39^ TRAVELS IN 
only of the African two-horned rhinoceros. It differs from it 
in color, which is a pale carnation, in fize, which is confiderably 
larger, and in the thinnefs of its fkin ; all of which may per- 
haps be the effeds of age. Thefe people feemed to live very 
happily together. They had horfes, and cattle, and fheep, and 
gardens of no inconfiderable extent, well flocked with pump- 
kins, onions, and tobacco. 
We met alfo, at this kraal, one of the nation above men- 
tioned under the name of Damaras. From his appearance I 
took him to be a Kaffer, and he was unqueftionably of that race 
of people. He reprefented the Damaras as a very poor tribe ; 
that their country along the fea-coafl produced nothing for the 
fupport of cattle ; and that their whole exiftence depended on 
exchanging copper rings and beads, which they themfelves 
manufadtured, with the Br'iquas to the eaft, and the Namaaquas 
to the fouth. From the Orange river to the Tropic, under 
which thefe people live, runs a chain of mountains, that, from 
the various accounts of travellers, are fo abundant in copper ore, 
that it is every where found upon the furface. From this ore, 
it feems, the Damaras are in poffeffion of the art of extrading 
the pure metal. This man's account of the procefs of fmelting 
the ore was as fatisfa£tory as fimple. They make a kind of 
charcoal from the wood of a certain mimofa, of which he ^ave 
me a large bean, by fmothering it when burning clear, with 
fand. They break the ore into fmall pieces. Thus prepared, 
they lay the materials in alternate ftrata, within a fmall enclo- 
fure of ftones, on a clayey bottom. They fet fire to the char- 
coal, and blow it with feveral bellows, each made from the &in 
of 
