1811 
OLD AGE. — WANTROUW AND THE LADY. 
415 
With the rest of her female companions, the season of beauty 
had long passed by, and, if that season with other nations may justly 
be called shortlived, it may among Bushwomen, with more than 
equal justice, be termed momentary. In five or six years after their 
arrival at womanhood, the fresh plumpness of youth has already 
given way to the wrinkles of age ; and unless we viewed them witli 
the eye of commiseration and philanthropy, we should be inclined 
to pronounce them the most disgusting of human beings. Tlieir 
early, and it may be said, premature symptoms of age may, perhaps, 
with much probability, be ascribed to a hard life, an uncertain and 
irregular supply of food, exposure to every inclemency of weather, 
and a want of cleanliness which increases with years. These, rather 
than the nature of the climate, are the causes of this quick fading, 
and decay of the bloom and appearance of youth. 
The lengthened shadows of the surrounding trees began to 
remind me of the approach of evening, and of its being time to 
return to the waggons. Mounted on Adam Kok's horse, I rode 
home in company with Mr. Jansz, leaving Gert and some other Hot- 
tentots to follow on oxback or on foot, while Kok with his party 
was to remain at the spot all night to keep watch over the game, 
and to complete the drying of it on the next day. 
Nor were they left without company ; for where there is meat 
to be had, there of course will Bushmen always fix their quarters. 
I left the young lady, and my friend Wanfrouzv, who in this instance 
turned a deaf ear to my call, both eagerly employed in tearing away 
the remaining flesh from the skull, and from between the joints of 
the huge backbone. 
31s/. The next morning we were again visited by the same 
Bushmen, who brought us about twenty small bundles of green 
rushes from the opposite side of the river. Being loaded each with 
three or four bundles, they would not perhaps have found it practi- 
cable to cross the stream without the assistance of what the Klaar- 
water Hottentots termed a Houie-paard (Wooden-horse.) 
This Wooden-horse is merely a log of dry wood, six or seven 
feet long, and six inches thick, into which, towards the upper end. 
