Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/101

Rh encourage a pastoral life, but all were without success. To this day there has not been a single instance of a Bushman of pure blood having permanently adopted the habits of a white man, though a few mixed breeds from Hottentot and Bantu fathers are to be found among the least skilful class of labourers in some parts of the country. Even these are generally too feeble in body to endure anything like severe toil, and unless they intermingle with blacks quickly decrease in number. Those of unmixed blood who were not destroyed as noxious animals by the invaders of their hunting grounds could not exist in presence of a high civilisation, but dwindled away rapidly, and have now nearly died out altogether. It would seem that for them progress was possible in no other way than by exceedingly slow development and blending their blood in successive stages with races always a little more advanced.

A small community of savages calling themselves kãi, known to other Bushmen as Xatia, and to Europeans as the Katia (Kat-ee-ah), is found in Betshuanaland, with a little offshoot on the banks of the Nosop nullah in the Kalahari desert. Much interest has been attached to these people, owing to the circumstance that their origin was long regarded as shrouded in mystery, and it was even supposed by some persons that they were earlier inhabitants of South Africa than the Bushmen. That mystery has now been entirely cleared away, mainly through the investigations of a daughter of the late Dr. Bleek, who is diligently pursuing the researches of her father and her aunt Dr. Lloyd.

The Katia are of mixed blood, being descended from Bushmen and Bantu women taken captive in war only four or five generations ago. In appearance they differ greatly from the Masarwa, who are also of mixed Bushman and Bantu blood, but this arises from their different manner of living. The male progenitors of the Masarwa were Bantu, who