OUTHERN AFRICA. 109 
It did not appear to us that tlie Hottentots were subject to 
any particular diseases. Life, if not taken away by accident 
or violence, seems to be generally terminated by a gradual 
decay and exhaustion of nature, which mostly takes place 
at an earlier period of existence here than in other countries 
of an equal temperature of climate. It is rare to meet with 
a Hottentot with sixty years upon his head ; but it is also 
equally rare to see a cripple or deformed person among them. 
There are not among them any who professedly practise the 
healing art ; every one is his own physician. The colonists,- 
indeed, in this respect are not better provided than the Hot- 
tentots. In the whole extensive district of Graaif Reynet 
there is but one apothecary, and his residence is at the Drosdy. 
Medicine and astronomy are two sciences that may be sup- 
posed to have dated their origin from the first dawn of civiliza- 
tion ; by one,, men were taught to restore the vital functions 
that had lost their tone, and to repair the injured frame ; by the 
other, they informed themselves of the different periods of 
seed-time and harvest. Little as the Hottentots are acquainted; 
with the first, they are still less so with the second. They have 
a name for the sun, another for the moon, and a third for the 
stars : but this seems to be the extent of their astronomical 
knowledge. The division of time, as marked by the motion 
of the heavenly bodies, was too subtle an operation, and re- 
c^uired too much observation and profound thinking, for the 
careless and inattentive mind of a Hottentot. The period 
of a day may almost be said to be the extent of his reckon- 
ing, and when he has occasion to refer to any particular time 
©f the day, like other nations who are without machines fov: 
