30 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
^777- rii.ty of plundering^ the inhabitants of their cattle. In one of 
November. . . 
lu— my excurfions I fell in with a party of thefe favages ; but they 
:and made flaves of. Their weapons are poifoned arrows, which, (hot out of a fmall bow, will 
fly to the diftance of two hundred paces ; and will hit a mark with a tolerable degree of cer- 
tainty, at the diftance of fifty, or even a hundred paces. From this diftance they can by ftealth, 
as it were, convey death to the game they hunt for food, as well as to their foes, and even to fo 
large and tremendous a beall; as the lion: this noble animal thus falling by a weapon which, 
perhaps, it defplfed, or even did not take notice of. The Hottentot, in the mean time, con- 
cealed and fafe in his ambufii, is abfolutely certain of the operation of his poifon, which he 
always fele£ts of the moft virulent kind ; and it Is faid, he has only to wait a few irunutes, in 
order to fee the wild beafl languifh and die. 
I mentioned that their bows were fmall ; they are, in fa£l:, hardly a yard long, being at the 
fame time fcarcely of the thicknefs of an inch in the middle, and very much pointed at both 
ends. What kind of wood they are made of I cannot fay, but it does not feem to be of a re- 
markably elaftic nature. The firings of the bows that I faw were made fome of them of finews, 
others of a kind of hemp, or the inner bark of fome vegetable, and moft of them are made in 
a very flovenly manner ; which fhows, that thefe archers depend more on the poifon of the 
weapons, than on any exadnefs in the formation of them, or any other perfection hi them. 
Their arrows are a foot and a half long. They are made of a reed one foot in length, 
which, at the bafe, or the end that receives the bow-firing, has a notch of a proper fize to fit 
it. Juft above this notch there is a joint in the reed, about which firings made of finews are 
wound, in order to flrengthen it. The other end of the reed armed with a highly polifhed 
bone, five or fix inches long. At the diflance of an inch or two from the tip of this bone, a 
piece of a quill is bound on very fafl with finews. This is done, in order that the arrow (hall 
not be eafily drawn out of the flefh ; and thus there may be fo much the longer time for the 
poifon, which is fpread oa of a thick confifience like that of an extrad, to be difTolved, znd 
infect the wound. 
It is not common, however, for an arrow to be headed in the manner above-mentioned, 
with a pointed bone only j this latter being ufually cut off fquare at the top, and a thin trian- 
gular piece of iron fixed into it. As the bone has no cavity whatever, I do not profefs to know 
what animal it is taken from. In the ftate in which it is feen, as it makes part of the arrow, it 
is of a dark brown colour, full of fmall grooves and ribs, and does not appear ever to have been 
as white as ivory ; though, for one of the arrows which I brought with me, it would feem as 
if ivory had been really made ufe of. Hence we may conclude, that on fuch arrows as are 
headed with iron, the bone is employed chiefly for giving this weapon a kind of weight and 
poife ; and likewife, that thefe arrows cofl the Hottentots a great deal of labour. 
Their quivers are two feet loiig and four inches in diameter. If one may form any conclu- 
fion from thofc I have feen, and from two that I have brought home with me, they are made 
of a branch of a tree hollowed out ; or, ftill more probable, of the bark of one of thefe branches 
.taken off whole and entire, the bottom and cover to which are coinpofed of leather. On the 
outfide 
