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'neighbour. His publications were:

numerous.

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Thus to laugh, and thus to fing,
Vide Ath. vol. ii. p. Thus to mount on Pleasure's wing,
Thus to fport, and thus to fpeed,
Thus to flourish, nourish, feed,
Thus to spend and thus to spare,
Is to bid a fig for care." Vol. iii. p. 83.

CARE'S CURE, OR A FIG FOR CARE.

[From Panedone, or Health from Helicon, 1621.]

"HAPPY is that state of his,
Takes the world as it is.

Lofe he honour, friendship, wealth,
Lofe he liberty or health;
Lose he all that earth can give,
Having nought whereon to live;
So prepar'd a mind's in him,
He's refolv'd to fink or swim.
“Should I ought dejected be,
'Caufe blind fortune frowns on me?
Or put finger in the eye
When I fee my Damon die?
Or repine fuch fhould inherit
More of honours than of merit?
Or put on a fourer face,
To see virtue in difgrace?
"Should I weep, when I do try
Fickle friends' inconftancy?
Quite difcarding mine and me,
When they should the firmest be;
Or think much when barren brains
Are poffefs'd of rich domains,
When in reafon it were fit
They had wealth unto their wit?
Should I spend the morn in tears,
'Caufe I fee my neighbour's ears
Stand fo flopewife from his head,
As if they were horns indeed?
Or to fee his wife at once

LV. Barrow's Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa. (Concluded from p. 259)

SNAKES THE OIL OF TOBACCO AN
ACTIVE POISON.

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SNAKES of different forts were feen and killed daily, all of them, according to the Hottentots' information, more or lefs venomous. Thefe people are not unacquainted with feveral interesting particulars as to the nature and habits of the animal, as well as the vegetable part of the creation. From one I learned a very extraordinary effect produced by the application of the oil of tobacco to the mouth of a fnake. One of these reptiles, about two feet in length, and of a blueish colour, had coiled itself five or fix times round the body of a lizard. As I was endeavouring to fet at liberty the captive animal, one of the Hottentots took out with the point of a stick, from the fhort ftem of his wooden tobacco-pipe, a fmall quantity of a thick black matter, which he called tobacco oil. This he applied to the mouth of the fnake while darting out its tongue,

Branch his brow and break his fconce, as thefe creatures usually do when en

Or to hear her in her fpleen

Callet like a butter-quean?
"Should I figh, because I fee
Laws like fpider-webs to be,
Where leffer flies are quickly ta'en,
While the great break out again;
Or fo many fchifms and fects,
Which foul herefy detects,
To fupprefs the fire of zeal
Both in church and common-weal?
"No, there's nought on earth I fear
That may force from me one tear.
Lofs of honours, freedom, health,
Or that mortal idol, wealth;
With thefe, babes may grieved be,
But they have no pow'r on me.
Lefs my fubftance, lefs the fhare
In my fear and in my care.
"Thus to love, and thus to live,
Thus to take, and thus to give,

raged. The effect of the application was inftantaneous, almost as that of an electric shock. With a convulfed motion, that was momentary, the fake half untwifted itself, and never stirred more; and the mufcles were fo contracted, that the whole animal felt hard and rigid as if dried in the fun. The Hottentots confider the oil of tobacco among the most active of poisonous fubftances; but it is never applied to the points of their arrows, being probably of too volatile a nature to retain its deleterious quality for any length of time." P. 267.

INDICATOR, OR HONEY-BIRD. "QUICK as the Hottentots are in obferving the bees, as they fly to their nefts, they have itill a much better

guide, on which they invariably rely. This is a small brownish bird, nothing remarkable in its appearance, of the cuckoo genus, to which naturalifts have given the specific name of Indicator, from the circumftance of its pointing out and difcovering, by a chirping and whiftling noife, the nefts of bees; t is called by the farmers the honeyird.

"In the conduct of this little animal here is fomething that approaches to what philofophers have been pleased to deny to the brute part of the creation. Having obferved a neft of honey, it immediately flies in fearch of fome human creature, to whom, by its fluttering, and whiftling, and chirping, it communicates the difcovery. Every one here is too well acquainted with the bird to have any doubts as to the certainty of the information. It leads the way directly towards the place, flying from bush to bush, or from one ant-hill to another. When clofe to the neft, it remains ftill and filent. As foon as the person, to whom the difcovery was made, fhall have taken away the honey, the indicator flies to feaft on the remains. By the like conduct it is also said to indicate, with equal certainty, the dens of lions, tigers, hyænas, and other beasts of prey and noxious animals. In the discovery of a bee's neft, felf-intereft is concerned; but in the latter inftance, its motives must proceed from a different principle. That involuntary and fpontaneous agent, which is fuppofed to guide and direct the brute creation, and which man, unable to inveftigate the nice fhades of caufe and effect that no doubt govern all their actions, has refolved into one general moving power called inftinct, is perhaps lefs a blind impulfe of nature than a ray of reafon. The chain of rational faculties from man, the topmcft link, to the meaneft reptile, may, perhaps, with equal propriety, be fuppofed to exift, as that which more apparently is obferved to connect their exterior forms. If it be inftinct that in Europe caufes the fhynefs of birds at the approach of man, the fame inftinct inftructs them to be fo bold in India and China, where they are not molefted, as almoft to be taken by the hand. The different propenfities of animals, proceeding from the different organs with which nature has furnished them, are no doubt modified

