200 TRAVELS IN 
which feemed to be deftined for the ufe of the queen flood at 
the head of the village ; v/as fomewhat larger than the reft, and 
finifhed in a neater manner : it was about ten feet in diameter, 
and eight feet high. They are firft fhaped by frames of wood, 
and afterwards daubed over with a kind of mortar compofed of 
clay and the dung of cattle ; and, when this is fufficiently dry, a 
neat covering of matting is worked over the whole. Such huts 
are completely water-tight, and very warm. 
The KafFers having always been reprefented as agriculturifts, 
we were a little difappointed in not meeting with gardens and 
cultivated grounds about their habitations, not a veftige of 
which had any where appeared. On putting the queflion ta 
Gaika, he replied, that having been engaged in war for the two 
or three years laft paft, during which he had not been able to 
fix at any one place above a month or two at a time, they had 
confequently been under the neceffity of fufpending their pur- 
fuits of agriculture : that in time of peace they always planted 
millet, and feveral kinds of vegetables ; and that nothing could 
give him an equal degree of pleafure to that of feeing the 
keerie, now an inftrument of war, converted into an utenfil of 
hufbandry ; but that at prefent he was juft on the eve of an- 
other campaign. He feemed much pleafed when the landrofi: 
told him, that if, on his return from his expedition, he would 
fend to GraafF Reynet, he fliould be fupplied with corn and 
different garden-feeds ; and he appeared to anticipate the happi- 
nefs that his people would experience, after the fatigues and 
horrors of war, in returning to their ancient habits of peaceful 
induflry. 
The 
