Ch. VI. PHENOMENON IN THE NURTURE OF CHILDREN. 127 



of the cliild. could bring back the milk. Is it not possible that the 

 story in the • Cloud of Witnesses,' of a man during the time of 

 persecution in Scotland putting his cliild to his own breast, and 

 finding, to the astonishment of the whole country, that milk fol- 

 lowed the act, may have been literally true? It was regarded 

 and is quoted as a miracle ; but the feelings of the father towards 

 the child of a murdered mother must have been as nearly as pos- 

 sible analogous to the maternal feeling ; and, as anatomists declare 

 the structure of both male and female breasts to be identical, there 

 is nothing physically impossible in the alleged result. The illus- 

 trious Baron Humboldt quotes an instance of the male breast 

 yielding milk ; and though I am not conscious of being over credu- 

 lous, the strange instances I have examined in the opposite sex make 

 me believe that there is no error in that philosopher's statement. 



The Boers know from experience that adult captives may as 

 well be left alone, for escape is so easy in a wild country that no 

 fugitive slave-law can come into operation ; they therefore adopt 

 the system of seizing only the youngest children, in order that these 

 may forget their parents and remain in perpetual bondage. I have 

 seen mere infants in their houses repeatedly : this fact was for- 

 merly denied ; and the only thing which was wanting to make 

 the previous denial of the practice of slavery and slave-hunting by 

 the Transvaal Boers no longer necessary was the declaration of 

 their independence. 



In conversation with some of my friends here I learned that 

 Maleke, a chief of the Bakwains, who formerly lived on the lull 

 Litubaruba, had been killed by the bite of a mad dog. My curiosity 

 was strongly excited by this statement, as rabies is so rare in this 

 country. I never heard of another case, and could not satisfy 

 myself that even this was real hydrophobia. While I was at 

 Mabotsa some dogs became affected by a disease which led them 

 to run about in an incoherent state ; but I doubt whether it was 

 anything but an affection of the brain. No individual or animal 

 got the complaint by inoculation from the animals' teeth; and 

 from all that I could hear, the prevailing idea of hydrophobia not 

 existing within the tropics seems to be quite correct. 



The diseases known among the Bakwains are remarkably few. 

 There is no consumption nor scrofula, and insanity and hydro- 

 cephalus are rare. Cancer and cholera are quite unknown. 



