SOUTHERN AFRICA. 397 
of a gemfbok converted into a fack, with the horn of the fame 
animal fixed to one end for the pipe. This is all that is necef- 
fary to procure the metal from the fort of ore they make ufe of; 
being that fpecies called by mineralogiRs vitreous copper ore. 
It is in fad mineralized vnth fulphur, which a moderate heat 
will dlfTipate, and leave the copper in its pure metallic ftate. 
Such fort of ore is even more fufible than pure copper. The 
metal thus obtained is then manufadured into chains, rings, and 
bracelets, by means of tvv^o pieces of ftone that ferve as a 
hammer and anvil, and the workmanfhip would be no difgrace 
to an artizan furniflied with much better tools. The links of 
the chains, however, are all open, as well as the rings, which 
fhew that they have not yet difcovered the art of foldering, or 
joining together pieces of the fame metal by the interpofition of 
a fecond, or a compofition of a fofter nature than fhofe to be 
united. 
^ As a nation of artifts, and acquainted with metallurgy, they 
are, from all accounts, the pooreft on the face of the earth. They 
keep no kind of cattle. Their country, in fad, is fo totally 
barren and fandy, that no cattle could exift upon it. Though 
the Damaras are obvioufly the fame race of people as the Kaffers, 
and thefe, as has in a former chapter been conjedured, of Arabic 
origin, yet there is no neceflity of tracing them back to a more 
refined nation, in order to account from whence they might have 
obtained the art of reducing copper ore into a metallic ftate. 
The accidental difcovery is full as likely to have happened, as the 
Phenician ftory of the invention of glafs related by Pliny. 
The 
