African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

CHAPTER XVIII

In the year 1891, however, when attempting, on behalf of the British South Africa Company, to discover a route free from the tse-tse fly between Mashunaland and the East African coast, I walked into a country still teeming with big game, for no white man, as far as I am aware, had ever hunted there before the time of my visit,[20] and the fell plague of rinderpest, more potent for mischief than many legions of human game-destroyers, had only recently commenced its ravages, thousands of miles away on the plains of Masailand. Moreover, the natives living in this low-lying, fever-haunted district were few in number and almost destitute of firearms.

As I walked towards them they raised their great armoured heads and looked curiously at the first human being with a hat and shirt on they had probably ever seen. My small retinue of native servants was just then some little distance behind, and not until I was within fifty yards of them did first one, then another of these massive black bulls rise from his bed. But not immediately to run off, for they stood their ground and still for some time stared inquisitively—one might almost have said menacingly—with outstretched noses and horns laid back on their necks. However, in a long experience of African buffaloes, I have not found old bulls of this species either savage or aggressive when not molested—at any rate, when they are feeding or resting in ground sufficiently open to allow them to see anything approaching; though a sudden charge by a buffalo lying in long grass or thick jungle, which has either been previously wounded by a hunter or mauled by lions, is not an uncommon incident of African travel.

On the occasion of which I am speaking, when I was not more than thirty yards from the five old bulls, one of them actually came trotting towards me. I then took off my hat and waved it, shouting out at the same time. Then the old fellow turned and trotted away, and soon breaking into a heavy, lumbering gallop, was quickly followed by his companions. Later on, the same day, another solitary old buffalo bull allowed me and my native followers to walk past within eighty yards of where he lay without even troubling himself to get up.

After the buffaloes, the bushbucks were the tamest animals in this great natural game-park. These lovely little animals, whose rich dark brown coats are in this part of Africa most beautifully banded and spotted with white, would stand gazing at me, amongst the scrubby bush or open forest they frequent, and often allow a very near approach. The denizens of the open plains—blue wildebeests, tsessebes, Lichtenstein's hartebeests—were wilder and more wary than the buffaloes and bushbucks, but still tame compared with their much-hunted relatives in other parts of South Africa; whilst waterbucks, reedbucks, oribis, and zebras (Burchell's) were all very tame and confiding, and the latter, if they did not get one's wind, very inquisitive, as I have found them to be in other unfrequented districts.

One day I was resting with my native attendants and taking a midday meal on one of the large ant-heaps with which many parts of South-East Africa are studded, when a herd of perhaps a hundred zebras came up over the open plain to see what was going on. Led by a gallant-looking old stallion, the whole troop advanced slowly to within about a hundred yards of where I and my boys were sitting. Then they halted, and for a long time all stood quite still with ears pricked and eyes turned towards us. After a time the leader came walking slowly forward, and was soon followed by a few other adventurous spirits, the mass of the herd remaining where they were. I was myself so absorbed in watching this novel and interesting sight that I did not observe that one of my Kafirs (who took no interest in anything but dead zebras) had stood up behind me, until I saw the most venturesome of our visitors turn round and trot back to their companions. I then told all my boys to sit down and keep quite quiet; but although the old stallion and a few of the bolder spirits amongst his followers came forward again, they would not approach nearer than about seventy yards from us, the whole troop moving up slowly behind them.

I suppose I must have sat watching these beautiful animals for upwards of an hour, and they did not finally trot away until we had got our things packed up and were preparing to move in their direction.

I found both the wart-hogs and the bush-pigs, too, either very tame or very stupid; and several hippopotamuses, which were disporting themselves in small muddy lagoons, were at my mercy, had I wished to interfere with them; but on this trip I killed very few animals, nor ever fired a single shot except when obliged to do so, in order to secure a supply of meat for myself and my native attendants.

In a country so well stocked with antelopes, zebras, and buffaloes, carnivorous animals, it may well be supposed, were not wanting, and, indeed, in no part of Africa probably were lions, leopards, hyænas, wild dogs, and jackals more plentiful than they were in the neighbourhood of the lower Pungwe river at the time when Mr. Rhodes's pioneers first entered Mashunaland.

But all carnivorous animals are almost entirely nocturnal in their habits, and therefore only occasionally encountered in the daytime; and on the occasion of my first visit to this district I saw neither lions, hyænas, nor leopards, though the two former animals roared and howled nightly round my camp, and the grunting cry of the latter was often heard. Nor was I much more fortunate in this respect on my second visit to the same part of the country in 1892; for though I spent six weeks travelling and hunting between the Pungwe river and Lake Sungwe during October and November of that year, I only saw three lions, though there was not a single night during the trip on which I did not hear some of these animals roaring, sometimes close to camp, at others in the distance. On several occasions, too, I heard three different troops or families of lions roaring on the same night.

On the day when I saw the three lions, I had left camp with a few native followers very early in the morning, and was walking across an open plain studded with large ant-heaps, from which the long grass had been for the most part burnt off. On my right was a small river whose banks were fringed with a thick growth of scrubby bush. My course lay parallel to this river, but outside the strip of bush. Suddenly I came in sight of two lions at a distance of 400 or 500 yards out on the open plain. They were advancing at a slow walk towards the river and had been previously hidden from our view by some large ant-heaps. These two lions saw us at the same moment that we saw them, and at once halted and stood watching us. Telling my native attendants to sit down and remain where they were until my return, I commenced to walk towards the lions, hoping that they would allow me to approach within shot before running off, as I knew that these animals, which in many parts of Africa are very shy and wary, had very little fear of man in the Pungwe river district at that time. However, before I had advanced fifty paces, both lions turned round and commenced to walk slowly towards a small patch of long yellow grass which had escaped the last grass fire. They walked away from me at a very slow and leisurely pace. One seemed a monster, the other either a female or a young male with no mane.

I now commenced to run towards them, but had not gone far, when a third lion, that had previously been hidden by a large ant-heap, was suddenly revealed to me. He had evidently been walking over the plain about a hundred yards to the right of the other two lions, and not having seen me, did not understand why these latter had first come to a halt and then turned round and walked back again in the direction from which they had just come. When I first saw the third lion he was standing turned away from me and looking at the other two. Quickly swerving to the left, but without stopping, I almost immediately put a large ant-heap between us, and then ran to it at my utmost speed. This ant-heap was quite twenty feet in diameter at the base, and ten or twelve feet in height. I quickly climbed half-way up it and then looked round the side, and saw that the single lion was still standing watching the other two, which were at that moment just entering the patch of long grass of which I have already spoken.

I now edged myself in a sitting position to the side of the ant-heap nearest the lion and prepared for a shot. He was facing half away from me and something more than two hundred yards off; but there was not so much as a blade of grass in the shape of cover on the level burnt plain between us, and had I attempted to get nearer to him he would certainly have seen me at once and then trotted after his companions. So, steadying myself and taking a careful aim with the 200-yards' sight, I fired. My bullet must have passed close beneath the brutes chest—I think behind his forelegs—as I saw it knock up the dust just beyond him. He at once sprang to the spot where the bullet struck the ground and again stood still, facing now exactly away from me, without apparently having taken any notice of the report of my rifle—a 450-bore single-barrelled Gibbs-Metford.

