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an unvaried bread-and-meat diet proving highly agreeable, we always considered fresh eggs to be a prize worth carrying away. 
The old birds are said to kick them to pieces, should even the print of a human foot be discovered; but our followers were 
so unable to endure the idea of leaving a single one behind, that they never failed to render this trouble superfluous.* The 
number bemg often far greater than could be conveniently dealt with, the expedient by which the removal was effected proved 
highly diverting. Taking off their leathern inexpressibles, which by the way, were more frequently carried on the muzzles of 
their guns than upon their own nether extremities, the Hottentots tied the lower ends, so as to form a double sack, and cram- 
ming them full, and placing them either across the saddle or on their own backs. Few exhibitions can be conceived more 
grotesque and diverting than the appearance of a procession of the bandy-legged gentlemen en chemise, their baboonish physi- 
ognomies protruding betwixt the straddling legs of such a load, and each diligently smoking a clay pipe as he adyanced. 
An ostrich egg, which is described by all old writers as being “fully:as large as the head of a child,” measures about six 
inches in length, and is capable of holding a pint of liquid. The weight is usually three pounds, and although the contents, equi- 
valent to twenty-four eggs of the domestic fowl, are of a far more gross and satiating nature, many of our followers could 
actually contrive to dispose of two at a single meal. The Hottentot method of roasting them is said to have been practised 
from time immemorial, and requiring neither gridiron, nor kettle, nor other culinary appliance, will doubtless be considered to be 
one of great antiquity. The contents having first been thoroughly mixed by means of a stick, introduced through a perforation 
in the smaller end, and worked between the hands like a chocolate-mill, the egg is placed in the hot embers, where its own shell 
serves as a frying-pan. The Colonists convert them into substantial puddings or pdtés, by the addition of a few sheeps’ tails ; 
but when dressed in an orthodox manner, they really prove a highly palatable omelette. 
The Bechuana females frequently wear girdles curiously composed of circular pieces of the ege-shell, about the size 
of a erown-piece, which are so strung together as to convey the appearance of a solid zone of ivory. All the savage tribes 
of Southern Africa use the shells for drinking cups, and in the inventory of the effects of a defunct Bushman especially, 
they must form a prominent item. The women of that Lilliputian race, much less shy than their husbands, often followed 
upon the tracks of our waggons many miles, in order to barter new laid eggs, for which they were exorbitantly paid in tobacco, 
the grand circulating medium of the country. The sounds uttered by the frail daughters of the desert, although serving to 
express their meaning, could hardly be termed a language, being, in fact, little more than a succession of clucks and claps of 
the tongue, such as are employed by a waggoner to urge on a jaded horse. Not easily I shall forget the appearance of one 
decrepit old hag, who, with an infant slung at her back, was in the daily habit of undertaking a journey of five miles from 
her wretched abode, for the sole purpose of filling two egg-shells with water from a dirty pool at which we were encamped. 
Wild and withered, the beldam reminded the beholder of one of Macbeth’s weird sisters—her emaciated and famine-worn frame 
presenting the appearance of a human skeleton enveloped in a wet leathern shroud—the shrivelled sapless limbs and protruding 
joints positively resembling dry knotted sticks. Her odour tainted the atmosphere; and whilst treating the little half-inanimate 
miniature of herself to bon-bons obtained from the greasy folds of her scanty attire, she explained to us that she had seen me 
ride past her den in the morning in pursuit of the Ostrich. Certain cluckings, like those of an old hen, accompanied by 
animated gestures, which ill befitted such a mummy —the see-saw motion of the attenuated arm corresponding with the 
pursing of the parchment lips, together rendering such a correct imitation of the galloping of a horse, and the retreat of 
the bird, that no one could mistake it—and the exhibition was immediately followed up by a learned lecture from Ccour 
de Lion, touching the imminent risk incurred by the man who should wend his solitary way through a country, infested by 
so imperceptible a population of pigmies. 
* When the savages, says Le Vaillant, who are very fond of eggs, find a nest of them, they carry them off successively with a rake, to prevent the mother 
from perceiving that they have been touched; and if this thieying be carried on with suitable caution, she will lay as many as fifty, 