and altered according to fituation and circumftances. Most of the small birds of Southern Africa conftruct their nefts in fuch a manner, that they can be entered only by one fmall orifice, and many fufpend them from the flender extremities of high branches. A fpecies of loxia, or grofsbeak, always hangs its neft on a branch extending over a river or pool of water. It is fhaped exactly like a chemift's retort; is fufpended from the head, and the shank of eight or nine inches long, at the bottom of which is the aperture, almoft touches the water. It is made of green grafs, firmly put together, and curiously woven. Another fmall bird, the Parus Capenfis, or Cape Titmouse, conftructs its luxurious neft of the pappus, or down of a fpecies of afclepias. This neft is made of the texture of flannel, and the fleecy hofiery is not more foft. Near the upper end projects a small tube about an inch in length, with an orifice about three fourths of an inch in diameter. Immediately under the tube is a small hole in the fide, that has no communication with the interior part of the neft; in this hole the male fits at nights, and thus they are both screened from the weather. The sparrow in Africa hedges round its neft with thorns; and even the fwallow, under the eaves of houses, or in the rifts of rocks, makes a tube to its neft of fix or feven inches in. length. The fame kind of birds in northern Europe, having nothing to apprehend from monkies, fnakes, and other noxious animals, construct open nefts." P. 321.

REMARKS ON VAILLANT.

"AS this family (of Slabert) holds a diftinguished place in the page of a French traveller in fouthern Africa, the veracity of whofe writings has been called in queftion, curiofity was naturally excited to make fome inquiries from them concerning this author. He was well known to the family, and had been received into their houfe at the recommendations of the fifcal; but the whole of his tranfactions in this part of the country, wherein his own heroifm is fo fully fet forth, they affert to be fo many fabrications. The ftory of fhooting the tiger, in which his great courage is contrasted with the cowardice of the peafantry, I read to

them

them out of his book. They laughed very heartily, and affured me that although the story had fome foundation in fact, the animal had been shot through the body by a fell-roar, or trap-gun, fet by a Hottentot, and was expiring under a bush at the time they found it, when the valiant Frenchman difcharged the contents of his musket into the tiger and dispatched him. The firft book which he published, of his Travels to the eastward, contains much correct information, accurate description, and a number of pointed and juft obfervations. The fale of the copy of this, encouraged the making of a fecond, the materials of which, flight as they were, feem to have chiefly been furnished by the publication of an English traveller, whom he pretends to correct; and from an account of an expedition to the northward, fent out by the Dutch government of the Cape, in fearch of a tribe of people reported to wear linen clothing. The fact feems to be this: that he left Zwartland in July, travelled to the Orange river, and returned at the beginning of the following December, at which time he is conducting his readers to the northward, as far as the tropic. The inventive faculties of the Abbé Philippo, who is the real author of the work, fupplied what he conceived to be wanting in the traveller's remarks, and in the two above-mentioned publications." P. 359.

the leaves occafion fudden death to the cattle which may chance to eat them; and that if fmall birds should happen to perch on its bloffoms, they inftantly roll off lifelefs to the ground. Another species of amaryllis, called by botanifts the difticha, common on all the mountainous parts of the colony, was now on the Khamies berg throwing out its long broad leaves in oppofite pairs, forming the fhape of a fan. Both the bulb and the leaves of this plant have been ascertained to be, without any preparation, moft virulent poifons, that act on the animal fyftem, whether taken into it by the ftomach or the blood. The farmers pull up the root and leaves wherever they find them growing. It was faid that the juice of this bulb, mixed up with the mangled body of a certain fpecies of fpider, furnishes the Bosjefmans with poifon for their arrows, more deadly than any other they are acquainted with. This fpider fhould feem to be peculiar to the western coaft of the country; at leaft I never met with, nor heard of it, on the other fide. Its body, with the legs, which are short, is three inches in diameter, the former black and hairy, the latter faintly spotted; the beak red. It lives under ground, conftructing over its hole a cover, compofed of the filaments fpun from its entrails, and earth or dung. This cover is made to turn on a joint. When the animal is watching for its prey, it fits with the lid half open, ready to fally out upon fuch infects as

CURIOUS PLANTS, &C. REMARK- ferve it for food. On the approach of

ABLE ESCAPE OF AN HOTTENTOT
FROM A LION.

