TOWN OF LEETAKOO. 
N° 22. 
This print represents the town or city of Leetakoo, the capital of the Booshuanas. 
In a country, whose general features are so rude and barren, so great an assemblage 
of huts, constructed on a regular plan, was a sight as novel as unexpected; and a 
society of men so numerous, collected together on the same spot, implied a superior 
degree of civilization to what any part of this continent to the southward of the line 
is supposed to afford. " We walked through the town," says Mr. Triiter, " and 
cc observed that both within it, and on every side, were plantations of that species 
" of Mimosa which constitutes the principal food of the Camelopardalis. We 
" estimated the city to be, in its circumference, as large as Cape Town, with all the 
" gardens of Table Valley; but it was impossible to ascertain the number of houses, 
<c on account of the irregularity of the streets, and lowness of the buildings, but we 
" concluded they must amount to somewhere between two and three thousand, of 
" the same kind, but not quite so large, as that of the chief. The whole population, 
" including men, women, and children, we considered to be from ten to fifteen 
" thousand souls. Tracing our route from the last place on the Roggeveld, upon 
"Mr. Barrow's map, and continuing the same scale, we calculated the city of 
" Leetakoo to be in latitude 26° 30' south, and longitude 27° 00' east from 
" Greenwich." 
Ariver of very considerable magnitude in the rainy season runs through the middle 
of the town, but for nine months out of the twelve it contains little more water than 
is necessary for the use of the inhabitants and their cattle. On the banks of the 
river, on the tops of the hills, and among the habitations of the natives, no other 
species of tree appears but the Mimosa Giraffe, which, like an umbrella, affords a 
protection against the scorching rays of a vertical sun. 
BOOSHUANA WOMAN MANUFACTURING EARTHEN WARE. 
THE TACKHAITSE, 
N° 23. 
N° 24. 
Although these people have made some progress in civilization, yet they retain 
that common feature of a savage state which condemns the weaker sex to perform 
the severest labour and the greatest drudgery. The woman in the print is employed 
in the construction of one of the large earthen vessels in which they deposit their grain. 
They are made of tempered clay, dried in the sun, and washed over with a solution of 
red ochre, so as to appear to have been baked with fire. These vessels are six or seven 
feet high, and hold from two to three hundred gallons. They stand on feet to 
prevent the moisture of the ground from striking through the clay and injuring the 
grain. While the clay is soft, short sticks are fixed in the side by way of a ladder 
to ascend the top in order to take out the grain or to fill the vessel. The different 
pots, of a smaller description, are intended for holding water and milk, and also for 
boiling their meat. In their choice of animal food they are not very nice. They 
eat even the flesh of the wolf and the hysena, but prefer that of the different kinds 
of antelopes. 
Their huts and their granaries are always constructed on a platform of clay 
raised a few inches above the general level of the inclosure, in order that the water 
may easily run off, and the elevated part speedily become dry. Upon the whole 
the Booshuanas have made greater steps towards civilization than any of the tribes 
of southern Africa that have hitherto been discovered. 
Ihis extraordinary animal, which has never before been drawn nor described, is 
equally unknown to the colonists of the Cape, being first met with in the parallel of 
latitude under which Leetakoo is situated. In the neighbourhood of this place we 
had the good fortune to fall in with a couple of them. They are exceedingly shy, 
and, when wounded, dangerous to come near; nor do the Booshuanas consider it safe 
to approach them in the rutting season. They rarely kill them, as they do most 
other antelopes, with the spear or hassagai, but entrap them in deep pits covered 
with sticks and earth, in the same manner as the Bosjesmans take the Hippopotamus. 
The flesh is esteemed a great delicacy. This animal is, in general, from four and a 
half to five feet high, of a bluish colour like that of the ~Nyl-gau of India, to which 
indeed its general shape approaches, but it is sometimes seen of a fallow brown. 
Both male and female have horns, pointing backwards in a regular curve, and 
annulated to within less than one third of their length from the point. They are 
usually found grazing on the edge of the Karroo plains near the feet of hills that are 
covered with the common Karrooo mimosa and other shrubby plants ; mostly in 
pairs, but sometimes in small herds of five or six together. 
In the back ground of the print is a Giraffe or Camelopardalis, browsing among 
the branches of the mimosa, on which they are particularly fond of feeding. 