Extracting the empty cartridge and pushing a fresh one into the breech, as silently and quickly as possible, I fired again, this time taking a fuller sight and aiming for the centre of the lion's somewhat narrow hind-quarters. The dull thud which answered the report of the rifle assured me that I had hit him, but I never saw a lion before make so little fuss about a wound. He gave one spring forwards, accompanied by a loud growl, and then stood still again. But only for a moment. Then he came trotting round towards where I sat on the side of the ant-heap, turning first to one side then to the other, and evidently searching for what had hurt him, and I am sure that had he made me out he would have charged instantly. However, I was dressed only in an old felt hat, a cotton shirt, and a pair of shoes, and my scanty garments and bare, sunburnt limbs were all so weather-stained, and harmonised so well with the neutral tints of my immediate surroundings, that he never saw me.

I had thrown the empty cartridge out of my rifle before the lion turned, but had no time to reload before he commenced to trot towards me, for, knowing that the very slightest movement on my part would attract his attention, I sat perfectly still, feeling sure that in case of a charge I should have ample time to slip the cartridge, which I held ready in my hand, into the breech of my rifle before he got to me. However, he never discovered me, though he approached to within a hundred yards of the ant-heap on the side of which I was sitting. He then stopped, and after first looking towards me, turned round and once more stood facing exactly away from me.

This was my chance, so hastily loading and putting down the 200-yards' leaf sight, I again fired at him, and again heard my bullet strike. With a loud growl he sprang forwards, and then went off at a gallop. He turned almost immediately and, running almost broadside to me, made for a large ant-heap with some bushes growing at the top of it. Before he reached it I fired again and knocked him down, but after having lain still for a few moments he got up and half-ran, half-dragged himself to the ant-heap and disappeared behind the bush on its summit.

I now walked round and reconnoitred the ant-heap behind which the lion had disappeared, and found that just beyond it there was a small patch of unburnt grass quite six feet high, in which, no doubt, he was hiding. To have approached this patch of long grass across the open plain would, I felt sure, have meant facing a fierce charge at close quarters, for the wounded lion had shown every sign of being a savage and determined animal.

About two hundred yards to the left of the place where the lion was lying was another ant-heap, at the foot of which grew two good-sized trees, and as I thought I might be able to see something from the top of one of them, I went back to where I had left my Kafirs, and taking one of them with me, made a circuit and came up behind the trees. My native attendant quickly climbed to the top of one of them, but declared he could see nothing of the lion, although he said that the patch of grass in which it was lying was very small. He then began to come down the tree again, talking all the time.

He had got about half-way down when two wart-hogs which had been lying asleep somewhere near us, disturbed by his voice, got up and went trotting straight towards the spot where the lion was lying. They did not enter the grass, but passed close to it, and the lion must have heard them coming and made ready at once to repel another attack, for the Kafir suddenly saw it standing just within the edge of the grass. "Sir, sir, I can see the lion," he called to me in his own language. "I can see nothing," I answered. "Come up the tree a little way," he said, "and you will be able to see it." I told him to come down low enough to reach the rifle I handed to him, and then climbed into the lower branches of the tree. When about ten feet above the ground I could see the lion's head and the outline of its back indistinctly through the grass. First aroused by the near approach of the wart-hogs, he was no doubt now listening to us talking.

I got a little higher up the tree, but although from this position I commanded a somewhat clearer view, I could not steady myself to fire, so I came lower down and fired a shot with the 200-yards' sight. This shot missed the lion altogether, but it had an excellent effect, as the angry brute at once charged out of the grass and came straight towards where he had heard the talking. At first he showed signs of partial paralysis of the hind-quarters, but gathering strength with every stride, he was soon coming along at a great pace, growling savagely and evidently prepared to make things uncomfortable for the first human being he met. I let him come on to within about fifty yards of the tree in which I was perched, and then shot him right in the chest with an expanding bullet, which tore open his heart and killed him almost immediately.

This was the last of the thirty-one lions I have shot, and the first and only one of these animals that I ever shot from a tree. He was a fine full grown animal, just in his prime, with a good mane for a coast lion, very thick set and heavy in build, and enormously fat. My first two bullets had struck him close together just below the tail, and either would probably have killed him had it been a solid projectile, but being expanding bullets they had probably not penetrated beyond the stomach.

We found subsequently, on examining the place where he had been lying in the grass at the foot of the ant-hill, that he had vomited great lumps of the meat and skin of a wildebeest on which he had been feasting the preceding night. My third bullet had struck him too far back, behind the kidneys, and passing just below the backbone, had momentarily paralysed his hind-quarters, causing him to fall when hit and subsequently to show weakness in the hind-legs.

CHAPTER XIX

Tinkarn and his people had five waggons with them and we white men four, two of which belonged to me, one to Mr. H. C. Collison, and one to a mutual friend, who had lost himself and died of thirst, poor fellow, some few months previously in the dreary wastes which lie between the Chobi and the Zambesi rivers.

I had with me two young Cape colonists, Messrs. Miller and Sell, so that we were four white men together. Having full spans of sixteen oxen for each waggon, as well as some spare animals, we had some 150 bullocks with us altogether, as well as eight or ten shooting horses.

South of Tlakani there was no permanent water nearer than the wells of Klabala; the deep pit of Inkowani having ceased to hold water since the emigrant Boers had deepened it during their memorable but disastrous journey through these same deserts in the winter of 1878.

In this country of railways, the distance between Tlakani and Klabala—not much over one hundred miles probably—may seem very small, but as the track between the two places lies through a level expanse of soft desert sand through which a heavy South African bullock waggon can only be dragged at an average rate of from a mile and a half to two miles an hour, it meant four days and four nights at least of constant travel to get through it. Tinkarn, however, had learned from the Bushmen that good rains had fallen not long before between Inkowani and Klabala, and felt sure that our live stock would get a drink at the pools of Mahakabi, in which we had found a good supply of water in the previous April

As it would be a terrible pull to get our waggons through even as far as these pools, we gave our cattle a three days' rest at Tlakani, where the wells were luckily full, before starting southwards again.

I must here say that in the winter season, when the nights are long and cold, and the sun not intensely hot during the daytime, a picked span of bullocks in good hard condition will sometimes manage to pull a waggon along for four days and four nights without drinking, but in very hot weather no bullocks that I have ever seen can work for more than half this time pulling heavy waggons in deep sand and without water.

Christmas time is about the hottest season of the year in South Africa, unless heavy rains happen to be falling, and at the time of which I am writing the heat was simply terrific. The country around us was an absolutely dead level in all directions, everywhere clothed with a sparse covering of low thorny bushes, whose little grey-green leaves and hard black twigs, over which little hook-shaped thorns are profusely scattered, afforded but little protection from the cruel sun. Early in the day the sand became so hot that it was quite impossible to keep the palm of one's hand upon it for more than a few seconds at a time, nor was it possible to hold one's hand on any piece of iron exposed to the sun's rays. The sand itself was so deep and soft, that our heavy bullock waggons sank in it to a depth of several inches, over the felloes of the wheels, in fact; and as our long caravan moved slowly and painfully forwards, both bullocks and waggons were almost hidden from sight in a thick cloud of fine dust which rose from the trampled ground into the still hot air. When the sun set the relief was immense, but still the heat thrown up from the scorched sand was very great, and it was only for one short hour between dawn and sunrise that the temperature became pleasantly cool.

It was about four o'clock on the afternoon of December 23 that we finally left Tlakani, after having carefully filled our water-casks and given all the bullocks and horses a good drink. At sundown we outspanned, made a hasty meal of dried eland meat roasted on the ashes, washed down with a cup of tea, and then inspanned again. All that night we trekked on with only two short intervals of rest, and when day broke on, the morning of December 24, our oxen had done ten hours' actual pulling through the heavy sand and covered some fifteen miles since leaving Tlakani. All this day we travelled slowly onwards through the frightful heat, giving the bullocks an hour's rest after every two hours' pull. The terrific heat of the cruel pitiless sun told upon the straining oxen very rapidly, for it must be remembered that nothing but steady hard pulling by every member of each span, all pulling in unison, could move the heavy waggons through the deep sand, and nothing made of flesh and blood could work very long in such a temperature without drinking.

