576 AN ALBINO MUEDEKED BY HIS MOTHEB. Chap. XXVIII. 



down the mercury to 72° or even 68°. There, too, we found a 

 small black coleopterous insect, which stung like the mosquito, 

 but injected less poison ; it put us in mind of that insect, which 

 does not exist in the high lands we had left. 



January 6th, 1856. — Each village we passed, furnished us with 

 a couple of men to take us to the next. They were useful in 

 showing us the parts least covered with jungle. When we came 

 near a village, we saw men, women, and children employed in 

 weeding their gardens, they being great agriculturists. Most 

 of the men are muscular, and have large ploughman hands. 

 Their colour is the same admixture, from very dark, to light olive, 

 that we saw in Londa. Though all have thick lips and fiat noses, 

 only the more degraded of the population possess the ugly negro 

 physiognomy. They mark themselves by a line of little raised 

 cicatrices, each of which is a quarter of an inch long; they 

 extend from the tip of the nose to the root of the hair on the 

 forehead. It is remarkable that I never met with an Albino in 

 crossing Africa, though, from accounts published by the Por- 

 tuguese, I was led to expect that they were held in favour as 

 doctors by certain chiefs. I saw several in the south : one at Kuru- 

 man is a full-grown woman, and a man having this peculiarity 

 of skin, was met with in the colony. Their bodies are always 

 blistered on exposure to the sun, as the skin is more tender than 

 that of the blacks. The Kuruman woman lived some time at 

 Kolobeng, and generally had on her bosom and shoulders the 

 remains of large blisters. She was most anxious to be made 

 black, but nitrate of silver, taken internally, did not produce its 

 usual effect. During the time I resided at Mabotsa, a woman 

 came to the station with a fine boy, an Albino. The father had 

 ordered her to tlirow hini away, but she clung to her offspring 

 for many years. He was remarkably intelligent for his age. The 

 pupil of the eye was of a pink colour, and the eye itself was 

 unsteady in vision. The hair, or rather wool, was yellow, and the 

 features were those common among the Bechuanas. After I left 

 the place, the mother is said to have become tired of living apart 

 from the father, who refused to have her while she retained the 

 son. She took him out one day, and killed him close to the 

 village of Mabotsa, and nothing was done to her by the authorities. 

 From having met with no Albinos in Londa, I suspect they are 



