VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 67 
when we entered about a dozen houses. Tlie village consists at 
present of tv/o hundred and fifty-six cottages and huts, containing 
twelve hundred and seventy-six inhabitants. The dwellings are 
differently constructed. Some of the new people who are permit- 
ted to reside hereon trial, or the poorest of the inhabitants, put up 
a hut, made with a few upright poles, between which there is a watt- 
ling of reeds or rushes, or a species of slender cane. Again, others 
have walls of unburnt brick, or wattling covered with a clay plais- 
tering, v.ith square doors and windows, and a well-thatched roof. 
None of them are ibnd of too much light; and generally one win- 
dow, or at most two, serves for the whole house, before which not 
unfrequently hangs a curtain of sheep-skin to prevent any intrusion 
of the sun's rays. 
Each house hcis a garden belonging to it, and the state of the 
garden generally betrays the disposition of the inhabitant. Some 
ai e kept neat, and produce good crops ; others, though not many, 
are full of weeds. The missionary upon whom this branch of ser- 
vice devolves, after exercising due patience in admonishing and 
warning the possessor, may deprive him of it, and give it to another. 
Most of the gardens, however, look well; and being separated from 
each other by low hedges or bushes, the whole valley apj^ears well 
clothed with verdure. 
In some of the dwellings, the children of the poor, particularly 
the little boys, go naked ; and some of the men wear only karosses 
and aprons, after the old Hottentot fashion. But those that have 
better earnings, soon provide themselves with jackets and trowsers, 
and other articles of European dress, which they always wear on 
Sundays, clothing their children in linen or calico shirts, trowsers, 
or petticoats. The head-dress of the women is a handkerchief, 
neatly infolding their heads, above the ears, with a loop in front, 
and looks v/ell. 
On each side of the valley, the cottages are placed in rows; but 
the rest are irregularly distributed between them. Though at first 
I had joined others in regretting, that, from the beginning, no re- 
