1811. 
FOOD AND EMPLOYMENT.— AGRICULTURE. 
365 
brandy, they esteem tea the greatest luxury, as a beverage. Their 
chief food is milk, game, together with mutton, or beef ; which latter 
is rarely killed ; their principal dependance being on game, of which 
they bring home no trifling quantity. Hunting is the only employ- 
ment at which they show any eagerness ; and it, therefore, occupies 
the greatest part of their time. Adam Kok, the captain, is reckoned 
the richest man amongst them ; and possesses a thousand sheep, 
eight hundred goats, and three teams of oxen, besides a number 
of cows and calves : yet he lives in a miserable mat-house * not 
better than the rest of his neighbours. 
Some of the people cultivate a little com ; but so foolish and 
improvident are they, that as soon as the harvest is gathered in, they 
eat, I may almost say, night and day, till the little they have is 
devoured. A Hottentot's motto might very appropriately be 
" A feast and a fast." This is the reason that, immediately after 
the harvest, very little work is done. The few individuals amongst 
them who are more sparing and provident, are beset during the 
rest of the year by beggars and hangers-on, who, under the claims 
of relationship or friendship, become so heavy a tax on their 
industry as almost to dissuade them from growing any another 
season. They frequently are obliged to kill a sheep, as it were, by 
stealth, that they may save a portion of it for their own families ; 
and elude these beggars, who would seat themselves around the pot 
without ceremony or waiting for any invitation. 
Wheat is the only corn they cultivate ; it is sown in June, and 
Teaped in December. The thrashing, or rather treading out, of the 
grain immediately, as in the colony, follows the harvest, and is per- 
formed in a similar manner, by horses driven round a circular earthen 
floor. The corn is ground by a hand-mill of the same construction 
as that already described, f The land is ploughed by oxen ; and 
both the beam-plough and the wheel-plough are used : the work 
appeared to me to be performed tolerably well. The quantity of 
•* See the vignette at the head of Chapter XX. 
f On the 13th of April, at page 1 IS. 
