SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
43 
liquors of the country, of which their pay enables them to 
procure an excefs. The fudden change of temperature, efpe- 
cially from heat to cold, may perhaps be one of the caufes of 
confumptive complaints which are very frequent in all claffes 
and ages. But the common difeafe to which thofe of the 
middle age are fubjed;, is the dropfy. A confined and feden- 
tary life ; eating to excefs, twice and commonly thrice a-day, 
of animal food fwimming in fat, or made up into high-feafoned 
diflies ; drinking raw ardent fpirits ; fmoking tobacco ; and, 
when fatiated with indulging the fenfual appetite, retiring in 
the middle of the day to fleep ; feldom ufmg any kind of exer- 
cife, and never fuch as might require bodily exertion, — are the 
ufual habits in which a native of the Cape is educated. An 
apoplexy or a fchirrous liver are the confequences of fuch 
intemperance. The former is feldom attended with immediate 
diffolution on account of the languid ftate of the conftitution ; 
but it generally terminates in a dropfy, which (hortly proves 
fatal. The difeafes to which children are moft fubjeft are 
eruptions of different kinds, and fore throats. Neither the 
fmall-pox nor the mealies are endemic ; the former has made 
its appearance but twice or thrice fmce the eftablifhment of the 
Colony, but the latter has found its way much more frequently. 
Great caution has always been ufed by the government againft 
their being introduced by foreign fhips calling at the Cape. In- 
ftances of longevity are very rare, few exceeding the period of 
fixty years. The mortality in Cape Town, taken on the average 
in the laft eight years, has been about two and a half in a hun- 
dred among the white inhabitants, and under three in a hundred 
among the flaves. Thofe in the latter condition, who live in the 
G 2 . town^ 
