Travels in India (Tavernier) 157.2.6

157.2.6

There are in this country quantities of lions and tigers, and the Dutch have discovered a contrivance which answers well for killing them. They bind a gun to a stake driven into the ground, and place some meat at the end of the gun, which is bound to a cord attached to the trigger. When the animal comes to take this meat the cord draws the trigger, and the gun discharging the balls lodge in the mouth or body of the animal. The Cafres eat a root which resembles our root of chervil, which they roast, and it serves them as bread. Sometimes they make it into flour, and it tastes like chestnuts. As for flesh, they eat it raw, and fish also in the same condition; and as for the entrails of animals, as I have already said, they merely squeeze them to exclude the digested matter and then eat them. The majority of the women bind these entrails, when dried, round their legs, especially those of wild beasts which their husbands slay in the woods, and they wear them as ornaments. They also eat turtles after they have roasted them for a short time, so that the shells can be removed. They are very skilful in hurling the assegai, which is a kind of dart, and those who have not got any, use a stick an inch thick, of a very hard wood, and of the same length as the dart. They make a point on it and hurl it to a considerable distance with their hands. They take these sticks with them to the margin of the sea, and as soon as a fish comes to the surface they do not fail to transfix it.