Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/131

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From Dutoitspan to Likatlong..
97

that a Koranna is ever known to rouse himself from his habitual sloth, and inaptitude for endurance, to make an effort to hire himself out to an employer.

The huts may be seen either singly or in small groups, sometimes on the bare hillside, sometimes on the river-bank, or at the edge of a saltpan, or more rarely in the rocky glen of the river; they scarcely ever exceed twelve feet in diameter, and five feet in height; their shape, as far as its general want of symmetry allows it to be defined, may he said to be hemispherical; and they are all quite unenclosed. Their construction, as their appearance suggests, is of the most primitive order; the women build them by simply taking a number of branches, about six feet in length, arranging them in a circle, tying their upper ends all together in a bundle, and throwing some rush mats over the framework thus hastily put up. The external fabric is then complete. An aperture is left large enough to admit a man on all-fours; but this, which is the only communication with the open air, is often closed by another mat hung over it from the inside, where everything is as squalid and comfortless as can be conceived. A hollow dug out in the centre is the only fireplace; a pole, supported by two forked uprights, supports the entire wardrobe of the household, which rarely consists of more than a few tattered rags of European attire, and some sheepskins and goatskins; half a dozen pots and pans complete the inventory of the furniture. Although, as I have said, the huts ordinarily have no enclosure,

VOL. I.

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