A greater degree of amufement feems to be derived by the
women from the practice of tatooing, or marking the body by
raifing the epidermis from the cuticle ; a cuftom that has been
found to exift among moft of the uncivilized nations inhabiting
warm countries, and which probably owes its origin to a
total want of mental refources, and of the employment of time.
By ilightly irritating, it conveys to the body pleafurable fienfa-
tions. In Kaffer-land it has paffed into a general faihion. No
woman is without a tatooed ikin ; and their ingenuity is
chiefly exercifed between the breafts and on the arms.
The temperate manner of living among thefe people, their
fimple diet and their duly-proportioned quantity of exercife,
fubje& them to few complaints. A limited number of fimples
compofe the difpenfary o f all nations where phyfic is not a
profeflion. The Kaffers make ufe of very few plants, and thefe
chiefly in embrocations for fprains and bruifes. The mother
o f Gaika was fo folicitous to procure from us a quantity of
common fait, to be applied as a purgative, that ihe fent a per-
fon to our waggons, fifteen miles diftant, for it. They are not
fubjeft to any cutaneous difeafes. The fmall-pox was once
brought among them by a veffel that was ftranded on their
coaft, and carried off great numbers. The marks of this disorder
were apparent on the faces of many of the elder people.
They have no fermented nor diftilled liquors to impair the con-
ftitution. The only two intoxicating articles of which they
have any knowledge are tobacco and hemp. The effects produced
from fmoaking the latter are faid to be fully as narcotic
as
as thofe of opium. In the ufe of this and of tobacco, the
oriental cuftom of drawing the fmoke through water by means
of the hookar, though in a rude manner, is ftill retained. The
bowl of their earthen-ware pipe is attached to the end of a
thick reed which ftands obliquely fixed into the fide of an
eland’s horn. This horn being filled with water, the mouth is
applied to the oppofite end to that near which the reed is fixed.
The Hottentot differs very materially from the Kaffer in. the
conftruition of his pipe. He reduces the ftem to the length
of two inches, that two fenfes may at the fame time receive the
benefit and the gratification refulting from the practice of
fmoking.
Few are the dietetic plants cultivated by the Kaffers. The
millet, called by botanifts the holcus forghum, and a very large
fpecies o f water-melon, feem to be their principal culinary
plants. The zamia cycadis, a fpecies of palm, grows wild in
almoft every part of the country, and is fometimes ufed, as a
fubftitute for millet, to mix with milk as a kind of furmety.
For this purpofe the pith of the thick ftem is buried in the
ground for a month or five weeks, till it becomes foft and
fhort, fo as eafily to be reduced to a pulpy confidence. They
eat alfo the roots o f the iris edulis, and feveral kinds of wild
berries, and leguminous plants.
Had the Kaffers been more generally employed in tilling the
ground, they had probably before this arrived at a more competent
knowledge of the general caufes by which the viciffi-
tudes of the feafons are produced. At prefent they know little
j f more