4o8 TRAVELS IN 
many years ago the wolves and hyenas descended from their 
dens in the Table Mountain, and disputed the spoil with the 
dogs : and even now they sometimes advance near enough to 
be scented by the dogs, when the town resounds with the 
hideous howlings of the latter the whole night long. 
The circumstance of Southern Africa being free from the 
canine madness, and also from the small pox, would lead one 
to conclude that neither the one nor the other of these dis- 
eases was of spontaneous origin ; but that actual biting in 
the one case, and actual contact in the other, were necessary 
for their production. Whatever may have been the cause 
that first created those diseases, it should seem such cause 
has not yet existed here, or that the climate is unfavorable 
for its operation. Twice since the foundation of the colony 
the small pox has been brought into it, and both times has 
committed dreadful havock among the settlers. That such 
will always be the fatal effects, may readily be imagined, 
among so gross a people, unprepared for the reception of the 
disease, and ignorant how to treat it ; but it is not so easy 
to conceive in what manner they got rid of it. I believe it is 
now forty years since the last time it made its appearance. 
All the old Kaffers, I observed, were strongly marked with 
it; the disease, as I observed in the second chapter, was 
brought among them by a ship that was stranded on their 
coast ; but I should conclude it has visited them since the 
time it was last brought into Caj)e Town, as the chief Congo, 
v/ho could not, when we saw him, be above thirty years of 
age, was marked with the small pox. It is rather singular 
that a disease, which is supposed to have originated in the 
