Augui rounc^ about Camdebo and Sneeberg, are fworn enemies-to k / rO the .pafcoral life. Some of their maxims are, to live on hunting and. plunder, and never, to keep any animal alive for the fpace of one night. By this means they render themfelves odious to the reft o f mankind, and are purfued and exterminated like the wild beafts, whofe manners they have alfumed. Others o f them again are kept alive, and made flaves of. Their weapons are poifoned arrows,, which, ihot out of a fmall bow, will fly to the diftance of two hundred paces; and will hit a mark with a tolerable , degree o f certainty, at the diftance o f fifty, or even a hundred paces. From this diftance they can by Health, as it were, convey death to the game they hunt , for food, as., well as to their foes, and even to fo large and tremendous a beaft as the lion: this noble animal thus falling by a . weapon which, perhaps, it defpifed, or even did not take , notice of. The Hottentot, in the mean time, concealed and fafe in his ambuih, is abfolutely certain o f the operation o f his poifon, which he always culls of the moft virulent kind; and it is faid, he has only to wait a few minutes, in order to fee the wild beaft languiih and die. I mentioned that their bows were fmall; they are, in fa<5t, . hardly a yard long, being at the fame time fcarcely o f the . thicknefs o f an inch in the middle, and very much pointed at both ends. What kind o f wood they are made o f I cannot fay, but it does not feem to be of a remarkably elaftic nature. - The fixings o f ‘the bows that I faw were made fome o f them of finews, others of a kind o f hemp, or the inner bark of lome vegetable, and moft o f them are made in a very floven- ly manner; which fhows, that thefe archers depend more on on the poifon o f their weapons, than on any exa¿tnefs in ^7;^ the formation o f them, or any other perfection in them. G yG One of thefe bows is delineated in Plate VIII. fig. 3. Their arrows are a foot and a half long, and o f the fame thicknefs, as they appear in the drawings in Plate VIII. fig. 6, 7, They are made o f a reed one foot in length, which, at the bafe, or the end that receives the bow-ftring, has à notch of a proper fize to fit it. Juft above this notch there is a joint in the reed, about which firings made o f finews are wound, in order to ftrengthen it. The other end o f thé reed is armed with a highly poliihed bone, five or fix inches long. At the diftance o f an inch or two from the tip of this bone, a piece of a quill is bound on very fail with finews, in the fame manner as may be feen in fig. 4 and 7. This is done, in order that the arrow ihall not be eafily drawn out o f the fleih ; and thus there may be fo much the longer time for the poifon, which is fpread on of a thick confiftence like that o f an extrait, to be diflblved, and infect the wound. It is not common, however, for an arrow to be headed in the manner above-mentioned, with a pointed bone only; this latter being ufually cut fquare at the top, and a thin triangular bit of iron fixed into it, as may be feen in Plate VIII. fig. 4. where the upper part o f the arrow is re- prefented without any poifon on it ; for- with, this the binding is covered arid bèfmeared, the fame being afterwards rubbed down level and fmooth all round the fhaft, that the arrow may < pierce fo much the deeper into the fleih. As the bone before fpoken of has no cavity whatever, I do not profefs to know what animal it is ' taken from.
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