■Z4^ TRAVELS IN 
off the extreme joints of the fingers, beginning with the little 
finger of the left hand as the least useful. This operation is 
performed under tlie idea that the disease will run out with 
the effusion of blood. 
It is customary with them to inter their dead, and, like 
the Hottentots, to cover the graves with piles of stones. Some 
of these were so large, and were heaped on the midst of grassy 
plains, where not a stone was naturally to be found, that the 
amassing of them together must have occasioned a very con- 
siderable degree of labor. 
The temper of the mind of a Bosjesman is widdy difTcrent 
from that of the Hottentot who lives among the -colonists. 
The latter, for a life of indolence, would willingly barter all 
that he possessed in the world ; to the former a state of inac- 
tivity would be intolerable. The powers of the mind in the 
one, are languid, and difficultly brought into action ; in the 
other, they are vigorous, and capable of great exertion. Their 
mechanical skill appeared in their arrows, which were finished 
with great neatness ; in the baskets placed in the rivers for 
the purpose of taking fish, ingeniously contrived, and well 
executed ; in the mats of grass, of which their huts were com- 
posed ; and in their imitations of different animals, designed 
on the smooth faces of the rocks. Those we met with being 
questioned with respect to these drawings, informed us that 
they were the work of a numerous tribe cf their countrymen 
that lived a little to the northward, on the other side of a very 
large river at no great distance from the spot where we then 
were. . 
