SOUTHERN AFRICA. 393 
The dwelling of a Booshuana is not ill calculated for the 
climate. In elegance and solidity it may probably be quite 
as good as the Casce ov first houses that were built in imperial 
Rome, and may be considered in every respect superior in its 
construction and in comfort to most of the Irish cabins, into 
which the miserable peasantry are of times obliged to crawl 
through puddles of water. The hut of a Booshuana is not 
only raised upon an elevated clay flooring, but the ground of 
the whole enclosure is so prepared that the water may run off 
through the gateway ; and the whole of their cookery being 
carried on in this open area, the inside of the dwelling is free 
from smoke and soot. So well is he acquainted with the 
comfort and convenience of shade, that his hut is usually 
built under the branches of a spreading mimosa, every twig of 
which is preserved with a religious care, and not a bough suf- 
fered to be broken off on any emergency, though the article of 
fuel must sometimes be sought at a very considerable distance. 
So large a population collected together on one spot, sur- 
rounded by barren deserts occasionally inhabited by a few 
savages, and cut off from all communication with other 
civilized societies, necessarily implies the adequate means 
of subsistence within themselves. One great source from 
which they draAV their support is their cattle, whose flesh, 
however, they eat but very sparingly ; milk is mostly 
used in a curdled state, which they keep not in grass 
baskets, like the Eastern Kaffers, but in leathern bags 
and clay pots. Every part of the country abounds with 
ahiiost all the various kinds of antelopes that are found in 
Southern Africa, with the rhmosceros, the buffalo, and the 
3 E 
