Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/77

Rh a savage. Flat circular stones with a hole drilled through the centre have been found in different parts of the country, but until quite recently no one could conceive any use that could be made of them. They were not adapted for digging-sticks, as they were not more than three or four centimetres in thickness, and the surface was too large for such a purpose. What could they have been designed for?

Not long ago a farmer was digging a pit in his ground near Kimberley, and at some depth below the surface he came across some ostrich eggshells. Still deeper he found a flat stone firmly fixed on the surface of a stratum of rock or very hard ground, and on examination the stone was seen to have a hole in it, which was carefully plugged. When the plug was removed, a little stream of water flowed out, which explained the whole matter. The Bushmen who occupied that part of the country until the beginning of the nineteenth century had desired to conceal the water, in order either to preserve it for themselves alone, or to compel the game to resort to poisoned pools, and therefore had closed the eye of the spring in such a manner that neither animals nor men, except themselves, could have access to it. A European would never have imagined that a stone of this kind was intended for such a purpose, if he had found it by accident somewhere else.

Mr. Stow mentions various implements of stone which were manufactured by Bushmen with much labour and skill, but these were only produced after their contact with other races, and were confined to small localities. None of them surpassed the common spherical weight as a work of labour or art.

There is no record of a European having ever seen a Bushman manufacturing other stone implements than knives and arrowheads, and no one except Mr. Stow appears to have made inquiry into the matter until it was impossible to derive any information from the people themselves. Even he commenced his investigations at least half a century too late to gain full knowledge of the