Towards the close of the long day it became a pitiful sight to look at the poor oxen, as they toiled slowly and painfully along, with lowered heads and tongues hanging from their gasping mouths. The hot air they breathed was full of fiery dust, which rose in clouds from their feet and hung suspended in the breathless atmosphere long after the last waggon had passed. This hot dust no doubt very much aggravated the terrible thirst from which our bullocks were now suffering, and kept them continually gasping and coughing.

At last the dreadful sun turned blood-red as it neared the western horizon, and then soon sank from view behind the interminable landscape of stunted thorn bushes. When outspanned during the day, the bullocks had made no attempt to feed, but had only stood about in clusters amongst the shadeless thorn scrub; I was in hopes, however, that they would graze a little at sunset, albeit the grass was scorched and scant. But they were too parched to do so; and so, hungry, weary, and terribly thirsty, the poor brutes were once more yoked to the heavy waggons just as the short twilight of the early tropic night was giving place to a bright moonlight, for it wanted but a couple of days to full moon. The whole of this second night we travelled slowly southwards, with short intervals of rest.

I kept awake once more throughout the night, in order to time the periods of travel and the intervals of rest. As we were four Europeans, we might have kept awake turn and turn about, and turned in for a sleep in one of the waggons when not on duty; but when travelling through the desert I am always too anxious to be able to sleep, whilst making a push from one water to another, and always make a point of timing the treks myself, and keeping the waggon-drivers and leaders up to the mark; for these latter naturally get worn out during such journeys, and often are so tired that when a halt is called, they just throw themselves down where they stand and lie there like logs till it is time to move on again.

During the night we passed the deep limestone well and shallow pan of Inkowani, both of which were perfectly dry, and presently Christmas Day 1879 dawned upon us, and the cruel sun was soon once more shining over the desolate wilderness around us. By this time it had become evident that our bullocks could not possibly pull the heavy waggons much farther. One or other of them was constantly lying down, and had to be mercilessly beaten or its tail twisted or bitten before it could be induced to get up again and struggle on a little farther. Although the waggons of our Bamangwato friends were much less heavily laden than ours, their bullocks were much inferior, and on the whole in quite as sorry a plight.

About ten o'clock it became impossible to get the waggons along at all, and we had to give up the idea of reaching the pools of Mahakabi, from which we were only about six miles distant, with them, as we had hoped to have done. We therefore outspanned, and prepared to drive all our cattle and horses to the water, let them have a good drink and feed there, and return to fetch the waggons in the afternoon. Collison was not very well, so he and Sell remained with the waggons, whilst Miller and I—both of us mounted—and all our coloured boys, with the exception of the waggon-drivers, accompanied Tinkarn and his people to Mahakabi, taking all our cattle, horses, and dogs with us. Tinkarn, I think, only left a couple of boys to look after the five waggons belonging to his people. I let him start first with all his people and their troop of cattle, Miller and I following with our own herd, driven by our own boys, about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes later. I rode my own favourite shooting horse "Bob," and led Collison's best nag "Big Bles," his after-rider, a Mangwato boy, named Dick, being mounted on his second horse. I had had a cup of coffee when we outspanned just before daylight, but had eaten nothing since the previous evening, and had not even tied a piece of "biltong" on my saddle, when leaving the waggons with the oxen, as I had hoped to get back again before sundown, and was besides too full of anxiety to think much about food just then.

Although the bullocks were unable to drag our heavy waggons any farther through the deep sand, they stepped out briskly enough along the road when unencumbered, and evidently knew that they were being taken to water. We were just approaching the first of the two pools of Mahakabi, and could see the cattle of our Mangwato friends standing round about it, when I saw Tinkarn coming riding back to meet me. "Metsi utin?" ("Is there water?"), I asked. "Metsi haio" ("There is no water"), he answered; almost immediately adding, "But we shall find water; I have two Bushmen here who will show us water." From the appearance of the grass, it was evident that a heavy shower of rain must have fallen over this part of the country about a month before our arrival, and Tinkarn told me that there must then have been a good supply of water in the Mahakabi vleys, which, however, had been very rapidly sucked up by the intense heat which had lately prevailed. When the Mangwatos' troop of cattle first reached the nearest and biggest vley, there was still a little water in it, but the thirsty beasts just rushed into the shallow pool, and of course soon trampled it into mud. Two Bushmen, however, had been found at the water, who, of course, knew Tinkarn and feared him, as one of Khama's most influential headmen, and these savages reported that heavy rain had fallen farther to the east during the last moon, and thought that a certain vley they knew of would probably still have some water in it. If there should prove to be no water there, said they, they would guide us to the place where the road from Shoshong to Pandamatenka crossed the Luali river.

It was now past midday, and the heat intense. Our horses, as well as the oxen, had been nearly forty-eight hours without drinking, but as they had done no work during that time, they were not suffering like the latter animals. However, I did not like to go away with the cattle, and perhaps have to take them right through to Luali, without letting Collison know what had happened, so I sent Miller back to the waggons, telling him to give the horse he was riding a few pannikins of water as soon as he got there, as our two largest casks had, I knew, been scarcely touched. Should the vley spoken of by the Bushmen prove to contain a good supply of water, I told Miller I would rest the oxen there until after midday on the 26th, and drive them back to the waggons, after they had had a good drink, on the afternoon of that day, in time to start for Klabala the same evening. Should I not turn up by that time, however, I told him not to expect me for at least another twenty-four hours, as he would then know I had had to go on to Luali.

Having bade good-bye to Miller, I started Dick (who was mounted) and all our boys with our cattle on the track of those belonging to Tinkarn and his people, who had already set off eastwards under the guidance of the Bushmen. After a very hot and weary tramp, we at last reached the vley where our guides had hoped to be able to show us water. As in the pools of Mahakabi, so here there were still a few gallons of liquid left, but not enough, unfortunately, to be of any use, as the thirsty oxen just rushed into it and trampled it into mud immediately.

There was now nothing for it but to push on for Luali as speedily as possible during the cool of the night. Soon the scorching sun once more went down, but as the moon was near the full, we had no difficulty in keeping a good line through the open thorn scrub, and got on at a good quick walk, as our thirsty cattle stepped out briskly, and weary though they must have been, showed no signs now of flagging. About midnight we called a halt, and off-saddling the horses—about six of Khama's headmen were mounted—lit fires, round about which the oxen were collected in two herds, the one composed of those belonging to the Mangwatos, from which I kept ours a little separate. We rested for about an hour, during which time I sat talking with Tinkarn. My boys had all lain down near the fires and gone fast asleep, as soon as they had seen the cattle begin to lie down, and I would fain have followed their example, but was afraid to do so lest any of the thirsty beasts should wander away. Luckily, the bright moonlight enabled me to keep an eye on all the cattle as they lay scattered about in the thin bush, from where I sat. Presently Tinkarn suggested that we should saddle up again and get on towards the river. He had been giving me a lot of interesting information about the desert Bushmen, their modes of hunting, etc., and asked me to ride with him, instead of remaining behind with my own troop of cattle.

