811; 
MODE OF TANNING SHEEP-SKINS. 
243 
fleshy plant, well known to the Hottentots by the name of Guaap, 
and to botanists by. that of Stapelia pilifera. It has an insipid, 
yet cool and watery, taste, and is much used by them for the purpose 
of quenching thirst ; for which purpose, it would seem, nature has 
designed it, by placing it only in hot and arid tracts of country. In 
passing through the Karro, I expected to have seen in large quan- 
tities a great variety of plants of that genus, but scarcely half a 
dozen met my eye. But it appears that no part of the colony is so 
rich in .them, as the dry sandy regions lying along the western coast, 
and extending over several degrees of latitude. On the other hand, 
in travelling along the colony to the eastward, they gradually dis- 
appear ; nor were any discovered as we advanced deeper into the 
interior of the continent, although their associates, Jloe, Mesem- 
hryanthemum and Arzoon, were now and then fallen in with, almost 
to our farthest range northward. 
My notice was attracted by the beautiful skin of a zebra, that 
had been formed into a tanning-vat, supported by four stakes on a 
frame to which its edges were bound by thongs in such a manner, 
that the middle, hanging dovs^n, formed a capacious basin : (as may 
be seen by the figure at the end of this chapter.) It was filled with 
a liquid, in which lay a quantity of the bark of Karro-thorn, and 
together with it a number of sheep-skins, first deprived of the hair, 
were placed to steep. The Acacia-bark possesses a large portion of 
the tanning principle, and imparts a reddish color to the leather ; 
but in other districts, several other sorts of barks are applied to the 
' same purpose. * 
The sheep -leather, thus tanned, is made use of in the distant 
and more unfrequented parts of the colony, for various parts of 
their clothing, by the Hottentots and the poorer class of boors ; but 
for the making of trowsers, it is every where in general demand. 
Men's jackets, and even women's gowns and petticoats are made of 
* Of which a kind of Ficus, C. G. 2487. 3. has been found to have powerful 
properties : and Mesemhri/anthemum coriarium, B. a new species allied to M. uncinatum, 
has been seen used for this purpose by the Hottentots. 
I I 2 
