My dad, a botanist of some renown, had traveled to the deep Congo in 1982 looking for a rare plant that some believed could cure nose cancer. I accompanied him; he thought it would do me good to see the brutal realities of the jungle. It was then that, during a moment of privacy, I once saw a Hottentot picking his nose while humming a tune. I am quite sure that was the very last nose-picking chantey anybody anywhere has ever heard.