SOUTHERN AFRICA. 183 
appeared to give the animal little uneafinefs, but the cicatrices 
would always remain ; and from thefe fort of fears on the bo- 
dies of many of the oxen, it is to be feared that cutting is a 
pradice but too common among them, notwithftanding that 
moft of the peafantry of the party feemed to be fhocked at it. 
This was the fecond inftance of the kind that I had occafion 
to witnefs in the courfe of this tour ; the other was perhaps the 
more cruel, as it was exercifed on parts of the body more fuf- 
ceptible of pain, the nofe and the tongue. In this inftance the 
animal bellowed moft hideoufly, burft from the yoke, and 
plunging into the thickets, made his efcape. Even in the 
neighbourhood of the Cape, where, from a more extended 
civilization, one would expert a greater degree of humanity, 
feveral atrocious ads of the kind are notorious. One of the 
inhabitants, better known from his wealth and his vulgarity 
than from any good quality he pofTefles, boafts that he can at 
any time ftart his team on a full gallop by whetting his knife 
only on the fide of the waggon. In exhibiting this mafterly 
experiment, the effe£t of a long and conftant perfeverance in 
brutality, to fome of his friends, the waggon was overturned, 
and one of the company, unluckily not the proprietor, had his 
leg broken. Hottentot's Holland's kloof, a fteep pafs over the 
firft range of mountains beyond the promontory of the Cape, 
has been the fcene of many an inftance of this fort of cruelty. 
I have heard a fellow boaft that, after cutting and flafhing one 
of his oxen in this kloof, till an entire piece of a foot fquare did 
not remain in the whole hide, he ftabbed him to the heart ; 
and the fame perfon is faid, at another time, to have kindled a 
. ' fire 
