sease which looked like
pneumonia, but had the peculiar symptom strongly developed of great pain
in the seventh cervical process. Many persons died of it, after being
in a comatose state for many hours or days before their decease. No
inspection of the body being ever allowed by these people, and the place
of sepulture being carefully concealed, I had to rest satisfied with
conjecture. Frequently the Bakwains buried their dead in the huts where
they died, for fear lest the witches (Baloi) should disinter their
friends, and use some part of the body in their fiendish arts. Scarcely
is the breath out of the body when the unfortunate patient is hurried
away to be buried. An ant-eater's hole is often selected, in order to
save the trouble of digging a grave. On two occasions while I was there
this hasty burial was followed by the return home of the men, who had
been buried alive, to their affrighted relatives. They had recovered,
while in their graves, from prolonged swoons.

In ophthalmia the doctors cup on the temples, and apply to the eyes the
pungent smoke of certain roots, the patient, at the same time, taking
strong draughts of it up his nostrils. We found the solution of nitrate
of silver, two or three grains to the ounce of rain-water, answer
the same end so much more effectually, that every morning numbers
of patients crowded round our house for the collyrium. It is a good
preventive of an acute attack when poured into the eyes as soon as
the pain begins, and might prove valuable for travelers. Cupping is
performed with the horn of a goat or antelope, having a little hole
pierced in the small end. In some cases a small piece of wax is
attached, and a temporary hole made through it to the horn. When the
air is well withdrawn, and kept out by touching the orifice, at every
inspiration, with the point of the tongue, the wax is at last pressed
together with the teeth, and the little hole in it closed up, leaving a
vacuum within the horn for the blood to flow from the already scarified
parts. The edges of the horn applied to the surface are wetted, and
cupping is well performed, though the doctor occasionally, by separating
the fibrine from the blood in a basin of water by his side, and
exhibiting it, pretends that he has extracted something more than blood.
He can thus explain the rationale of the cure by his own art, and the
ocular demonstration given is well appreciated.

Those doctors who have inherited their profe