COUNTRY OF THE HOTTENTOTS, 199 



show a kind of coquetry, which has a very powerful influence over 

 the heart of a Hottentot novice. The reader, however, must not in- 

 fer that the Hottentot women pay so much attention to dress as to 

 neglect those daily and useful occupations, to which nature and their 

 usages call them. Separated from Europe by an immensity of sea, 

 and from the Dutch colonies by desert mountains and impassable 

 rocks, too much communication with these people has not yet led 

 them to the excessess of our depravation. On the contrary, when they 

 have the happiness of becoming mothers, nature addresses them 

 in a different language ; they assume, more than in any other coun- 

 try, a spirit suitable to their state, and readily give themselves up to 

 those cares which she imperiously requires of them. 



"They are remarkably fond of hunting, and in this exercise they 

 display great dexterity. Besides gins and snares which they place 

 at convenient spots to catch large animals, they lie in wait for them 

 also, attack them as soon as they appear, and kill them with their 

 poisoned arrows, or their assaygays, which are a kind of lances. On, 

 the first view of their arrows, one would not suspect how distructive 

 weapons they are : their smallness renders them so much the more 

 dangerous, as it is impossible to perceive and follow them with the 

 eye, and consequently to avoid them. The slightest wound which 

 they make always proves mortal, if the poison reaches the blood, and 

 if the flesh be torn. The surest remedy is to amputate the wounded 

 part, if it be a limb ; but if the wound be in the body death is una- 

 voidable. The assay gay is generally a very feeble weapon in the 

 hands of a Hottentot ; but, besides this, its length renders it not dan- 

 gerous, for, as it may be seen cleaving the air, it is not difficult to 

 avoid it. 



" The Hottentots have not the least notion of the elements of agri- 

 culture ; they neither sow nor plant, nor do they even reap any crop. 

 When they choose to give themselves the trouble, they make an in- 

 toxicating liquor composed of honey and a certain root, which they 

 suffer to ferment in a sufficient quantity of water. This liquor, which 

 is a kind of hydromel, is not their usual beverage, nor do they ever 

 keep a stock of it by them. Whatever they have, they drink all 

 at once, and frequently regale themselves in this manner at certain 

 periods. They smoke the leaves of a plant which they name dagha, 

 and not daka, as some authors have written. This plant is not in- 

 digenous : it is the hemp of Europe. There are some of the sava- 

 ges who prefer these leaves to tobacco ; but the greatest part of them 

 are fond of mixing both together. They set less value on the pipes 

 brought from Europe, than on those which they fabricate themselves ; 

 the former appear to them to be too small. 



"Though they rear abundance of sheep and oxen, they seldom kill 

 the latter, unless some accident happens to them, or old age has ren- 

 dered them unfit for service. Their principal nourishment, there- 

 fore, is the milk of their ewes and cows, besides which they have the 

 produce of their hunting excursions, and from time to time they kill 

 a sheep. To fatten their animals, they employ a process, which, 

 though not practised in Europe, is no less efficacious, and has this 

 peculiar advantage, that it requires no care. They bruise, between two 

 flat stones, those parts which we deprive them of by the knife ; and 

 when thus compressed, they acquire in time a prodigious bulk, and 

 become a most delicate morsel when they have resolved to sacrifice 

 animal. 