This I agreed to do; so, after waking up Dick and all my boys and telling them to come on with the cattle at once, I rode forwards, always leading Collison's horse "Big Bles," on the tracks of the Mangwatos' cattle, which had trampled broad paths in the soft sandy ground, that were very plainly discernible in the moonlight. I soon joined Tinkarn, who was right in front with the two Bushmen, and his pleasant companionship and cheery talk helped very materially to relieve the tedium of the long, weary ride. At last, just as day was dawning on the morning of December 26, we reached the little Luali river just where the waggon road crossed it. Here there was plenty of good water, so Tinkarn, the Bushmen, and I had a refreshing drink, before the thirsty cattle had fouled it, for though there were several good-sized pools amongst the rocks of the river's bed, there was no running stream. The Mangwatos' cattle were close behind us, and my own troop I thought would not be far behind them. However, when an hour had passed and they had not arrived, I began to feel uneasy; but Tinkarn reassured me, saying that Dick and the herd-boys must have loitered round the fires after we had left, but were bound to be here before very long, as they had drunk nothing since leaving the waggons, and their very lives now therefore depended on their getting to the water quickly. I said I would wait till midday, and then, if they had not turned up by that time, ride back on the cattle tracks to look for them. In the meantime the only thing to do was to rest, as we had no food of any sort with us, and were therefore unable to satisfy our hunger. I was very tired and sleepy, as well as hungry, having had no rest whatever for three consecutive nights, nor any food for more than thirty-six hours, so when I lay down in a sort of little cave amongst the rocks, where the sun would not reach me the whole day, I soon went off into a deep dreamless sleep, from which I was awakened late in the afternoon by Tinkarn, who informed me that Dick had just turned up, riding Collison's spare horse, but without the cattle.

I soon learned what had happened. "After you woke me and the herd-boys at the place where we rested in the night," said Dick, "I saddled up my horse, and then said to my companions, 'Let us go; the master has gone on with Tinkarn, and all the Mangwato cattle have started.' But some of the herd-boys said, 'No, Dick, let us rest a little longer, for we are very tired. Then we will drive the cattle on fast, as we can see the tracks of the big herd that has gone on ahead very plainly in the moonlight.' I was tired too," said Dick, "and did not think a little delay would matter, so I tied my horse to a tree and sat down again by one of the fires. Our cattle were still all lying down then. It was very foolish of me to sit down again, for, as you know, I had led my master's oxen for two nights previously through the deep sand, and was therefore very tired and sleepy. After sitting down again I don't remember anything, sleep must have overcome me, as well as my companions. When at last I woke again, the fires had all gone out, and I could see that the dawn was just breaking. The oxen were gone. 'Wake, wake,' I cried to my companions. 'The oxen have got up and gone away.' Then we took up their tracks, which led us away to the north and had not followed on the spoor of the Mangwatos' cattle. I remained with the rest of the boys, following on the tracks of the cattle until the sun stood there"—pointing to a part of the heavens which the sun must have reached at about 10 A.M.—"and then I thought I must let the white man, my master's friend, know what had happened. Ki peto" ("that is all"). "And how about the herd-boys, will they not all die of thirst?" I asked Dick; for, as they had been walking in the sun for the greater part of the preceding day, I knew from experience that, if they had not yet reached water, they were probably all dead by now; as, although a man may live for three or four days without water during the winter season, no man that is born of a woman can live much more than two days, if walking hard all the time, when exposed to the intense heat of the sun during the hottest time of year in the deserts of Western Africa. "If God wishes it," said Dick, "the sun has now killed them all; but I do not think they are dead. When we all halted in the middle of the night, you remember there was no wind; but when I awoke before dawn this morning there was a light wind blowing from the north; and our oxen, on getting up from where they had been lying, instead of following on the tracks of the other cattle, went off in a bee-line dead against the wind. I think, therefore, that they must have smelt water and were making straight for it. The boys that I left following them up on foot thought so too. They were terribly thirsty when I left them, but thought their only chance for life was to stick to the cattle tracks they were following, as they did not think they would have the strength to retrace their steps to where we rested last night and then follow up the tracks of the Mangwato cattle to the Luali river, as I have done on horseback."

This was Dick's story, and how much or how little to believe of it, I did not know. He had always been a good, trustworthy boy, and a great favourite with his master. I never imagined that he and all my boys would have gone to sleep again after I had roused them, but I felt more angry with myself than with them, for not having actually seen my cattle started before riding forward. As, according to Dick's account, he must have ridden at least twelve miles on the tracks of our cattle without their having come to the water which he thought they had smelt whilst the herd-boys slept, I could not believe it possible that they had really scented water. Tinkarn, however, whose experience was far greater than mine in such matters, stoutly maintained that cattle, when thirsty, could scent water at extraordinary distances, and arguing from the abstract to the concrete, thought that had the lost oxen not done so, they would assuredly have followed up the tracks of his own herd and arrived by themselves at the Luali river.

Tinkarn and his people were now, after the day's rest, about to start back with their cattle to the place where their waggons had been left standing in the desert, but I did not care to go with them, and take the chance of my oxen having found water, and having then been driven back to the waggons. Supposing the oxen and the herd-boys had died of thirst—or been killed by the sun, as the Kafirs express it—what was to happen to our waggons then? Collison, Miller, Sell, and the four waggon-drivers would, I knew, be all right, as well as the horse that Miller had ridden, as they would go on to Klabala with Tinkarn, but our waggons would in that case have to remain standing in the desert with no one to look after them for several days at least. This would be known to the two Bushmen who had guided us to the Luali, and be communicated by them to other Bushmen, who, I feared, might rob the stranded waggons before I could get back to them with fresh cattle from Shoshong.[21]

I soon made up my mind what to do. Shoshong itself was about sixty miles from where I then was at the crossing of the Luali river, and there was a good waggon track leading to it, so I resolved to ride there that night, borrow four spans of bullocks either from the white traders living on the station or from Khama, and after getting something to eat, start back with them at once on the desert road by which we had been travelling from the Botletlie river. Should my oxen have found water, and after having drunk, been driven back to the waggons on the night of the 27th, I should meet them on the road, and no harm would have been done; whilst, on the other hand, should the worst have happened, and our four spans of bullocks and the poor herd-boys prove to have succumbed to thirst, heat, and fatigue, I should be able to reach our waggons before they had been long deserted, and take them into Shoshong with the spans that had been lent to me.

Sixty miles, much of it in heavy, sandy ground, is a good long ride, so I resolved to take my friends horse "Big Bles," a very powerful animal, in excellent condition. My own horse "Bob" I entrusted to Tinkarn, and sent Dick back to the waggons with him also.

The full moon was just rising as I bade good-bye to Tinkarn and my Mangwato friends, and rode off on my lonely journey. All our shooting horses had been well looked after during the past season, and well fed daily on half-boiled maize, and "Big Bles" was not only a very powerful animal, but accustomed to hard work, and in splendid hard condition. Keeping up an average pace of about seven miles an hour—a very good one in heavy, sandy ground—and only off-saddling twice during the whole journey, I reached Shoshong about an hour before daylight on the morning of December 27. I rode straight to the store of a trader named Jim Truscott, and roused him, as well as another old friend named Fred Drake. My story was soon told. No food had passed my lips since the evening of December 24—some sixty hours—and with the exception of the sleep I had had at the Luali river during the 26th, I had had no rest either during all that time. I was thin and hard naturally from the life I had been leading, but I suppose I looked unusually worn and haggard, as Truscott insisted on my lying down on his bed at once, whilst he had some food prepared for me, and Fred Drake undertook to get the oxen together that I required, and kindly offered to go back with me to where I had left the waggons beyond Klabala.

