SOUTHERN AFRICA. 31 
yards at the most in width, when a few planks, properly put 
together, would enable them to carry over any sort of car- 
riage, cattle, or horses, with safety and convenience, in five 
minutes. 
The women of the African peasantry lead a life of the most 
listless inactivity. The mistress of the family, with her coffee- 
pot constantly boiling before her on a small table, seems fixed 
to her chair like a piece of furniture; and it is the business 
of a little black boy or a Hottentot wholly naked to attend 
her with a small branch of a tree or a fan made of ostrich 
feathers to flap away the flies. The annexed sketch drawn 
from nature by Mr. Daniell, is so true a picture of a boor's 
apartment, that any further description would be super- 
fluous. Few of the Africans educated among slaves and Hot- 
tentots, have any idea of what, in a state of society, consti- 
tutes female delicacy. They make no scruple of having 
their legs and feet washed in warm water by a slave before 
strangers ; an operation indeed that is regularly performed 
every evening. If the motive of such, a, custom were that of 
cleanliness, the practise of it would deserve praise ; but to 
observe the tub with, the same water passed round through 
all the branches of the family, according to seniority, is apt 
to create ideas of a very different nature. Most of them go 
constantly without stockings and shoes, even when the ther- 
mometer is down to the freezing point. They generally, how- 
ever, make use of small stoves to place the feet on. The 
young girls sit with their hands before them as listless as 
their mothers. Most of them, in the distant districts, can 
neither read nor write, so that they have no. mental resources 
