blankets. If they have a table it is generally of the boor’s own
making, but very often the large cheft that is fitted acrofs the
end of their ox-waggon ferves for this purpofe. The bottoms
of their chairs or ftools are net-work of leather thongs. A
large iron pot ferves both to boil and to broil their meat. They
ufe no linen for the table; no knives, forks, nor fpoons. The
boor carries in the pocket of his leather breeches a large knife,
with which he carves for the reft of the family, and which ftands
him in as many and various fervices as the little dagger of Hu-
dibras.
Their huts and their perfons are equally, dirty, and their
whole appearance betrays an indolence of body, and a low
groveling mind. Their moft urgent wants are fatisfied in the
eafieft poflible manner; and for this end they employ means
nearly as grofs as the original natives, whom they affedt fo much
to defpife. If neceffity did not fometimes fet the invention to
work, the Cape boor would feel no fpur to aflift himfelf in any
thing; if the furface of the country was not covered with iharp
pebbles, he would not even make for himfelf his ikin-ihoes-
The women, as invariably happens in focieties that are little
advanced in civilization, are much greater drudges than the
men, yet are far from being induftrious; they make foap and
candles, the former to fend to Cape Town in exchange for tea
and fugar, and the latter for home-confumption. But all the
little trifling things, that a ftate of refinement fo feniibly feels
the want of, are readily dilpenfed with by the Cape boor.
Thongs cut from {kins ferve, on all occafions, as a fuccedaneum
for rope; and the tendons of wild animals divided into fibres
are
are a fubftitute for thread. When I wanted ink, equal quantities
of brown fugar and foot, moiftened with a little water,
were brought to me, and foot was fubftituted for a wafer.
To add to the uneleanlinefs of their huts, the folds or kraah
in which their cattle remain at nights are immediately fronting
the door, and, except in the Sneuwberg, where the total want
of wood obliges them to burn dung cut out like peat, thefe
kraals are never on any occafion cleaned out; fo that in old
eftabliihed places they form mounds from ten to twenty feet
high. The lambing feafon commences before the rains finiih;
and it fometimes happens that half a dozen or more of thefe
little creatures, that have been lambed over night, are found
fmothered in the wet dung, The fame thing happens to the
young calves; yet, fir indolent and. helplefe is the boor, that
rather than yoke his team to his waggon and g o to a little distance
for wood to build a ihed, he fees his ftock deftroyed from
day to day and from year to year, without applying the remedy
which common fenfe fo clearly points out, and which requires
neither much expence nor great exertions to accom-
pliih.
If the Arcadian ihepherds, who were certainly not fo rich,
were: as uncomfortable in their cottages, as the. Cape boors, their,
poets muft have been woefully led aftray by the mufe. But
Pegafus was. always fond o f playing his gambolbin the flowery
regions, of fancy-. Without- a fiftion.j the-people. of the. Cape
confider Graaf Reynet as-the Arcadia; ofithe eolony-
3 v a Few