326 UTILITY OF TOBACCO — HERON. —PURPLE HOOPOE. 18 Sept. 
exchange their tent of mats, for any dwelling of solid and immoveable 
construction. 
\^th. We were visited this morning by a party of ten Bushmen, 
who had been obliged to cross the river to us. I neglected no 
opportunity of making friends with this nation, and had already dis- 
covered that in negotiating a treaty of peace and alliance with them, 
tobacco is a most successful plenipotentiary, or rather a sine-qua-non. 
They were all armed with a hassagay, and a bow and arrows. Their 
clothing was greasy leather, reddened with ochre, and the apparent 
color of their skin was the same. In their manners, they were less 
reserved and timid than the Bushmen whom we saw at the Rock Foun- 
tain. They remained with us the greater part of the day, and seemed 
to consider it no difficulty to have to wade through the river to 
return home. 
I took a ramble with my gun, through the groves a little lower 
down the river, to a fall, where the water, broken in an easy 
descent, ran over large pebbles or stones rounded by the force of 
the current. Just below the fall, a heron stood near the shore, pa- 
tiently watching for fish, and perfectly motionless, except when 
making a sudden dart at his prey, which, it appeared, never was so 
fortunate as to escape his aim. 
No hippopotami frequent this part of the river, it being too 
shallow, and the bottom too rocky. The only fish which the Hot- 
tentots had seen here, were the Geelvisch (Yellow-fish) ; and one 
which they called Plattekop (Flat-head), which, at this time, I had 
no opportunity of seeing. 
I passed some hours amongst the trees, with the view of en- 
creasing the ornithological part of my collection, and procured a 
new and beautiful Hoopoe^ entirely of a deep purple * : a small long- 
* Upupa purpurea, B. — Fcemina. Tota purpurea, exceptis corporis parte inferiore 
nigra, et macula alba mediis in remigibus primariis. Cauda elongata utrinque purpurea. 
Crista nulla. Rostrum, pedes et irides, nigra. Lingua brevissima. 
Mas, coloribus iisdem gaudet, exceptis pectore, juguloque nigro-fuscis : raagni- 
tudine fceminam vix ^quat. 
