One of these young Caffre women had her child wrapped up in a piece of linen tied to her back, and endeavoured to lull it to sleep by continually moving the left elbow, by which the baby was kept in a swinging motion, and an effect was produced like that of a cradle. Various questions were put, through an interpreter, to several of these females, who, after their timidity was overcome, answered with great readiness. Polygamy is said to prevail amongst them. Many women have from ten to twelve children. The children are suckled sometimes from two to three years. A numerous progeny is the pride of a family. As a proof of the legitimacy of a child, there is said to exist a kind of milk trial. Notwithstanding considerable trouble in endeavouring to procure information, we were unable to obtain a very lucid idea of this singular experiment: it consists in the father giving the infant, in the bottom of his hand, directly after its birth, some cow's milk to drink, and if the child refuses the draught it is considered illegitimate. Caffre women very rarely salute their husbands with a kiss, except after a long separation, and even then only on the cheek--never on the lips.
In the ethnographical part a detailed description will be presented of this most peculiar race, of whom the Bushmen are evidently only a decrepid branch. Here it will suffice to observe that a girl, only sixteen years of age, was noticed, whose father was a degenerate Hottentot, and whose mother was a Bushwoman. The girl measured 4 feet 6 1/2 inches, and weighed 75lbs. Another Bushwoman, thirty years of age, measured 4 feet 9 inches. All the individuals we saw of this race were remarkable for their exceedingly small hands and feet.
One week of our stay at the Cape was devoted to an excursion into the interior. On the 1st October, early in the morning, we left Cape Town in a light two-wheeled vehicle, drawn by four horses--a turn-out which certainly seemed better suited for a drive in Hyde Park than a journey, however short, in South Africa: for who would suppose that the principal roads on the southernmost point of the most unknown quarter of the globe, are, in consequence of English civilization and the geognostic nature of the ground, in a better condition than most bye-roads in the civilized states of Europe? For a country where labour is so deficient and expensive, such enormous works could only be executed by means of compulsory labour: in this respect the high-roads and mountain passes of the Cape afford the most evident proofs of how much more beneficially and usefully convicts may be employed in colonial works than in allowing them to rot within prison walls, alike a burden to themselves and to society.