No. 151.] 351 



rider. The facility and adroitness with whith the Hottentots manage 

 the ox has often excited admiration: it is made to walk, trot, or gal- 

 lop at the will of its master; and being long-legged and rather more 

 lightly made than the ox of America, travels with greater ease and 

 expedition, walking three or four miles in an hour, trotting five, and 

 galloping on an emergency seven or eight. Major Denham, in his 

 travels iii Central Africa, says the ox is the bearer of all the grain 

 and other articles to and from the markets. A small saddle of plait- 

 ed rushes is laid on him, when sacks, made of goat skins, and filled with 

 corn, are lashed on his broad and able back, and on top of the load 

 is mounted the driver. Sometimes the daughter or the wife of a rich 

 Shonaa will be mounted on her particular ox, and precede the load- 

 ed animals, extravagantly adorned with amber, silver rings, coral, and 

 all sorts of finery; her hair streaming with fat, a black rim of kohal, 

 at least an inch wide, roimd each of her eyes, arrayed for conquest 

 at the crowded market. Carpet or robes are then spread on her clumsy 

 palfry, — she sits jambe de ca, jambe de la, — and with considerable 

 grace guides her animal by the nose. Notwithstanding the peace- 

 ableness of his nature, her vanity still enables her to torture him into 

 something like caperings and curvetings. 



Among the Hottentots, these animals are their domestics, and the 

 companions of their pleasures and fatigues; they are both the pro- 

 tectors and servants of the Caffre, and assist him in tending his flocks 

 and guarding them against every invader. While the sheep are graz- 

 ing, the faithful ox stands grazing beside them; if they attempt to 

 stray aw|iy, be runs round them, and obliges them to keep within 

 proper limits, and show^s no mercy to robbers who attempt to plun- 

 der, nor even to strangers; but it is not the plunderers of the flock 

 alone, but even the enemies of the nation that these oxen are taught 

 to combat. Every army of Hottentots is furnished "with a proper 

 herd of these creatures, which are let loose against the enemy; be- 

 ing thus sent forward, they overturn all before them; they strike down 

 with their horns, and trample with their feet, every one who attempts 

 to oppose them, and thus often procure their masters an easy victory, 

 before they have begun to strike a blow. He is rewarded by being 

 allowed to live in the same cottage with his master, and by long habit 

 gains an affection for him; for in proportion as the man approaches 

 the brute, so the brute seems to attain even to the same share of hu- 

 man sagacity. The Hottentot and his ox thus mutually assist each 

 other; and when the ox happens to die, a new one is chosen to suc- 

 ceed him, by a council of the old men of the village, and is taken for life 

 into human friendship and protection, 



