Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/150

 112 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. « animals, hunting scenes, and combats with the hated Boers. Thus a certain ideal element has been developed in the lives of these lowly aborigines, whom the surrounding peoples — Kafirs, Hottentots, Dutch, and English — thought themselves till recently fully justified in hunting down like wild beasts. Their oral treasuree of fables, tales, and myths, never fail by their wealth and variety lo excite the wonder of all explorers in this interesting field of inquiry. Although distributed in scattered groups, without national cohesion of any sort, the Bushmen manifest much sympathy for each other, cheerfully co-operating together on all opportune occasions. After hunting in common, the division of the prey is unattended by any wrangling, although no tribal chief presides over the distribution. In fact, there is neither tribe nor chief in the strict sense of these terms, the Bushmen possessing no political or social organisation of any kind ; and although the family group is not regularly constituted, the sentiments of natural aficction are none the less highly developed. Formerly a man provided himself with a temporary mate by the simple device of capturing the child, whose mother never failed to come and share the lot of her offspring. To judge from tlic fate of those belonging to the colony south of the Orange River, the Bushmen would seem to be destined soon to disappear ; for in this region they have been hunted like wild beasts, and most of those who ha e escaped extermination have taken refuge in the northern solitudes. Sparrmann relates how the squatters lay in ambush, attracting them by the bait of an animal's carcass left in the bush, and sparing neither man, woman, nor child, except perhaps such as might serve to increase the number of their slaves. Whenever they caught sight of a Bushman, they fired at once, following up the chase with their horses and dogs, pursuing him like any ordinary quarry. The very courage of the Sans often proved fatal to them, for there is scarcely an instance recorded of their forsaking their wounded and dead, preferring in all cases to remain and be killed by their side. North of the Orange River, on the frontiers of the Dutch republics and of Bechuanaland, the Bushmen were hunted down in the same way ; but in the Kalahari Desert, and farther north in the direction of the Zarabese, several San communities have maintained their independence, and these do not appear to be diminishing in number. In the Ilerero and Namaqua territories there are from four thousand to five thousand of these aborigines, and in the whole of Austral Africa probably about fifty thousand altogether. The IIottentots. The Hottentots, who, on the arrival of the Europeans, occupied nearly all the western part of the region now known as Cape Colony, are here still numerous, constituting, without the half-castes, alwut one-seventh of the whole population. Their popular name appears to be merely a terra of contempt, meaning " stammerers," or, as we should say, " jabberers," imposed on them by the early Dutch and Frisian settlers, no doubt in consequence of their strange and imin-