440 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE CHAP. XIX 
them from the thorns with which the country everywhere 
abounds. Under their feet some wore a kind of sandal of 
wood or bark, but the greater number went entirely unshod. 
For bodily qualifications they were strong, and appeared 
nimble and active in a high degree. 
Their language, which appears to a European but in- 
distinctly articulated, has this remarkable singularity, that in 
pronouncing a sentence they click or cluck with their 
tongues at very frequent intervals, so much so that these 
clicks do not seem to have any particular meaning, except 
possibly to divide words, or certain combinations of words. 
How this can be effected, unless they can click with their 
tongues without inspiring their breath, appears mysterious 
to a European: and yet I am told that many of the Dutch 
farmers understand and speak their language very fluently. 
Almost all the natives, however, speak Dutch, which they do 
without clicking their tongues, or any peculiarity whatever. 
In general they have more false shame (mawvaise honte) 
than any people I have seen, which I have often had occasion 
to experience when I have with the greatest difficulty per- 
suaded them to dance or even to speak to each other in 
their own language in my presence. Their songs and dances 
are in extremes; some tolerably active, consisting of quick 
music and brisk motions, generally of distortions of the 
body with unnatural leaps, crossing the legs backwards 
and forwards, etc.; others again as dull and spiritless 
as can be imagined. One dance consists entirely of beating 
the earth first with one foot and then with the other, with- 
out moving their place at all, to the cadence of a tune 
furnished with little more variety than the dance. 
Smoking is a custom most generally used among them, 
in doing which they do not, as the Europeans do, admit the 
smoke no farther than their mouths, but like the Chinese 
suck it into their lungs, where they keep it for nearly a 
minute before they emit it. They commonly mix with 
their tobacco the leaves of hemp, which they cultivate for 
that purpose, or Phlomis leonwrus, which they call dacha. 
Their food is the same as that of the farmers, chiefly bread 