At the time of which I am writing, South Africa was a very different country to the South Africa of to-day. Gold had not then been discovered on the Witwaters Rand, and there were therefore comparatively but few Englishmen living even in the Transvaal; whilst north of the Limpopo there were no European settlements whatever, and the few white traders and hunters who earned a precarious livelihood amongst the native tribes might have been counted on the fingers of one's two hands. Amongst these few scattered whites a bond of brotherhood existed such as cannot endure under more civilised conditions. Any white man in distress was sure of the warmest sympathy and most generous assistance on the part of all the few others of the same colour scattered here and there over a vast country. But now the times are changed. What was once the "far interior" has been opened up to the civilisation of Western Europe, and the old-time traders and hunters, with their indifferent morals, unbusiness-like habits, but hearts of gold, have passed away from South Africa for ever.

By ten o'clock Fred Drake had got together four spans of good oxen, all lent by the few white men on the station, and had also got a cart and eight oxen to carry some water-casks and provisions. I had gone fast asleep on Truscott's bed as soon as I had had something to eat, and they let me sleep on till midday. Then I had another meal, and at about 1 P.M. started back for my waggons with Fred Drake. We travelled very quickly with the light cart and fresh oxen, even during the heat of the afternoon, and keeping at it all through the night and the next day, were nearing the wells of Klabala on the afternoon of December 29 when we heard a waggon whip crack close ahead of us, and presently saw the fine cloud of dust rising above the low trees which we knew portended the arrival of a waggon. I thought it must be Tinkarn's waggons. We pulled up, and Drake and I jumped off the cart and walked on ahead. As soon as we saw the front oxen I knew them for the leaders of my own fine Damara span, and very soon we were shaking hands with Collison, Miller, and Sell.

The explanation was simple. Our oxen, when they wandered away from the resting-place on the night of December 25, had found their way to water at last before midday on the 26th. Whether they really smelt it, or were made aware by a certain freshness in the air that water lay in the direction from which the wind was blowing, or whether they only hit off the water by chance, I cannot say, but they reached a vley or pool in which there was a good supply of recent rain-water. The herd-boys who followed them had, it appeared, had a very hard time of it, and on coming to a small vley in which there was only mud but no water, a short time before reaching the larger pool, two of them had declared that they could go no farther, and had thrown themselves down and rolled in the mud, and would doubtless have died there, had not their comrades, who shortly afterwards reached the larger pool with the cattle, carried them back some water in a calabash and revived them. The cattle were driven back to the waggons on the night of the 26th, and arrived there before Tinkarn's cattle returned from the Luali river. Collison at once gave the order to inspan, and pushing on through the heat of the day, reached Klabala on the night of the 27th, Tinkarn and his people turning up a few hours later. At Klabala the cattle were given a rest till the afternoon of the 29th, and soon after again making a start for Shoshong, met me coming back with my unnecessary relief spans—as it turned out.

Well, all's well that ends well; though I hope I may never experience such an uncomfortable Christmas again as the one I spent in the desert in the year 1879.

CHAPTER XX

In previous chapters I have often referred to the Masarwa Bushmen, the remnants probably of one of the oldest and most primitive races of mankind still surviving on the earth, and as my personal knowledge of these people is very considerable, I think that a few notes concerning their habits, language, and mode of life will prove of interest, if not to all who are likely to glance over the pages of this book, at any rate to some few amongst them who believe that "the noblest study of mankind is man."

The first Bushmen I ever saw were met with on the banks of the Orange river on January 4, 1872, in the country then occupied by the Korana chief Klas Lucas and his people.

In my diary of that date I made the following notes of this experience:—

"January 4, 1872.—Whilst poking about along the river, looking for guinea-fowls, I came upon a Bushman's lair amongst the trees by the water's edge. A few boughs woven together and forming a sort of canopy was all they had in the way of a habitation; the only weapons they possessed were rude-looking bows and neatly made poisoned arrows, some about two and a half feet in length, fashioned from reeds, whilst others were only a foot long. Their language seemed even fuller of clicks and clucks than the Korana, and altogether to a casual observer they appeared to be very few steps removed from the brute creation. The following day three more Bushmen came to the waggon begging for tobacco; they were taller and better looking than those I had first seen."

During the following month (February 1872) I met with a good many more Bushmen, and hunted with them in the Southern Kalahari to the west of the Scurfde Berg. At that time these people had no firearms of any kind, but they all carried small toy-like bows and bark quivers containing poisoned arrows.

During the twenty years succeeding my first meeting with Bushmen on the banks of the Orange river, I met with scattered communities of this primitive race throughout every portion of the interior of the country, where Bantu tribes had not been able to establish themselves owing to the aridity of the soil and the scarcity of water in sufficient quantities to satisfy the needs of a settled population possessed of large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats.

Thus at least nineteen-twentieths of the whole of the enormous area of country included in the Bechwanaland Protectorate are entirely uninhabited except by the descendants of the aboriginal Bushmen, the more civilised Bantu living crowded together in a few large towns. Khama's old town of Shoshong, which was abandoned more than twenty years ago, was said to contain 20,000 inhabitants, practically his whole tribe.

In the last Annual Report of the Transvaal Native Affairs Department, it is stated that the Bushmen living in the valley of the Limpopo in the Northern Transvaal are known as Maseroa, and are distinct from the ordinary South African Bushmen.

All the Bushmen I have seen, whether those living on or near the Orange river, or along the eastern border of the Kalahari, or throughout the Bechwanaland Protectorate, from the Chobi river to Lake N'gami and the Botletlie, and from thence to the Limpopo, appeared to me to be very much the same in appearance and absolutely identical in their ways of life and the fashion of their dress and weapons. Here and there no doubt there has been a certain admixture of Bantu blood amongst them; but seeing how little they vary as a rule both in appearance and in habits and manner of life in widely separated areas, I think that for the most part they must be a pure and distinct race throughout the greater part of the countries they inhabit.

The name given by Khama's people to the Bushmen living in the country ruled over by that chief, which is spelt "Maseroa" in the Report above referred to, is pronounced—at least so it always seemed to me—Ma-sarr-wa (with the "r" very much rolled), and the singular—the word signifying "a Bushman"—ought, I should think, to be Li-sar-wa.

The name "Vaalpens," often applied by the Boers to Bushmen, signifies "grey belly," and has been given to them because, having no huts, but sleeping as they do in the open, they often lie so close to the fire on cold nights that they blister themselves on their shins and abdomens. The skin thus burnt peels off and is replaced by new skin of a lighter colour than that of the rest of the body. Bushmen may often be seen with their legs and bellies covered with such unsightly scars, and it is such blistered patches of skin on their abdomens which has earned them the name of "Vaalpens," or "grey belly."

Although I have travelled in the Zoutpansberg, Waterberg, and Dwarsberg districts of the Northern Transvaal, I have never met with or heard of the dwarf race spoken of by Professor Keane in his book on The Boer States. These people, Professor Keane says, are the only genuine Vaalpens, and are almost entirely confined to the above-named and adjacent districts of the North Transvaal as far as the banks of the Limpopo. Professor Keane further says that these people call themselves "Kattea," and that they are almost pitch-black in colour, only about four feet high, and quite distinct both from their tall Bantu neighbours and from the yellowish Bushmen.

It would be interesting to learn where Professor Keane got his information concerning this remarkable race of people. Personally, I find it difficult to believe in their existence, as I have been acquainted with so many Boers who had hunted for years in the very districts in which they are said to exist, or to have existed, and yet have never heard any one of them speak of a dwarf race of black Bushmen. Moreover, I have myself met with Bushmen of the same type as those I have seen in other parts of South Africa, both in the Waterberg district of the Transvaal to the south of the Limpopo and also in the desert country not far to the west of the Dwarsberg.

