December * fired among the herd, when immediately, on hearing the report of the gun, they all made a full flop, and flared at me, I was not at that time perfectly acquainted with the nature and danger of buffalo-hunting, otherwife I ihould fcarcely have ventured to fet about it in the confident manner I then did; but very luckily for me, the ball did not hurt any. of them; otherwife, probably, the whole buffalo corps would have turned round and hunted me down the craggy hill, up which I had juft before purfued them clofe at their heels; in which cafe, I ihould not fo eafily have got off. The hunters do not fuppofe it poffible to kill the game fitting on their horfes, partly on account of the weight of their pieces, and partly from the motion occafioned by their horfes; but chiefly by reafon, that both the horfe and its rider are fomewhat in a tremor, in confe'quence of the violent exercife they have juft before undergone in purfuit of the game ; while, on the other hand, by jumping off his fteed, and fupporting his gun with his ram-rod, in the manner before mentioned, the-fportfman acquires a great degree of- fteadinefs and certainty in his aim. We ftaid at Kurekoiku till the evening of the 16th, in order to wafh our linen ourfelves and dry it in the fun. We were, indeed, at that time very flenderly provided with this article, as at our firft fetting out we had been too lavifh o f this and our other apparel to our Hottentots. Our chief inducement to this a£t of liberality was, together with our clothes, to get rid o f a colony o f difguftful animals, with which our driver in particular, in confequence of his fetting in the front feat, had flocked our waggon. We afterafterwards did not fuffer the Hottentots to wear any other clothes than their own pellifles, as in thefe the vermin kept themfelves more quiet, and were more eafily picked up by the Hottentots, in which cafe, (the broiling part excepted,) they underwent the fame fate as the priforiers of the Cannibals., Whether they did this, however, for the fake of gratifying their tafte or revenge, is a queftion I willingly leave to be determined by the philofopher, who, ihut up in his chamber, explains every phaenomenon in nature from certain accidental occurrences. At leaft, the Hottentots themfelves gave us no infight into this matter; as when we propounded this difficulty to them, they gave us no other anfwer than, So maar, Baas! 'This is our wayr, Majler! In the mean time one may perceive from this, that- men who are once funk into a certain ftate o f filth, degradation and mifery, will not only be eafily familiarifed with, it, butlikewife, without the intervention of any other caufe in particular, fuffer themfelves to be more andmore debafed. The two Hottentots,, however, which, I had in my, fer- vice, feemed, by their defire to earn and'wear our Euror- pean clothes, already inclined to rife from ■ the inadtive and; debafed; condition into-which they were plunged. It even: flattered their ambition, that in confequence of the European drefs we had given them, they might, perhaps, be taken for a kind of baftards, and cqnfequently might be fuppofed tov have fome European blood.in their veins.. They, had,,however, not the leaft notion of taking care of their clothes, but wore them even in the defertas long as they would hang on their.backs .; and, indeed, until, in, order to preyent the vermin.;
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