CHAP, v.] DAMARA OBTUSENESS. 133 



They have no way of distinguishing days, but reckon 

 by the rainy, season, the dry season, or the pig-nut 

 season. When inquiries are made about how many 

 days' journey off a place may be, their ignorance of all 

 numerical ideas is very annoying. In practice, 

 whatever they may possess in their language, they 

 certaialy use no numeral greater than three. When 

 they wish to express four, they take to their fingers, 

 which are to them as formidable instruments of 

 calculation as a sliding-rule is to an English school- 

 boy. They puzzle very much after five, because no 

 spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers 

 that are required for " units." Yet they seldom lose 

 oxen : the way in which they discover the loss of one, 

 is not by the number of the herd being diminished, 

 but by the absence of a face they know. When 

 bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for 

 sej)arately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco to be 

 the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely 

 j)uzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four 

 sticks. I have done so, and seen a man first put two 

 of the sticks apart and take a sight over them at one 

 of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied 

 himself that that one was honestly paid for, and 

 finding to Ms sm-prise that exactly two sticks remained 

 in hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he 

 would be afflicted with doubts ; the transaction seemed 

 to come out too " pat " to be correct, and he would 

 refer back to the first couple of sticks, and then his 

 mmd got hazy and confused, and wandered from one 

 sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction 



