^54 TRAVELS IN 
or two girls, they kill the weaker of the two J 
if a boy and girl, the girl, he fays, is the vidim : 
and he blufhes not to avow, that he has wit- 
nefifed thefe crimes. 
Now I aver, that this charge is the blackeft 
Calumny againft nature that ever defiled the 
pen of a writer deftitute of modefty. The 
fight of the two twins of one of the wives of 
the chief was fufEcient to convince me of this. 
However, as thefe children might have beeu 
an exception to the general law for fome par- 
ticular reafon, I refolved to interrogate their 
father refpeding this pretended malTacre. 
Every morning before I went a-hunting, he 
came to fee me with his two wives, and regale 
himfelf with a pipe of tobacco and a fopje^ or 
fmall glafs, of brandy. Though his language 
was different from that of the Hottentots on 
the weftern coaft, yet, in the two months I had 
fpent in the country, I had learned to under«* 
ftand it a little, and make myfelf underftood. 
One day as I was fitting on the grafs, near v 
my tent, with him and his tv/o wives, I turn- 
ed the converfation to the fubjed of twins, 
and afked his wife whether, if fhe Ihould have 
twins again, {lie would not deftroy one of 
6' • them ? 
