276 
TRAVELS IN 
their bed, in which they feemed to have Iain coiled round in 
the manner of fome quadrupeds. It appeared that it was 
cuftomary for the elderly men to have two wives, one old and 
paft child-bearing, and the other young ; that no degree of 
confanguinity prevented a matrimonial conned:ion, except be- 
tween brothers and fillers, parents and children. One of thefe 
miferable huts ferved for a whole family. The population of 
the horde was calculated to amount to about a hundred and 
fifty perfons. They poffeiTed no fort of animals except dogs, 
which, unlike thofe of the Kaffers, were remarkably fat. They 
appeared to be of a fmall cur-kind, with long- pointed heads 
not unlike that of the common jackal. The high condition in 
which thele creatures were found feemed very difficult to be 
accounted for. They have neither milk nor animal food to eat. 
The only viands we found in the huts were a few fmall bul- 
bous roots, the eggs or larvas of white ants, and the dried larvas 
of locufts. The peafantry fay that the dogs of Bosjefmans 
exift almoft wholly upon the laft article, the great plenty of 
which, in the prefent year, may account for the fatnefs of thefe 
animals. 
The men were entirely naked, and moft of the women 
nearly fo. Their only covering was a belt of fpringbok's fkin, 
with the part that vv^as intended to hang before cut into long 
threads like thofe before mentioned to be worn by fome of the 
Hottentot v/omen ; but the filaments were fo fmall and thin 
that they anfwered no fort of ufe as a covering ; nor indeed 
did the females, either old or young, feem to feel any fenfe of 
ihame in appearing before us naked. Whether in the con- 
fufion 
