TRAVELS IN 
to account from whence they might have obtained the art of 
leducing copper ore into a metalHc state. The accidental 
discovery is full as hkely to have happened, as the Phenician 
story of the invention of glass related by Plinv. 
The three tribes of KafFers above-mentioned have each a 
-different language, though they are all of the same nature, 
and have evidently been derived from the same source. This 
must be the case among every people who want a written 
character, especially when they become divided into tribes, 
and cease to communicate with each other. The different 
families of Hottentots all speak a different language, which, 
however, is very obviously perceived to have been derived 
from one common origin. 
Having dried our clothes, we took leave of the kraal, and 
continued our descent of the mountain. It was night before 
we gained the plain, where we once more enjoyed a clear sky 
and a brilliant moon. The following morning the thermo- 
meter was down to the freezing point, and the whole surface 
of the country was covered with a hoar frost. 
From this place we made the best of our way to the Bokke- 
veld, returning nearly by the same route that had brought us 
to it. At the edge of the desert the Bosjesmans' captain paid 
us a second visit, Avitli the people of his kraal, and a whole 
string of Namaaqua Hottentots, generally women, whose 
husbands and children were in the service of the Dutch 
farmers. One of these appeared to be the oldest woman I 
had ever beheld. Much moi-e than a century of years had 
