226 SNUFF-MANUFACTURING. 



the tender passion. Her face was thin and wrinkled, 

 while her whole body looked as though it were covered 

 with a skin that had been originally intended for a very 

 much larger person. She had also suffered from sick- 

 ness, as was shown by the scars all over her body, 

 signs of the cupping and bleeding that had been per- 

 formed on her by some Kaffir doctor, with an assagy in 

 lieu of a lancet. Still she did not seem to be much 

 displeased with herself, a circumstance for which I can 

 only account by the absence of looking-glasses in this 

 village. 



I did not feel much inclined to move after my long 

 walk this day, so I took a seat near the door of the hut, 

 and watched the old lady turn my tobacco into snuff. 

 She first cut it up into little bits with an assagy, and 

 brought two large stones to the hut ; into the lower stone, 

 which had a well-worn hollow, she put all the bits of 

 tobacco, and with the other, which was nearly circular, 

 and about the size of an ostrich-egg, she commenced 

 grinding the tobacco : it seemed very hard work, as she 

 pressed heavily on the stone during the operation. After 

 a time she added some water, which made the mess into a 

 sort of paste, something like a child's dirt-pie. After a 

 great deal of grinding and scraping, the composition began 

 really to look like a snuff-powder. She then got a wooden 

 spoon nearly full of white wood-ashes, and mixed them 

 with the tobacco. More grinding seemed to amalgamate 

 the two compositions, when she tried a pinch herself, and 

 pronounced that it wanted drying in the sun, and would 

 then be good. 



