The Griquas And Bechuanas Were In Former Times Clad Much Like The Caffres,
If Such A Word May Be Used
Where there is scarcely any clothing at all.
A bunch of leather strings about eighteen inches long hung
from the
Lady's waist in front, and a prepared skin of a sheep or antelope
covered the shoulders, leaving the breast and abdomen bare:
the men wore a patch of skin, about the size of the crown of one's hat,
which barely served for the purposes of decency, and a mantle
exactly like that of the women. To assist in protecting the pores of the skin
from the influence of the sun by day and of the cold by night,
all smeared themselves with a mixture of fat and ochre;
the head was anointed with pounded blue mica schist mixed with fat;
and the fine particles of shining mica, falling on the body
and on strings of beads and brass rings, were considered as highly ornamental,
and fit for the most fastidious dandy. Now these same people come to church
in decent though poor clothing, and behave with a decorum certainly superior
to what seems to have been the case in the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys in London.
Sunday is well observed, and, even in localities where no missionary lives,
religious meetings are regularly held, and children and adults taught to read
by the more advanced of their own fellow-countrymen; and no one is allowed
to make a profession of faith by baptism unless he knows how to read,
and understands the nature of the Christian religion.
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