Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/129

Rh and sizes in the South African museum in Capetown. It is supposed that the stones perforated by Hottentots were always of a distinct type from those drilled by Bushmen, but this is not certain, though as far as is known only spherical weights are picked up in tracts of country that were exclusively occupied by the aborigines, and compressed spheres wherever the later intruders or people connected with them lived, where also a few stones have been found that have first been perforated and then chipped into a convenient shape for use.

Hottentots, or it would be more correct to say mixed-breeds largely of Bushman blood who had been brought up at Hottentot kraals, who spoke the Hottentot language, and whose ideas and normal habits were those of Hottentots, were found living in the manner here indicated when Europeans first came to the country—one small band where Capetown now stands,—and on the coast of Namaqualand there were some existing in a similar state after the middle of the nineteenth century. As far as food, clothing, and lodging were concerned, they were in no better condition than the Bushmen who lived in a similar manner, though there was always the hope before them of acquiring cattle by a successful raid, in which case they would at once revert to the ordinary mode of living of the pastoral communities.

Only a few of the recent shell heaps on the South African coast, however, were made by Hottentot-speaking people. Much the greater number were made by Bushmen, as is proved by the articles found in them and by the paintings on rocks in their neighbourhood; and these may be taken as forming a connected series with the most ancient mounds. A painting is the most positive evidence of the locality having been occupied by Bushmen, as the Hottentots did not practise that art, and the captives of the wild race living with them, being females only, could not introduce it.

The Hottentots, as observed before, did not form a continuous line of settlement, but a series of dots, frequently far apart, and between these stations Bushmen still lived, though the enmity between the two races was so strong that they were constantly seeking to destroy each other. This will account for