Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/46

22 mouth, small nose, a sort of hair or wool all over the chest, arms, and legs; then eyes are small and restless, watching every movement that is going on; the tallest man did not exceed four feet four; their skin was of a reddish brown. A few old skins, broken ostrich eggs, and bows and arrows, seemed all they possessed of worldly goods.

“They would have decamped and hid in the bush, but I sent some of my Bushmen and brought them back. I asked my own boys if they were then brothers, meaning of the same race; they repudiated the idea, and said they were monkeys not men, and told me there were very few ever seen, it was very seldom they ever came upon any; they eat carrion. They are evidently a distinct race from the Masara Bushmen who are largely distributed over the desert. One of the women had a baby not much larger than a half-grown kitten; all of them were destitute of clothing.

“I find there are four types of Bushmen in this desert; the lowest is the one already described with no forehead and half wool and hair on their bodies and legs. The second is the wild Bushmen, who live in the mountains near the Orange river, who war on all men, but they are of good form, without hair. The third is the Masara Bush family, also of good proportions and of gentle dispositions, inoffensive and harmless, ready to help or do anything, and they make good servants. It was this tribe I had with me in my wanderings. The two girls I took in charge made good cooks, washed the clothes, and mended them. The fourth is much taller and well formed, great rascals, who cannot be trusted with anything; they inhabit the eastern portion of the desert and down by Langberg.”

The possession of bows and arrows by the degraded creatures here mentioned would seem to prevent their classification as members of an earlier race than the Bushmen, unless they had adopted these weapons from others.

This I believe is all the evidence to hand as yet for or against a race preceding the Bushmen in South Africa. It leaves the question uncertain, and any conjecture regarding