Ch. VI. PHENOMENON IN THE NURTURE OF CHILDREN. 127 
of the cliild, could bring back the milk. Is it not possible that the 
story in the ‘ Cloud of Witnesses/ of a man during the time of 
persecution in Scotland putting his child to Ins own breast, and 
finding, to the astonislnnent of the whole country, that milk fol¬ 
lowed the act, may have been literally true? It was regarded 
and is quoted as a miracle; but the feelings of the father towards 
the child of a murdered mother must have been as nearly as pos¬ 
sible analogous to the maternal feeling; and, as anatomists declare 
the structoe of both male and female breasts to be identical, there 
is notlnng physically impossible in the alleged result. The illus¬ 
trious Baron Humboldt quotes an instance of the male breast 
yielding milk ; and though I am not conscious of being over credu¬ 
lous, the strange mstances I have examined in the opposite sex make 
me believe that there is no error in that philosopher’s statement. 
The Boers know from experience that adult captives may as 
well be left alone, for escape is so easy in a wild country that no 
fugitive slave-law can come into 023eration; they therefore adopt 
the system of seizing only the youngest cliildren, in order that these 
may forget their parents and remain in perpetual bondage. I have 
seen mere infants in then' houses re 2 )eatedly: tliis fact was for¬ 
merly denied; and the only thmg wliich was wanting to make 
the 2 )revious denial of the joractice of slavery and slave-hunting by 
the Transvaal Boers no longer necessary was the declaration of 
then* independence. 
In conversation with some of my friends here I learned tliat 
Malelve, a chief of the Bakwains, who formerly Kved on the liill 
Litubaruba, had been killed by the bite of a mad dog. My curiosity 
v/as strongly excited by this statement, as rabies is so rare in this 
country. I never heard of another case, and could not satisfy 
myself that even tliis was real hydi’ 02 )hobia. Wliile I was at 
Mabotsa some dogs became affected by a disease wliich led them 
to run about in an incoherent state; but I doubt whether it was 
anything but an affection of the brain. No individual or animal 
got the comjilaint by inoculation from the animals’ teeth; and 
from all that I could hear, the prevailing idea of hydrojihobia not 
existing within the tropics seems to be quite correct. 
The diseases known among the Bakwaius are remarkably few. 
There is no consumption nor scrofula, and insanity and hydro¬ 
cephalus are rare. Cancer and cholera are quite unknown. 
