260 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
For as, in times of peace, except at marriage 
and other festivities, hunting scenes, or in hos- 
pitality, they never kill their cattle, or eat flesh, 
but subsist mainly on milk, corn, and roots; 
so, in times of war, this sudden transition 
from vegetable to animal food, inflames their 
appetites, and excites their passions. This is 
also doubly effected, by the brutal and revolt- 
ing manner in which they slaughter the cattle, 
and by their devouring the flesh and blood half 
raw and quivering. 
These scenes of savage butchery are trans- 
acted in the following cruel way. "When about 
to slay a beast, several Kaffirs assemble around 
it, and, dividing their number into two bands, 
range themselves at either side of their vic- 
tim. Twenty or thirty of them then throw the 
weight of their bodies against the ribs and 
shoulders of the ox, and thus succeed in hold- 
ing it, wedged in between them, while a 
strong, powerful man comes forward, and, with 
the point of a large sharp "assegai" makes a 
deep incision in its chest about a foot long. 
Then, baring his sinewy arm to the shoulder, 
he thrusts it into the centre of the poor beast's 
body, and seizing the heart, liver, and lights, 
he drags them out by main force ; thus tearing 
asunder the life-strings, while the blood spirts 
out, in all directions, from the ruptured arteries 
