Page:On the Central South African Tribes from the South Coast to the Zambesi.pdf/3

 They were of stone, on the tops of mountains, put together without any cement, but so well fitted together that they have stood for hundreds of years. Some of the ruins were formed of blocks of granite in the shape of large bricks. The tops of small hills were in this way fortified, with openings in the walls. I am not certain that these remains belonged to those who inhabited the Empire of Monopotapa, but I am sure that they belong to no tribe that is at present found in South Africa. I think that some of the stone work was made complete by a wooden fence erected on the top of it. Exploration of these ruins would, I feel confident, be amply rewarded. When I saw them I was too ill with fever to do more than make sketches.

From what I observed of the wars that have been carried on between the different tribes during the last few years, I come to the conclusion that whole tribes have been exterminated in South Africa. When a country is conquered it is the custom to kill all the male population, take the women and children prisoners, and educate the latter as warriors for the victorious tribe, or enslave them. In this way whole tribes have ceased to exist. We know that Livingstone mentions a powerful tribe of the Basutos on the Upper Zambesi, named the Makololo, but if we now visit those parts we find that the only representatives of that tribe are women and children, and one man. The latter was spared because the daughter of the king took a liking to him, but all the other male adults have been killed. These wars cause a great many difficulties to the anthropologist because the races become mixed.

Between the Limpopo and the Zambesi we find ten different tribes mixed with the Zulu race, and a gentleman going among them in order to make anthropological researches would see many things that would astonish him. The men of ten tribes who formerly lived in the vicinity have been killed; and the women and children having been captured, a new Zulu population has been created.

The living tribes I divide according to their language and external appearance into three races—I do not consider that the customs are sufficiently distinctive to enable me to make the division. First, there are the Bushmen; secondly, the Hottentots; and thirdly, the Banthu. I found a link between the Bushmen and the South African Banthu family, and between the Bushmen and the Central African, but not between the Hottentots and the Banthu.

I will speak first of the Bushmen. The Bushmen inhabiting the eastern parts of the colony and a small portion of the Orange Free State belong to the pure race of Bushmen, which had been described before I ever entered South Africa. As is well known, 2