I believe that the researches of the late Dr. Bleek, the well-known philologist, tended to show that there was little or no affinity between the languages spoken by the Bushmen inhabiting the south-western districts of the Cape Colony and the Hottentot tribes living in the same part of the country. On the other hand, the well-known missionary, the late Dr. Robert Moffat, wrote: "Genuine Hottentots, Koranas, and Namaquas meeting for the first time from their respective and distant tribes could converse with scarcely any difficulty." The Bushmen, however, Dr. Moffat said, "speak a variety of languages, even when nothing but a range of hills or a river intervenes between the tribes, and none of these dialects is understood by the Hottentots." As bearing upon the subject of the affinity or otherwise of the language spoken by the Koranas living in Griqualand and along the Orange river with that of the Bushmen of the interior of South Africa, I must now make an extract from a book written by myself and published in 1893 (Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa) relating to this question.

Although I cannot but consider that the facts which I then brought forward were really of some value, I do not think that they have ever been noticed by any one interested in the study of the origin and affinities of the various native races in South Africa, and I am anxious, therefore, to put them on record once more.

The passage I refer to reads as follows:—"In 1871 a Korana boy named John entered my service, and went to the interior with me the following year; and as he had previously learned to speak Dutch from a Griqua master, I could converse freely with him. In 1873, when elephant-hunting in the Linquasi district to the west of Matabeleland, we saw a great many Masarwas (Bushmen), and noticing that their language, full of clicks and clucks and curious intonations of the voice, was similar in character to that I had heard spoken by the Koranas on the banks of the Orange river in 1871, I asked John if he could understand them, but he only laughed and said, 'No, sir.' During the next two years, however, John had a lot to do with the Masarwas; and one day, towards the end of 1874, as we were returning from the Zambesi to Matabeleland, I heard him conversing quite familiarly with some of these people. 'Hullo, John,' I said, 'I thought you told me that you could not understand the Bushmen?' 'Well, sir,' he answered, 'at first I thought I couldn't, but gradually I found that I could understand them, and that they understood me, and, in fact, I can say that with a few slight differences these Bushmen speak the same language as my people on the Orange river.' A Griqua family too, the Neros, who for many years lived in Matabeleland, all spoke Sasarwa (the language of the Masarwas) with perfect fluency, and they all assured me that they had had no difficulty in learning it, as it was almost the same language as that spoken by the Koranas." Now surely these facts are worthy of note. My boy John (who ran away from the Griqua master whose slave he then was and came to me in 1871) followed my fortunes for twenty-five years, and was always a most faithful servant, and in his younger days a very good elephant hunter. He is still alive to-day, and long ago christened himself John Selous.

John was born (probably about the middle of the last century) and brought up on the banks of the Orange river, being a member of the Korana clan ruled over by Klas Lucas. He is an absolutely pure Korana by blood, of a pale yellow brown in colour, beautifully proportioned, with small, delicately made hands and feet, and the sparse-growing peppercorn hair which I have often seen amongst full-blooded Koranas, but only rarely amongst the Bushmen living in the countries north and west of the Transvaal, who are, moreover, darker skinned than the majority of the Koranas of the Orange river, though very much lighter, as a rule, than Bantu Kafirs.

John, speaking as his native tongue one of the most extraordinary of known languages—a language full of clicks and clucks and curious intonations of the voice, and absolutely impossible of acquirement by a full-grown European—travelled with me some eight hundred miles to the north of the country where he was born on the banks of the Orange river, and there met with a race of wild people living in the desert country immediately south of the Zambesi, who he found, much to his surprise, spoke a language so similar to his own mother-tongue that, after a very little intercourse with them, he was not only able to understand what they said, but to talk to them with perfect fluency. Is not this a most remarkable fact, well worthy the attention of philologists?

When John first told me that, by listening attentively to the Bushmen inhabiting the country immediately to the south of the Chobi and Zambesi rivers, he soon discovered that they were speaking a language very similar to his own, he concluded his explanation by saying in Dutch: "Ik kan maar say daat's de selde taal" ("I can just say it's the same language").

The Nero family, with their dependents, numbered some eight or ten persons, amongst whom was a pure-blooded Korana woman named "Mina," a lady most bountifully endowed with all the physical characteristics peculiar to the Hottentot race. These people all came originally from Griqualand, and they all spoke Dutch in addition to Sintabele (the language of the Matabele) and their mother-tongue, which they told me was Korana. I have heard all these people over and over again talking with the most perfect ease and fluency with the Masarwa Bushmen inhabiting the country to the west of Matabeleland, and they all assured me that they had had no difficulty in learning Sasarwa, as it was practically the same as the language spoken by the Koranas living in Griqualand and along the Orange river.

The apparent uniformity of the language spoken by the scattered families of Bushmen living in widely separated areas of country in the interior of South Africa is somewhat remarkable. My boy John could converse without any difficulty not only with the Masarwas we met with in the valley of the Limpopo, but also with those we came across in the country between the Chobi and Mababi rivers, several hundred miles farther north, although there was never any intercourse between these widely separated clans.

In 1879 I became very well acquainted with Tinkarn, one of Khama's headmen, who has a very thorough knowledge of, and great influence over, the Bushmen living throughout the country over which that chief exercises jurisdiction. I first met Tinkarn in the neighbourhood of the Mababi river, and subsequently travelled with him from there to Shoshong, and later on again met him on the Limpopo. The Masarwa in the Mababi undoubtedly spoke the same language as those living only a couple of days' journey farther north, with whom I heard my boy John talking in 1874, and these latter, according to John, spoke the same language as the Bushmen living in the Limpopo valley near the mouth of the Shashi. Farther west, I have listened to Tinkarn conversing not only with the Masarwa of the Mababi, but also with Bushmen living on the Botletlie river, and in many places in the desert between there and Shoshong, and also with some of these people living on the Limpopo. Tinkarn told me that he had learned the language of the Bushmen when he was a child, and I always thought that he spoke to all of them in the same language, not in a number of dialects. At any rate, he was perfectly fluent with all of them.

Although, however, there would seem to be strong presumptive evidence that all the various families or tribes of Bushmen living scattered over the more arid regions of South-Western Africa to the north of the Orange river speak a language, or dialects of a language, which is essentially the same as that spoken by the Koranas, yet, speaking generally, all the Bushmen I have seen differ considerably in physical appearance not only from pure-blooded Koranas—very few of whom are left to-day—but also from the descriptions I have read of the dwarf race of Bushmen that used to inhabit the Cape Colony. It is these latter whose language was studied by Dr. Bleek, and pronounced to be fundamentally different to that of the Hottentot tribes inhabiting the country near Cape Town. That, prior to the incursion of the tall, dark-coloured Bantu tribes from the north, the whole of Africa south of the Zambesi was inhabited by a race akin to the Bushmen of the Cape Colony is, I think, proved by the similarity of the rock-paintings in Mashunaland and Manicaland—which I think that I was the first to discover—to those existing in caves in many parts of the Orange and Cape Colonies.

I have never seen any pigmy Bushmen. Those I met with on the Orange river and in the country to the west of Griqualand in 1872, as well as a small number I saw near the Vaal river above its junction with the Orange in the same year, may not have been as tall as the average of the Masarwa farther north, but I feel sure that all the men were well over five feet in height.

Speaking generally, I should say that the Bushmen that I have seen—and they were many—whilst they were considerably lighter in colour and shorter and more slightly built than Kafirs, were at the same time darker skinned than most Koranas, and neither so thickset nor so short of stature as the average of those people.

The average height of the Masarwa men I have met with in the country extending from the western border of Matabeleland to Lake N'gami would certainly, I think, be over 5 feet 4 inches, and I have seen many of these people standing quite 5 feet 8 or 9 inches, and a few even 6 feet.

