( 24 iy ) 
which kill, as I am inform'd, upon drawing Blood, but 
what they are envenom'd with I could not learn : 
their Houfes are Hemifpherical, made of Mats, fu, ported 
with Stakes, folow that a Tall Man cannot hand upright 
in one of them $ Thefe they remove upon occafion, as 
the Ancient Nomades did their Tents. 
By all that I have feen and heard of them and other 
Nations, they are the mart Lazy and Ignorant part of 
Mankind j'by virtue of which two moft excellent Quali- 
fications, there are no manner of Arts pra&ifed among 
them, no Plowing or Sowing, no going to Sea in fo much 
as a Boar, no ufe of Iron or Money, no Notion of God, 
Providence, or of a future State, no Tradition ot Creati- 
on or a Flood, no Prayers or Sacrifices, no Magical 
Rites ^ nor, in fine, any Notion of any Invifible Being 
capable of doing them either good or harm, upon the 
ftri&eft Enquiry that I could make of Men ofSenfe that 
had liv'd fume time upon the Place ^ fo that I believe 
their Ignorance hardly can be parallel'd : The only thing 
that looks like the leaft knowledge of any thing of this 
kind among ’em (in as much as I could learn) is a Cuftom 
they have in Moonlhiny Nights of Dancing in the Fields;, 
of winch, if you ask ’em the reafon, all their Anfwer is, 
that it is a Cuftom of the Hottentots , and was fo of their 
For fathers 5 and that is all they can tell you of the mat- 
ter- now whether it be that they rejoyce in its Light, 
which difpels that darknefs of which they are then moft 
fenfible, or whether they think it a Rational Being en- 
dued with freedom of Will, becaufe of its variouschange 
of Forms, or for what other reafon I will not pretend to 
determine y however as to no other thing, fo neither to 
this do they Prav or Sacrifice : Neverthelefs fume Voy- 
agers have upon this ground, how truly 1 will not fay, 
confidently writ, that they worftnp’d the Moon 5 and up- • 
©n Enquiry I could not find that they took fo much, nor 
indeed 
