TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
nity of plundering the inhabitants of their cattle. In one of 
my excurfions I fell in with a party of tliefe favages; but they 
■ and made flaves of. Their weapons are polfoned arrows, which, fliot out of a fmall bow', will 
fly to the diftance of two hundred paces ; and will hit a mark with a tolerable degree of cer- 
;tainty, at the diftance of fifty, or even a hundred paces. From this diftance they can by ftealth, 
as it were, convey death to the game they hunt for food, as well as to their foes, and even to fo 
large and tremendous a beaft as the lion; this noble animal thus falling by a weapon which, 
jierhaps, it defpifed, or even did not take notice of. The Hottentot, in the mean time, con~ 
cealed and fafe in his ambufn, is abfolutely certain of the operation of his poifon, which he 
always fele£ls of the moft virulent kind ; and it is fald, he hgis only to wait a few minutes, in 
, order to fee the wild beaft languifh and die. 
I mentioned that their bows were fmall; they are, in fact, liardly a yard long, being at the 
fame time fcarcely of the thicknefs of an inch in the middle, and very much pointed at both 
ends. What kind of wood they are made of I cannot fay, but it does not feem to be of a re¬ 
markably elaftic nature. The firings of the bows that I faw were made fome of them of finews, 
others of a kind of hemp, or the inner bark of fome vegetable, and moft of them are made in 
a very flovcnly manner; which fliows, that thefe archers depend more on the poifon of the 
weapons, than on any exadlnefs in the formation of them., or any other perfection in them. 
Their arrows are a foot and a half long. They are made of a reed one foot in length, 
which, at the bafe, or the end that receives the bow-ftring, has a notch of a proper fize to fit 
it. Juft above this nptch there is a joint in the reed, about which firings made of finew^s are 
wound, in order to firengthen it. The other end of the reed armed with a highly polifhed 
bone, five or fix inches long. At the diftance of an inch or tw'o from the tip of this bone, g 
piece of a quill is bound on very faft with finews. This is done, in order that the arrow fliaft 
not be eafily drawn out of the fleflr; and thus there may be fo much the longer time for the 
poifon, which is fpread on of a thick confifience like that of an extra6lj .to be difiblvecl, and 
infect the wound. 
It is not common, hov/ever, for an arrow to be headed in the manner above-mentioned, 
.with a pointed bone only; this latter being nfually cut off fquare at the top, and a thin trian« 
gular piece of iron fixed into it. As the bone has no cavity whatever, I do not profefs to know 
what animal it is taken from. In the ftate in v/hich it is feen, as it makes part of the arrow, it 
is of a dark brown colour, full of fmall grooves and ribs, and does not appear ever to have been 
as white as ivory ; though, for one of tfie arrows whiylr I brought with me, it would feem as 
if ivory had beeit really made ufe of. Hence we may conclude, that on fuch arrows as are 
headed with iron, tire bone is employed chiefly for giving this weapon a kind of weight and 
poife ; and likewife, that thefe arrows coft the Hottentqts a great deal of labour. 
Their quivers are two feet long and four inches in diameter. If one may form any conclu- 
fion from thole I have feen, and from two that I have brouglit home with me, they are made 
.of a branch of a tree hollowed out; or, ftili more probable, of the bark of cue of tlrefe branches 
.t.aken off whole and entire, the bottom and cover to. which are compofed of leather. Oii the 
outfidq 
