figure. Every joint and limb is rounded and well turned, and
their whole body is without an angle or difproportionate protuberance.
Their breafts arc round, firm, and diftant 5 but the
nipple is unufuaily large and iurrounded by an areola that is
much elevated above the general l'urface of the bread. Their
hands and feet are remarkably linall and delicately turned ; and
in their gait they are not altogether devoid of grace. Their
charms, however, are very fleeting. At an early period of life,
and immediately after the fird child, their breads begin to grow
loofe and flaccid, and, as old age approaches, become didended
to an enormous fize ; the belly protrudes ; and the poderiors,
fwelling out to incredible dimenfions, give to the fpine a degree
o f curvature inwards that makes it appear as if the os coccygts,
or bone at the lower extremity o f the fpine, was elongated and
bent outwards, which is not the cafe. The mafs that covers
the poderiors has been found to be pure fat. Some other ftrik-
ing peculiarities in the conformation of Hottentot women will
be noticed when fpeaking of the Bosjefmans, who feem to be
the true aborigines o f the country, unmixed with any other
tribes of people.
It does not appear that the Hottentots are fubjedf to any particular
difeafes. Life, i f not taken away by accident or violence,
is generally terminated by a gradual decay and exhaufied
nature, which generally happens at an earlier period of exid-
ence here than in mod countries o f an equal temperature o f
climate. It is rare to fee a Hottentot with fixty years upon
his head; but it is alfo equally rare to fee a cripple or deformed
perfon among them. There are none who profefiedly
practife the healing art; every one is his own phyfician. The
colonifis,
colonids, in this refpeft, are no better ferved than the Hottentots.
In the whole didri& of Graaff Reynet there i* but one
apothecary, and his refidence is at the Drofdy.
Medicine and adronomy are two fciences that may be fup-
pofed to have dated their origin from the fird dawn o f civilization
; by one, men were taught to refiore the vital functions
that had lod their tone, and to repair the injured frame ; by the
other, they informed themfelves o f the different periods o f
feed-time and harved. Little as the Hottentots are acquainted
with the one, they are dill lefs fo with the other. They have
a name for the fun, another for the moon, and a third for the
ftars: but this is the extent o f their aflronomical knowledge.
The divifion o f time, by the motion o f the heavenly bodies,
was too fubtle an operation, and required too much obiervation
and profound thinking, for the carelefs and inattentive mind o f
a Hottentot. The period of a day may almod be laid to be the
extent of his reckoning. When he has occafion to refer to the
time of the day, like all other nations who are without machines
for marking the divifions of time, he will point out the place
in the heavens where the fun then was. The periods that have
pad he can exprefs only by laying they were before or after
fome memorable event. The feafon o f the year is indicated by
being fo many moons before or after uyntjes tyd, or the time
that the roots of the iris edulis are in feafon ; a time particularly
noticed by him, as thefe bulbs once conftituted a confider-
able part o f his vegetable food. I know not how far the numerals
in his language proceed, but none o f thole o f our party
could tell beyond Jive, nor could any o f them put two numbers
together