' v '77s- way. As foon as ever they had taken their cattle up from December. J J % pafture they milked them ; an occupation they intermixed with .finging and dancing. We feldom fee fuch happinefs and contentment as feems to be indicated by this feftive cuftom, in a handful of people totally uncultivated, and fubfifting in their original favage ftate, in the midft of a perfeót defert. Mr. Immelman accompanied me, in order to behold with his own eyes the real archetype of that ftate of paftoral felicity, which the poets are continually occupied in painting and defcrib- ing. We announced ourfelves here likewife as being the children of the company, and were received by them with a friendly fimplicity and homely freedom, which, however, by no means leffened them in our thoughts- as men. They prefented us with milk, and danced at our requeft •* at the fame time giving us to underhand, that our fame, as being a lingular people with plaited hair, as well as fim- plers and viper-catchers, had reached them long before our arrival. We were fpedlators of their country dances, in which there was very little either of agility or'art. While their feet were employed in a kind of ftamping and moderately flow movement, every one of them between whiles made feveral fmall gentle motions with a little flick, which they held in their hands.. The fimplicity which prevailed in their dances was equally confpicuous in their finging, the following being all the words ufed to thè tune of one of their country dances, which I took down in writing at the time, Maijema, Maijema, huh, huh, huh. The former part part of this was chaunted repeatedly piano by an elderly December. matron, who was anfwered by the young men and maids in the latter words, fung Jlaccato by way of chorus. It muft be confeffed, that this concert was not well adapted to iatisfy a nice ear; but however, it infpired a certain degree of joy and chearfulnefs, and was by no means difagreeable. . They had another kind o f dance, which confided in taking each other by the hand, and dancing gently in a circle round about one or more perfons, who were placed in the middle o f the ring, and whofe movements were brifker and quicker; yet we could not help laughing, though at the fame time we were not a little hurt, to fee the poor infants pop their heads alternately in and out of the bags hanging at the backs of their mothers, who were likewife dancing; fo that we had great reafon to fear that they would break their necks. But what was ftill more ridiculous was, that thefe little Hottentots' were far from fhewing any diflike to this treatment; but, on the contrary, were fo well pleafed with it, that they fufficiently fhewed their difpleafure by crying, when their mothers, who were foon tired with carrying them on their backs, wanted to fet them down, or go out of the dance. Befides the pleafures which thefe daily dances may be fuppofed to afford them, they have at their greater fefti- vals the more delightful enjoyment of voluptuous love, which, at thofe times, the youth of both iexes, by their laws, have full opportunity given them to purfue. For it is faid, that the unmarried part of the company, in the very
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