I have, however, occasionally seen men amongst them of a distinctly Korana type, short and stout built in figure, very light in colour, with small black glittering eyes, high cheek-bones, and hair growing in small tufts. There were two young men of this type amongst the Masarwa Bushmen living near the Mababi river in 1884. They reminded me very forcibly of the life-sized figure of a Cape Colony Bushman in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, though they were, I think, nearly if not quite five feet in height. From time to time, no doubt, members of various Bantu tribes have fled to the desert for refuge from their enemies and amalgamated with the Bushmen, and this may account for the greater stature observable amongst certain clans of Masarwas, when compared with full-blooded Koranas, or with the Bushmen of the Cape Colony, and the very general absence of the peppercorn growth of the hair in the former which is general in the latter; but if further investigation should definitely establish the fact that there is a very close similarity between the very peculiar languages spoken by the Koranas on the Orange river and all the scattered Masarwa clans that wander over the arid country stretching from the Limpopo to the Chobi river, there must be a very close racial connection between the two peoples. On the whole, I am inclined to believe that the greater part of the Bushmen I have met with were of pure race, with very little, if any, admixture of Bantu blood in their veins.

I never remember to have noticed any marked tendency to that wonderful development of the buttocks (steatopygia) in Masarwa women which is so characteristic a feature in pure-bred Korana women after they have reached middle age. Bushmen and Bushwomen, however, lead terribly hard lives, and do not often get the chance to become really fat, in the districts in which I have met with them. Should they do so, the men noticeably—far more so than the women—put on more flesh on the buttocks than do well-fed Europeans; but this is the case with the men of all the Bantu races as well. All the members of the royal family of Matabeleland, both male and female, who had passed middle age showed a most extraordinary development of the thighs and buttocks.

In addition to the yellow-skinned Bushmen, however, who are without doubt the oldest aboriginal race in South Africa, there are—or were—also to be found living in the eastern part of the Kalahari a few scattered communities of a race known to the Bechwanas as Bakalahari—they of the desert.

Speaking of these people, Dr. Livingstone wrote long ago, in that most admirable book Missionary Travels: "The Bakalahari are traditionally reported to be the oldest of the Bechwana tribes, and they are said to have possessed enormous herds of the large horned cattle mentioned by Bruce, until they were despoiled of them and driven into the desert by a fresh migration of their own nation. Living ever since on the same plains with the Bushmen, subjected to the same influences of climate, enduring the same thirst and subsisting on similar food for centuries, they seem to supply a standing proof that locality is not always sufficient of itself to account for difference in races. The Bakalahari retain in undying vigour the Bechwana love for agriculture and domestic animals. They hoe their gardens annually, though often all they can hope for is a supply of melons and pumpkins. And they carefully rear small herds of goats, though I have seen them lift water for them out of small wells with a bit of ostrich egg-shell or by spoonfuls."

I used to think that the Bakalahari were a mixed race formed by the amalgamation of broken Bechwana tribes with the desert Bushmen. But I believe there is no warrant for this. Though all those I have seen spoke the language of the Bushmen as well as Sechwana, there can be no doubt that Dr. Livingstone was quite right in saying that, although the Bakalahari have lived a life of terrible hardship and privation for centuries in the desert, they still remain in character true Bechwanas, with all the love of that race for agriculture and stock-breeding.

Under the kind and just rule of Khama many Bakalahari have given up their nomadic life and once more become a settled agricultural tribe. They were supplied with seed-corn and given cattle, sheep, and goats to look after, and in 1879 I found large communities of these once miserable outcasts living near the wells of Klabala, cultivating large areas of ground, and growing so much Kafir corn and maize that, except in seasons of severe drought, they would never again have been likely to suffer from the famine against which their immediate ancestors had constantly struggled. These people, too, were tending considerable herds of cattle, sheep, and goats belonging to Khama, a portion of the increase of which was given to them every year.

I do not think there is any instance on record of a tribe or family of the aboriginal yellow Bushmen having given up their wild free life in the desert and taken to agricultural or pastoral pursuits.

In habits and mode of life true Bushmen seem to be the same wherever they are met with, and the Masarwa—the Bushmen of the interior of South Africa—certainly resemble very closely in these respects the descriptions I have read of their now almost extinct kinsmen of the Cape Colony. They build no huts, but merely erect temporary small shelters of boughs with a little dry grass thrown on the top. They neither sow nor reap any kind of grain, nor do they possess any kind of domestic animals, except small jackal-like dogs, which cannot bark. They obtain fire very rapidly with two pieces of wood. One of these is held flat on the ground by the feet of a man sitting down, whilst the other, the end of which has been placed in a small notch cut for its reception, is whirled rapidly round between the open hands, until the fine wood dust produced by the friction begins to smoulder, when it is placed amongst some dry grass and blown into flame.

The dress for men, women, and girls amongst the Masarwa is the same as that which used to be worn by the Bechwana and Makalaka tribes before these latter had come in contact with Europeans. They obtain iron-headed spears and earthenware cooking pots from the neighbouring Kafir tribes in exchange for the skins of wild animals, their only native weapon being the bow and arrow. Their bows are very small and weak-looking, and their arrows are unfeathered, being made of light reeds into the ends of which bone heads are inserted. These bone arrow-heads are always thickly smeared with poison, which seems to be made from the body of a grub or caterpillar mixed with gum. At least, in the bark quivers of the Bushmen whose belongings I have examined, I have usually found, besides their arrows and fire-sticks, a small bark cylinder closed at one end, in which were the bodies of grubs or caterpillars preserved in gum, which I was told contained the poison they smeared on their arrows.

The Masarwa living immediately to the west of Matabeleland have long since discarded their bows and poisoned arrows in favour of firearms, but twenty or thirty years ago these curiously toy-like but very effective weapons were in general use amongst the Bushmen living in the deserts to the south and west of the Botletlie river.

Except that they do not eat grass, Bushmen are almost as omnivorous as bears. Besides the flesh of every kind of animal from an elephant to a mouse (which is acceptable to them in any and every stage of decomposition), they eat certain kinds of snakes, fish, lizards, frogs, tortoises, grubs, locusts, flying ants, wild honey, young bees, ostrich eggs, nestling birds of all sorts, and various kinds of berries, bulbs, and roots. Bushwomen may often be met with miles away from their encampments, wandering alone over the desert wastes they inhabit, searching for edible roots and bulbs, which they dig up with pointed sticks. The children, too, begin to forage for themselves at a very early age, and I have seen little mites, apparently not more than two or three years old, crawling on their hands and knees on the tracks of tortoises. It was explained to me that these reptiles make light scratches on the ground with their claws as they walk along, and these almost imperceptible marks the infant Bushmen are taught to follow. No wonder they grow up to be good game trackers!

In many parts of the countries the Bushmen inhabit not only does game periodically become scarce or almost non-existent, but all other sources of food supply are liable at times to fail them as well.

At such times these wild people sometimes endure the most terrible privations, and no doubt numbers of them succumb yearly to slow starvation.

I have often met with families of Bushmen all the members of which were in such a terrible state of emaciation that it seemed a marvel that they were still alive. In such cases the flesh appeared to have almost completely wasted away from their legs and arms, leaving nothing but the bones encased in dry yellow-brown skin, whilst their faces looked like skulls covered with parchment, though the small black eyes still glittered from the depths of their sockets.

Whenever I have encountered Bushmen in this condition, they were never actually without food, but, in default of anything better, seemed to have been living for a long time past on certain kinds of berries, which were so innutritious that very large quantities had to be eaten to support life at all. The consequence was that the bellies of these slowly starving savages were always enormously distended, giving them a most grotesque though pitiable appearance.