"THE withered ftem of a liliaceous plant, apparently the fame as that found on the banks of the Orange river, was feven feet long, and crowned with an umbel of more than fifty flowrets, each having a peduncle, or foot-ftalk, of eighteen inches in length, making the diameter of the umbel to exceed that of three feet. The bulb, of which I could but conveniently carry a few, was as large as the human head. Of this enormous lily the people gave an account, not unlike that of the fictitious Upas of Java, rendered famous by a relation of it inferted in the notes to Doctor Darwin's fanciful, yet claffic poem of the Botanic Garden. They fay, with regard to the lily, that the juice of its bulb is a strong poifon; that

danger it clofes the cover, and in a fhort time cautiously opens it again to fee if the enemy has retreated.

"The Namaaqua Hottentots feem well acquainted with poisonous fubftances, though they now make use of

none.

The bow and arrow, their ancient weapons, are become ufelefs. The country they now inhabit is almoft entirely deferted by all kinds of beafts that live in a state of nature, and the dread of Bosjefmans prevents them from ranging far over the country in queft of game. Formerly, however, the kloofs of the Khamies berg abounded with elands and hartebeefts, gemfboks, quachas, and zebras, and were not a little formidable on account of the number of beafts of prey that reforted thither. A few days before our arrival at the foot of the mountain, a

lion had occafioned fome little stir in the country, which had not yet entirely fubfided. A Hottentot, belonging to one of the farmers, had endeavoured for fome time, in vain, to drive his mafter's cattle into a pool of water, enclosed between two ridges of rock, when at length he efpied a huge lion couching in the midft of the pool. Terrified at the unexpected fight of fuch a beaft, that feemed to have its eyes fixed upon him, he inftantly took to his heels, leaving the cattle to shift for themselves. In doing this he had prefence of mind enough to run through the herd, concluding that if the lion fhould purfue, he might take up with the first beast that prefented itself. In this, however, he was miftaken. The lion broke through the herd, making directly after the Hottentot, who, on turning round, and perceiving that the monfter had fingled him out for a meal, breathlefs and half dead with terror, fcrambled up one of the tree aloes, in the trunk of which had luckily been cut a few steps, the more readily to come at fome birds' nefts that the branches contained. At the fame moment the lion made a spring at him, but, mifling his aim, fell upon the ground. In furly filence he walked round the tree, cafting every now and then a dreadful look towards the poor Hottentot, who crept behind fome finches' nests that happened to have been built in the tree." P. 391.

"Having remained filent and motionlefs for a length of time, he ventured to peep over the fide of the neft, hoping that the lion had taken his departure; when, to his great terror and aftonishment, his eyes met thofe of the animal, to use his own expreffion, flashing fire at him.' In fhort, the lion laid himself down at the foot of the tree, and stirred not from the place for four-and-twenty hours. He then returned to the spring to quench his thirst, and, in the mean time, the Hottentot defcended the tree, and fcampered to his home, which was not more than a mile diftant, as faft as his feet could carry him. The perfeverance of the lion was fuch, that it appeared afterwards he had returned to the tree, and from thence had hunted the Hottentot by the fcent within three, hundred paces of the house.

"It feems to be a fact well establish ed, that the lion prefers the flesh of a

Hottentot to that of any other creature. He has frequently been fingled out from a party of Dutch. The latter being disguised in clothing, and the former going generally naked, may perhaps account for it. The horse, next to the Hottentot, feems to be his favourite food; but on the fheep, perhaps on account of his woolly covering, which he is too indolent to uncafe, he feldom deigns to fix his paw." P. 394

CRUEL TREATMENT OF A
HOTTENTOT.

"THE Bosjefmans have been gene-
rally represented as a people fo savage
and bloodthirsty in their nature, that
they never fpare the life of any living
creature which may fall into their
hands. To their own countrymen
who have been taken prisoners by, and
continued to live with the Dutch
farmers, they have certainly fhown in-
ftances of the most atrocious cruelty.
Thefe poor wretches, if retaken by
their countrymen, feldom escape being
'put to the most excruciating tortures.
The party above mentioned, having
fallen in with a Hottentot at fome dif
tance from any habitation, fet him up
to the neck in a deep trench, and
wedged him in so fast with stones and
earth, that he was incapable of moving.
In this fituation he remained a whole
night, and the greater part of the fol-
lowing day; when, luckily, fome of
his companions paffed the place and
released him. The poor fellow stated
that he had been under the neceffity of
keeping his eyes and mouth in perpe-
tual motion the whole day, to prevent
the crows from devouring him."-
P. 490.

