SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
221 
diately Into their dens, the relations of the deceafed are in no 
danger of being fliocked or difgufted with the fight of the 
mangled carcafe. A Kalfer, in confideration of this piece of 
fervice, holds the life of a wolf facred, at leaft, he never endea- 
vours to deftroy it ; the confequence of which is, that the 
country fwarms with them. Some author has aflerted, that 
the cuftom of burning the dead was univerfal, till the practice 
of it, adopted as the moft prudent and convenient difpofal of 
an unpleafant objedl, became a fubjed: of oftentatious parade j 
and the funeral pile having at length exhaufted the forefts, ne- 
celTity obliged them to have recourfe to other means, fome to 
interment, others to expofure in high places to be devoured by 
crows and vultures. Had the Kaffers ever burned their dead 
in the country they now inhabit, they were under no neceffity 
of difcontinuing the pradice for want of fuel, being in the 
midft; of inexhauftible forefts. 
The bufmefs that had brought us to the KaiFer king being 
finifhed, our next ftep was to examine the mouth of the Keif- 
kamma, the magnitude and ftrength of the ftream being fo 
much fuperior to thofe of the Great- Fifh river, feeming to 
promife a confiderable opening at its union with the fea, 
there might, in all probability, be a bay or harbour. No part 
of the Kaffer coaft has ever been furveyed, nor indeed vifited, 
by any one who thought of placing it in a chart. Having, 
however, an untravelled and an uninhabited country to pafs, 
in order to arrive at our objedt, moft of the party thought fit 
to quit us, and to araule themfelves with fhooting fea-cows in 
the 
