SOUTHERN AFRICA. 153 
with the knife, and paffing it round in a fpiral manner till they 
come to the middle, they produce a firing of meat two or three 
yards in length. The whole animal is prefently cut into fuch 
firings ; and while fome are employed in this bufmefs, and in 
fufpending them on the branches of the fhrubbery, others are 
broiling the ftrings coiled round and laid upon the afhes. 
When the meat is juft warmed through they grafp it in both 
hands, and applying one end of the firing to the mouth, foon 
get through a yard of flefh. The afhes of the green wood that 
adhere to the meat ferve as a fubftitute for fait. As foon as a 
firing of meat has pafFed through their hands, they are cleaned 
by rubbing over different parts of their body. Greafe thus 
applied from time to time, and accumulating perhaps for a 
whole year, fometimes melting by the fide of a large fire and 
catching up dufl and dirt, covers at length the furface of the 
body with a thick black coating that entirely conceals the real 
natural color of the fkin. This is difcoverable only on the face 
and hands, which they keep fomewhat cleaner than the other 
parts of the body by rubbing them with the dung of cattle. 
This takes up the greafe, upon which water would have no 
effed. 
The drefs of a Hottentot is very fimple. It confifls of a belt 
made of a thong cut from the fkin of fome animal. From this 
belt is fufpended before a kind of cafe made out of the fkin of 
the jackal. The fhape is that of half a nine-pin cut longitudi- 
nally, and the convex and hairy fide is outermofl. The inten- 
tion of this cafe is to receive thofe parts of the body for which 
mofl nations have adopted fome fort of covering j but few, 
X who 
