SOUTHERN AFRICA. 223 
to destroy it was a capital crime. The percnopterus is a gre- 
garious bird, and is usually seen in flocks that rarely consist 
of fewer than fifty ; and they are generally attended with two 
or three condors, as many of the small white kind above men- 
tioned, and a whole flock of the vulturine crow. An animal 
is no sooner shot than these birds appear hovering at an im- 
mense height in the air, from whence they plunge down the 
moment that the carcase is left alone. It has often been a 
subject of astonishment to me, from whence they could so 
instantaneously collect themselves in a body to souse upon 
their prey ; but at the same time it convinced me of the ac- 
curacy of Pliny's observation, where he says that vultures are 
accustomed to hover about a place two or three days before 
the death of a diseased anin.al, and that they have a pre- 
sentiment where and at what time a carcase will be found. 
Snakes of different sorts were seen and killed daily, all of 
them, according to the Hottentots' information, more or less 
venomous. These people are certainly not unacquainted 
with several interesting particulars as to the nature and habits 
of the animal, as well as the vegetable part of the creation. 
From one of our company I experienced a very extraordinary 
effect produced by the application of the oil of tobacco to 
the mouth of a snake. One of these reptiles, about two feet 
in length, and of a bluish color, had coiled itself five or six 
times round the body of a lizard. As I was endeavouring to 
set at liberty the captive animal, one of the Hottentots took 
out with the point of a stick, from the short stem of his 
wooden tobacco pipe, a small quantity of a thick black mat- 
ter which he called tobacco oil. This he applied to the mouth 
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