December. ceremonies> high prieft, phyiician, and cow-leach; and of himfelf, independently of any office whatever, an arch • Charlatan; who, by his drolleries and ridiculous antic gef- tures, endeavoured to diftinguifh himfelf from the reft, and was perpetually exciting the young people to dance. As I was not ignorant, that the Charlatans in the better informed and more enlightened focieties of Europe, frequently, by means o f their defpicable talents, thruft them- felves into offices o f the higheft importance and the ac- quifition o f riches, I do not in the leaft wonder to hear, that this fellow, befides being univerfally refpe<5ted, was in poffeffion o f a greater ftock o f cattle than any one among them. I was likewife informed, that for delivering a cow, which had a difficult labour, he ufually had an heifer for his fee ; and that at every feaft, the beft and fatteft piece fell to his ffiare. In the northern climates I had been ufed to fee fox tails worn to keep out the cold. Here I faw, for the firft time, the tails o f the jackall, or African .fox, made ufe o f in warm weather; as the Hottentots wiped the fweat off their faces with them, for this purpofe carrying them about with them fixed upon lhort hicks. Having now fufficiently contemplated the manners of thefe people, we proceeded on our journey; and, as in the mean time our guide had given us the flip, and ftiot an old, lean, and loufy buffalo, we made a trip to the place where it lay, and loaded our waggon with the beft part o f the meat, leaving the remainder to the baftard Hottentots, the birds o f prey, and the hyaenas. The lice that we found upon this buffalo, were of a new fpecies; fpecies; (fee the defcription, together with a drawing of j^ember- them,' in Mem. fu r les InfeStes, Tom. VII.) We afterwards drove higher up, along Kuranot-rtvter, and found the water there almoft motionlefs and brackiih. We had the tops and grafs o f the reeds growing in this little f t r e a m cut off, to fodder our horfes with at night. At night, the wolves which probably had got fcent of the meat in our waggon, gave us to underftand by their howl- ings, that they were not far from us. C H A P .
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