1811. A COLONIAL CUSTOM. 221 
his hand to each of us in turn, in a cold and unmeaning manner, by 
merely touching palms. One might have expected that he would 
have had a long chat with his brother boor ; but he, at that time, 
not thinking of any thing to say, they stood insensibly looking at 
each other for about five minutes, without exchanging a single word. 
The stranger, whom no one seemed to know, then repeated his 
' Dag /' which we all in like manner returned, mounted his horse, 
and proceeded on his way. 
This ceremony of passing strangers halting to salute each other, 
has long been a custom, although at present an expiring one, 
among those colonists who dwell in the more remote corners of 
the country. Rarely visiting or visited, they think that a Christen- 
menscJi (a Christian), so they term all white men, should never be 
passed without salutation. This practice doubtlessly took its rise, 
originally, from that pleasure which the first settlers must have felt 
on meeting a white man in these distant places of their banishment 
from the world ; a meeting which, in those days, could have been 
a circumstance only of rare occurrence. As population encreases, 
this sentiment wears out, and with it the customs derived from it ; 
no longer the token of that neighbourly and mutual good-will which 
it formerly implied. 
In the evening, the chilliness of the air rendered the warmth of 
a fire very acceptable. Abundance of dead and half-decayed stems 
of the Karro-thorn lay every where scattered along the banks, and 
enabled us to illuminate our retreat with a constant blaze. We as- 
sembled round it like one large family ; and the presence of the mis- 
sionaries' wives and children, completed the resemblance of a do- 
mestic fireside. Our elegant friend joined the party at coffee-time, 
and favoured us with a further display of his accomplishments. 
Early this morning, with my gun, I left the waggons 
to go in search of some beautiful birds, which I had observed 
in the Acacia-woods along the river, fluttering about the flowers 
of a kind of Salvia (Sage), from which, with its long, slender, 
curved bill, it extracted the honey without settling. They proved 