KORANAS, A PREDATORY TRIBE.

"THE country to the eastward of the Roggeveld is inhabited by differ ent hordes of Bosjefmans. One of thefe, called the Koranas, dwelling on the right bank of the Orange river, directly east from the Roggeveld, is represented as a very formidable tribe of people. The few that I had an opportunity of feeing, were ftrong lufty men, apparently of the fame tribe as the Namaaquas. They are confidered as being more cruel, and at the fame time more daring than any other tribe of this nation. They poffefs a few

fheep

sheep and cattle, but have the fame wandering inclination, and the fame propenfity to the chafe and to plunder with the other Bosjefinans. The Briequa Kaffers, who inhabit the country clofe behind them, are very confiderable fufferers by fuch daring neighbours. Of these people, the Koranas not only carry off large herds of cattle, but they alfo feize and make slaves of their children, fome of whom have been brought into the colony, and purchased by the farmers in exchange for cattle. The Briequas, with their haffagais, have little chance of standing against poifoned arrows. The fhields too of the Koranas are enormously large, and fo thick that the haffagai cannot penetrate them. I faw one made from the hide of an eland, that measured fix feet by four. These people make regular attacks, in large parties of four or five hundred. Though very good friends among each other while poor, from the moment they have obtained by plunder a quantity of cattle, they begin to quarrel about the divifion of the fpoil; and they are faid to carry this fometimes to fuch an excefs, that they continue the fight and maffacre till, like the foldiers of Cadmus, very few remain in the field,

"--fuoque 'Marte cadunt fubiti per mutua vulnera fratres.'

"The miserable bad roads, the nakedness of the country, and the very few animals that are found in a state of nature, upon the Roggeveld mountain, make it a difagreeable, uninterefting, and tedious route for one who travels with no other view than that of grati

fying curiofity. Crows, kites, and vultures, are almoft the only kinds of birds that are met with. Of the laft, I broke the wing of one of that fpecies called by ornithologifts the condor, of an amazing large fize. The fpread of its wings was ten feet and one inch. It kept three dogs for fome time completely at bay, and having at length feized one of them with its claws, and torn away a large piece of flesh from its thigh, they all immediately retreated." P. 403.

NATURAL PRODUCTIONS.

"ON the weft fide of the Kardouw lies the divifion of the Four-and-twenty Rivers, extending from thence to the VOL. V.-No. XLVIII.

banks of the Berg river. This part of the country to the fea-fhore, including Zwartland, confifts of a flat extended plain, very fertile in corn, grass, and fruits, and, being well watered, is more populous than most parts of the colony. With a proper degree of labour and management in the culture of the land, by plantations and enclofures for shelter, warmth, and moisture, that part of the colony alone which lies within the great range of mountains, would be fully fufficient to fupply with all the neceffaries of life the town and garrifon of the Cape, and all the shipping that will probably ever frequent its ports. As food for cattle, four fpecies or millet have been tried of the genus Holcus, namely, the Sorghum, the Saccharatus, the Spicatus, and Bicolor. All of thefe, except the fpicatus, have. been cut down feveral times in the fame feafon, afterwards grew to the height of fix to ten feet, bore a plentiful crop of feed, fprung up afresh from the old ftumps in the winter, furnishing most excellent food for cattle throughout the whole year. A species of Indian lucerne, the Medicago efculenta, was twice cut down, and afterwards gave a plentiful crop of feed. A small kidney-bean, the Phafeolus lobatus, grew very rapidly, producing two crops the fame feafon, and is an excellent fpecies of food for cattle, whether given to is the cafe alfo with the lucerne. A them green, or dried into hay, which ftrong tall dog's-tail-grafs, the Cynofu rus coracanus of India, ufeful both for man and beaft, was cut down twice, and afterwards produced a crop of feed. Of this fpecies of grafs horfes are extravagantly fond, and it will remain green nearly through the winter. The encouragement of the culture of all thefe would be of the greatest importance to the intereft of the colony. The Sefamum plant promifes very fair to become ufeful in giving a supply of vegetable oil for the table, an article that is at prefent very much wanted in the Cape. Tea, coffee, and fugar, might all be cultivated with fuccefs. But that which in a commercial point of view is likely hereafter to render the colony of the Cape moft valuable to the state on which it may be dependent, is the facility with which the cul tivation of the different kinds of hemp for cordage and canvafs, may be carried on to an unlimited extent. The

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