lOO 
TRAVELS IN 
tract iheir poisons bj macerating the leaves or branches, and 
inspissating the juices, either by boiling or by exposure to 
the heat of the sun ; but the poison taken from the heads of 
snakes, mixed with the juices of certain bulbous-rooted plants, 
is what they mostly depend upon. This party of old men 
had killed a hartebeest with a poisoned arrow by wounding it 
in the thigh. The animal had run about half an hour after 
receiving the wound before it fell. They immediately cut 
away the flesh round the wound, and squeeze out the blood 
from the carcase, after which they know from experience that 
the flesh taken into the stomach will do them no injury, 
though the animal was killed with a poisoned weapon. 
The ancient manners and primitive character of this extra- 
ordinary race of men are, no doubt, much changed since 
their connection with the colonists ; and the nearer they are 
found to the capital and those parts which are most inha- 
bited by Europeans, the less of course they retain of them. 
If at any time they composed societies governed by fixed 
laws, swayed by customs, and observant of religious ceremo- 
nies, many of which, as related among the fables of ancient 
voyagers, and revived by some modern travellers, arc so 
absurd and so extremely ludicrous as to create the strongest 
doubts of their having ever existed, they have now so com^- 
pletely lost them that not a single trace remains behind. 
The name even that has been given to this people is a fabrica- 
tion. Hottentot is a word that has no place nor meaning in 
their language ; and they take to themselves the name under 
the idea of its being a Dutch word. Whence it has its 
derivation, or by whom it was first given, I have not been 