If some large animal such as a giraffe or elephant be killed and given to a starving Bushman family they will all manage to get to the carcase, though it be miles away and they appear to be in the last stage of emaciation. Once there, it is with the men a case of "J'y suis, j'y reste," and they will not move again until every bit of the meat is eaten. The women and children have to fetch water every day, though it may be miles distant. However wasted and apparently near death Bushmen may be, once they get alongside of a dead elephant they recover flesh and regain their strength in a marvellously short space of time.

When hunting in the Linquasi district to the west of Matabeleland, in 1873, I often noticed large pieces of rhinoceros and giraffe hide which had evidently been placed by human hands high up in the branches of trees. These slabs of hide, the Bushmen told me, had belonged to animals killed by their people, and had been placed in the trees out of the reach of hyænas as a provision against starvation in times of famine.

I was once riding behind some hungry Bushmen looking for giraffe in the country between the Mababi and Botletlie rivers, when they came on a single ostrich egg lying on the ground. It was then late in September, and this egg had in all probability been laid in the previous May or June, and had lain on the ground in the broiling sun ever since.

My gaunt and hungry guides seemed greatly excited over their find, and each of them in turn held it up and shook it close to his ear. Then I saw they were going to break it, so I moved to one side, as I expected it would go off with a loud explosion. It was, however, long past that stage, all the contents of the egg having solidified into a thick brown-coloured paste at the one end. I never would have believed, if I had not experienced it, that so much smell could have been given off by so small an amount of matter. As I once heard an American lady remark of the atmosphere of a small mosque in which we had been watching some dancing Dervishes at Constantinople, it gave off "a poor odour"—one of the poorest, I think, I have ever encountered, in her sense of the word, though by many people it might have been thought too rich.

With the Bushmen, however, an egg in the hand was evidently considered to be worth more than a problematical animal in the bush, and they at once sat down, and taking turn and turn about, slowly and with evident relish licked up the fœtid contents of the treasure which fortune had thrown in their way. Up to this time we had not even seen the fresh track of a giraffe, but not long afterwards we sighted a magnificent old bull, which I managed to kill for them after a hard gallop through some very thick and thorny bush.

When I met with the first Bushmen I ever saw on the banks of the Orange river, in 1872, I was a very young man, and regarding them with some repugnance, wrote in my diary that they appeared to be very few steps removed from the brute creation. That was a very foolish and ignorant remark to make, and I have since found out that though Bushmen may possibly be to-day in the same backward state of material development and knowledge as once were the palæolithic ancestors of the most highly cultured European races in prehistoric times, yet fundamentally there is very little difference between the natures of primitive and civilised men, so that it is quite possible for a member of one of the more cultured races to live for a time quite happily and contentedly amongst beings who are often described as degraded savages, and from whom he is separated by thousands of years in all that is implied by the word "civilisation." I have hunted a great deal with Bushmen, and during 1884 I lived amongst these people continuously for several months together. On many and many a night I have slept in their encampments without even any Kafir attendants, and though I was entirely in their power, I always felt perfectly safe amongst them. As most of the men spoke Sechwana, I was able to converse with them, and found them very intelligent companions, full of knowledge concerning the habits of all the wild animals inhabiting the country in which they lived. I found the Bushmen very good-tempered people, and they are undoubtedly the best of all the natives of South Africa to have with one when in pursuit of game, as they are such wonderful trackers, and so intimately acquainted with the habits of every kind of wild animal. To be seen at their best they must be hungry, but not starving. They will then be capable of marvellous feats of endurance. I have known a Bushman run on elephant spoor in front of my horse for five hours, only very occasionally slowing down to a walk for a few minutes. He ran till it got dark, and as we had neither blankets nor food, which had been left with the Kafirs far behind, we lit a big fire, beside which we sat all night, not daring to lie down and sleep, for fear lest lions should kill my horse, which we had to watch whilst it fed round near the fire. When we took up the elephant tracks again the next morning, we had been twenty-four hours without food, and it was late in the afternoon before we were making a meal off elephant's heart. During the two days this Bushman must have walked and run for at least eighty miles without food or sleep, and he never showed the least sign of exhaustion. Living as they do in families or small communities, Bushmen have not developed any warlike qualities, and I cannot imagine any of them I have known being anxious "to seek the bubble glory at the cannon's mouth"; but for all that they are certainly more courageous with dangerous game than the generality of Kafirs. A friend of mine was once out looking for game on horseback, accompanied by a single Bushman. The Bushman, who was walking in front of the horse, suddenly spied a lion lying flat on the ground watching them, and less than fifty yards away. Raising his left hand as a sign to my friend to stop, he pointed at the crouching animal with his spear, at the same time retiring slowly backwards until he stood beside the horse. "Tauw ki-o" ("There is a lion"), he quietly said; but my friend for the life of him could not see it. The Bushman then again advanced, and taking the horse by the bridle, led it a few paces forwards, when his master at last saw the lion, and firing from the saddle, disabled it with the first shot, and finished it with a second. It was a fine big animal, but without much mane. My friend said it was the lion's eyes that he first saw, and then the twitching of its tail. He was very much pleased with the coolness and staunchness of the Bushman, quite a young man. Oh, if I had only had that Bushman for a gun-carrier on a certain day in 1877, when the most magnificently maned lion I ever saw in my life suddenly showed himself within twenty yards of me, and the wretched Makalaka who was carrying my rifle and was just behind me, instead of putting it into my outstretched hand, turned and ran off with it! Had I killed that lion, its skin would have been my trophy of trophies, but—kismet! it was not to be.

In 1874, 1877, and again in 1879, during which years I shot a great number of buffaloes along the Chobi river, and followed many of them into very thick cover after having wounded them, I always employed Bushmen to act as my gun-carriers, and better men for such work it would have been impossible to find, for not only were they always cool and self-possessed in any emergency, but the quickness of their eyesight, and their intimate knowledge of the animals we were pursuing, gave them a great advantage over the staunchest of gun-carriers drawn from any Kafir tribe.

Although the wives and children of Bushmen lead very hard lives, especially when food is scarce, and have always to keep the encampment supplied with water no matter how far it has to be carried, I have never seen them ill-treated, and I have seen both the men and the women show affection for their children. In fact, the Bushmen of South Africa, although they have never advanced beyond the primitive stage of culture attained to by their distant ancestors at a very remote period of the worlds history, are ethically much the same on the average as the members of all other races of mankind, which shows how little the fundamental nature of man has changed throughout the ages, and during the evolution and destruction of many civilisations. I have known Bushmen to be very grasping and avaricious, and to show an utter want of sympathy or kindness towards a fellow-man in distress; but has civilisation eliminated such defects of character in all members of the most highly cultured societies? Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, are crimes against the Bushman's code of morals, just as they are with more civilised peoples, and they are probably less frequently practised amongst primitive than amongst civilised races. A Bushman will resent an injury and be grateful for a kindness just like an Englishman, a Hindu, or a Red Indian. Whenever I was told, as I often was in South Africa, that all natives were black brutes who could not understand kindness and were incapable of gratitude, I always knew that the masterful gentleman or fair lady who was speaking to me had no kindness in their own natures, and that never in all their lives had they given any native the slightest reason to be grateful to them.

The Bushmen are the only really primitive race in South Africa, but, rude and uncultured though they may be, I cannot look upon them as degraded savages, but rather as a race whose development was arrested long ago, by the circumstances of their surroundings; but whose members, nevertheless, are beings whose human hearts can be touched and whose sympathies can be aroused by the kindness of another human being, however widely separated the latter may be from themselves in race and degree of culture. Well and truly has it been said by one of England's most illustrious sons, "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."