Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/31

Rh In the earliest stages of man's development three principal causes must have operated in forcing him to think: hunger, disease, and war. These were the elementary factors of civilisation. In favourable localities in other parts of the world commerce, as a powerful factor, came at a later period, but in South Africa that stage was not easily arrived at.

This is apparent if the physical condition of the country be considered. The land rises from the ocean level in terraces or steps, until a vast interior plain is reached. Deep gorges have been worn by the action of water, in some places internal forces have caused elevations, in other places depressions, and everywhere along the margins of the terraces distortions may be seen. There are no navigable rivers, and the coast is bold and unbroken. The steep fronts of the terraces, which from the lower side appear to be mountain ranges, and the absence of running water in dry seasons over large surfaces, tended likewise to prevent intercourse between the different parts of the country. The rude people of each section were left to themselves, without that stimulus to improvement which contact with strangers gives. There was very little necessity to exert the mind to provide clothing or habitations, for since the close of the ice period in Europe and the corresponding fluctuations of temperature in the southern hemisphere the climate has been uniformly mild, and even on the elevated interior plain snow never lies long on the ground. Like the wild animals, man on occasions of severe weather could find some temporary shelter. In this respect a savage is far more callous than a civilised man.

Hunger must have forced him to think, to plan the destruction of game, to search for edible plants, and to reject those that were noxious; but after becoming acquainted with the flora in his locality and with the use of poison in the chase, that factor would lose much of its potency. The cultivation of the ground or the domestication of animals could no more enter the mind of a savage in the palæolithic stage than into that of a child learning to walk. Disease would compel him to think, but only in an exceedingly