580 
DISORDERS. — MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE. 
motion, the violent friction upon the lower stick, in a short time causes 
the powder and the grass to take fire. The Bachapins were unac- 
quainted with any other mode of obtaining fire, till the Hottentots 
taught them that of the flint and steel ; but though a considerable 
number of small brass tinder-boxes and steels, made expressly for 
being carried in the pocket, have been from time to time brought to 
Litakun, yet these people were rarely seen to make use of them ; 
and habit is still so powerful that they seem to tliink their own 
loruloes, or fire-sticks, the most convenient. 
Of the personal appearance, dress, and decorations, of the 
Bachapins, the foregoing descriptions may suffice for giving a general 
idea. 
The aridity of their atmosphere, conjointly with a plain and 
simple diet, is the cause of the catalogue of their disorders being but 
short. The sinall-pox has, once or twice, as before stated, found its 
way into this country ; and, besides carrying off great numbers of 
the inhabitants, has left on the faces of many whom it spared, lasting 
proofs of its visit ; but I never saw among them any symptoms of 
elephantiasis or other variety of leprosy, nor of any other disease of 
that complexion ; although indubitable proofs of these dreadful 
maladies may be observed among all the more southern tribes. Under 
these and so many other exemptions, therefore, it may be called a 
happy land. They are sometimes visited with ophthalmia; but a 
single case of blindness was all that came under my observation : nor 
did I any where see a cripple or a person of deformed figure. 
There are men among them, who make a profession of curing 
disorders ; but I had no opportunity of learning whether they really 
possessed any medical hioidedge ; as all the answers which could be 
obtained to numberless questions put at different times on this sub- 
ject, only tended to show that the healing-art among them was 
nearly as low as their religion, both equally founded on the most 
absurd beliefs and mixed with the grossest ignorance. They seemed 
to rely more on charms and amulets, than on the properties of any 
drug ; and those plants which were pointed out to me as medicinal, 
were most frequently directed to be used in a manner which, if they 
