576 an albino MUKDEKED by ms MOTHER. Chap. XXVIII. 
down the mercury to 72° or even 68°. There, too, we found a 
small black coleopterous insect, which stung like the mosquito, 
but injected less poison; it put us in mind of that insect, which 
does not exist in the high lands we had left. 
January Qthy 1856.—Each village we passed, furnished us with 
a couple of men to take us to the next. They were useful in 
showing us the parts least covered with jungle. When we came 
near a village, we saw men, women, and children employed in 
weeding their gardens, they being great agriculturists. Most 
of the men are muscular, and have large ploughman hands. 
Their colour is the same admixture, from very dark, to light oHve, 
that we saw iu Londa. Though all have thick bps and flat noses, 
only the more degraded of the population possess the ugly negro 
physiognomy. They mark themselves by a liue of Little raised 
cicatrices, each of which is a quarter of an inch long; they 
extend from the tip of the nose to the root of the hair on the 
forehead. It is remarkable that I never met with an Albiuo in 
crossing Africa, though, from accounts published by the Por¬ 
tuguese, I was led to expect that they were held iu favour as 
doctors by certain chiefs. I saw several in the south: one at Kuru- 
man is a full-grown woman, and a man having this peculiarity 
of sldn, was met with in the colony. Their bodies are always 
bhstered on exposure to the sun, as the skin is more tender than 
that of the blacks. The Kuruman woman lived some time at 
Kolobeng, and generally had on her bosom and shoulders the 
remains of large bhsters. She was most anxious to be made 
black, but nitrate of silver, taken internally, did not produce its 
usual effect. During the time I resided at Mabotsa, a woman 
came to the station with a flne boy, an Albino. The father had 
ordered her to tlirow liim away, but she clung to her offspring 
for many years. He was remarkably intelligent for his age. The 
pupil of the eye was of a pink colour, and the eye itself was 
unsteady in vision. The hair, or rather wool, was yellow, and the 
features were those common among the Bechuanas. After I left 
the place, the mother is said to have become tired of Hvmg apart 
from the father, who refused to have her while she retained the 
son. She took him out one day, and killed- him close to the 
village of Mabotsa, and nothing was done to her by the authorities. 
From having met with no Albinos in Londa, I suspect they are 
