ged to move again.
One of the Bushmen took out his dice, and, after throwing them, said
that God told him to go home. He threw again in order to show me the
command, but the opposite result followed; so he remained and was
useful, for we lost the oxen again by a lion driving them off to a very
great distance. The lions here are not often heard. They seem to have
a wholesome dread of the Bushmen, who, when they observe evidence of a
lion's having made a full meal, follow up his spoor so quietly that
his slumbers are not disturbed. One discharges a poisoned arrow from a
distance of only a few feet, while his companion simultaneously throws
his skin cloak on the beast's head. The sudden surprise makes the lion
lose his presence of mind, and he bounds away in the greatest confusion
and terror. Our friends here showed me the poison which they use on
these occasions. It is the entrails of a caterpillar called N'gwa, half
an inch long. They squeeze out these, and place them all around the
bottom of the barb, and allow the poison to dry in the sun. They are
very careful in cleaning their nails after working with it, as a small
portion introduced into a scratch acts like morbid matter in dissection
wounds. The agony is so great that the person cuts himself, calls for
his mother's breast as if he were returned in idea to his childhood
again, or flies from human habitations a raging maniac. The effects
on the lion are equally terrible. He is heard moaning in distress, and
becomes furious, biting the trees and ground in rage.

As the Bushmen have the reputation of curing the wounds of this poison,
I asked how this was effected. They said that they administer the
caterpillar itself in combination with fat; they also rub fat into the
wound, saying that "the N'gwa wants fat, and, when it does not find
it in the body, kills the man: we give it what it wants, and it is
content:" a reason which will commend itself to the enlightened among
ourselves.

The poison more generally employed is the milky juice of the tree
Euphorbia ('E. arborescens'). This is particularly obnoxious to the
equine race. When a quantity is mixed with the water of a pond a whole
herd of zebras will fall dead from the effects of the poison before they
have moved away two miles. It does not, however, kill oxen or men. On
them it acts as a drastic purgative only. This substance is used all
over the country, though in some places the venom of serpents and a
certain b