Mat.] a nation OF BUSHMEN. 289 
their fires, in order to cook the flesh they had so 
unexpectedly received. Their black fingers ap- 
peared as hard as bones, and were probably ren- 
dered so by digging roots out of the ground for 
food. Their men had been absent on a hunt 
for three weeks, and of course the situation oi 
these poor females must have been very dis- 
tressing. 
It is very probable that a Missionary sent to 
this scattered people would be able to collect 
them together, form them into a nation, and 
teach them to cultivate a portion of those 
millions of rich acres by which they are sur- 
rounded ; a deed which would deserve the thanks 
of the whole human race. The Tammahas were 
once in the same state ; but by some means or 
other, which I could not learn, they were col- 
lected into a nation, and now their land abounds 
both in corn and cattle. These Bootshuana 
Bushmen must be very numerous, from the 
numbers I fell in with where there was no beaten 
track, and because from hence it may be inferred 
that, in whatever direction we had chosen to tra- 
vel, we should have found an equal portion of their 
villages. They speak the same language with 
the surrounding nations, by whom they are de- 
spised merely on account of their poverty. 
Having been so long dispersed, and living in a 
straggling way, they must be destitute of those 
VOL. I. u 
