All these clothes were in various stages of decay, and obviously the result of years of patient collecting.

In the corners again were sticks, kerries, and two assegais, a number of queer-shaped stones and bones, handles of broken table-knives, bits of the locks of guns, portions of an American clock, and various other articles which this human jackdaw had picked up and hidden away.

Altogether it was a strange place: and vaguely it occurred to Jess, as she sank back upon the dirty skins, that, had it not been for the old clothes and the wreck of the American clock, she would have made acquaintance with a very fair example of the dwellings of primeval man.
"Stop before you begin," she said.

"Have you anything to eat here?
I am nearly starving." Jantje grinned knowingly, and, grubbing in a heap of rubbish in the corner, drew out a gourd with a piece of flat sheet iron, which once had formed the back plate of a stove, placed on the top of it.

It contained "maas," or curdled buttermilk, which a woman had brought him that very morning from a neighbouring kraal, and it was destined for Jantje's own supper.