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But the Booshuanas are arrived at that stage of civilization
which is not satisfied with the mere necessaries of life supplied
to them abundantly from the three sources of agriculture,
grazing, and hunting; they are by no means insensible of
its conveniencies and its luxuries. Their skin cloaks for the
winter are pliant, soft and warm, being frequently fined
with the fur-skins of tyger-cats, mverras and other small
animals; and when in summer they go without clothing, they
rarely expose their bodies to the rays of the sun, but carry
umbrellas made of the broad feathers of the ostrich fixed to
the end of a stick. They vary their mode of dressing both
animal food and grain, occasionally boiling, broiling, or
roasting the former, and simply broiling the latter, or bruising
it into flour and boiling it up with milk. Among the luxuries
of the appetite tobacco seems to hold the highest estimation.
Both men and women are passionately fond of drawing
the smoke of this narcotic herb through water, poured
usually into the horn of the cow or the eland, through the
side of which the tube of the tobacco-pipe is inserted. Of
snuff they are equally fond. This article is composed of a
variety of stimulant plants dried and rubbed into dust, which
is usually mixed with wood ashes; of this mixture they
take a quantity in the palm of the hand, and draw it mto
the nostrils through a quill or reed till the tears trickle down
their cheeks. Children even of four or five years of age may
be observed taking snuff in this manner. Their bodies they carefully
ornament with devices painted with white pipe-clay and
red ochre; their hair they sometimes cut in a peculiar manner,
leaving a high tuft on the crown of the head, not unlike the
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