;SEPT.] 
BUSHMEN. 
439 
who have had children murdering them, if the father 
refused to provide for them. 
The chief amusements of their children are shooting 
arrows at insects and beasts, and throwing assagays. 
Their only employment is to fetch water for the family. 
The parents only teach their children how to act in 
war, and counsel them to be faithful to each other. 
They very seldom chastise their children, but when 
they do, even the least of them will resist by throwing 
stones at their parents. 
They make nothing but bows, arrows, and pots of 
clay. They generally carry their water in ostrich egg 
shells, and the shell of the land tortoise ; they likewise 
use the latter as a dish, out of which they eat. 
They use no form in their marriages. A young 
man courts the object of his affection — teazes her in 
the night time to take him to be her husband, and 
will sometimes pull her out of the hut while asleep, 
and teaze her till he obtains her consent. He need 
not ask the consent of her parents, or even tell them, 
but on marriage he makes a feast for them, when he 
gives them a present of a bow and arrows, or an 
assagay, or a skin sack. 
The prevailing diseases among them are fevers and 
consumptions. They use no medicines except a certain 
root. They have also what they term a snoring over 
the sick, when they pretend to take animals from them* 
