436 THE BUSHMEN. 



service in anything, they are thrust out of the society and 

 confined to a solitary hut at a considerable distance from the 

 kraal, there, with a small stock of provisions placed within 

 their reach, but without any one to comfort or assist 'ein, to 

 die either of age or hunger, or be devoured by some wild 

 beast."* This, it must be remembered, was no exceptional 

 atrocity, but a general custom, and applied to the rich as well 

 as the poor, for if an old man had property it was taken away 

 from him. Infanticide, again, was very common among them, 

 and was not regarded as a crime. Girls were generally the 

 victims ; and if a woman had twins, the ugliest of them was 

 almost always exposed or buried alive. This was done with 

 the consent of " the whole kraal, which generally allows it 

 without taking much pains to look into it."+ The poverty 

 and the hardships which they had to undergo may perhaps 

 plead as some excuse for these two unnatural customs. 



The Bushmen resembled the Hottentots in many things, 

 but were even more uncivilized. They had no knowledge 

 of metallurgy, no domestic animals, and no canoes. They 

 frequently stole the cattle of their more advanced neighbours, 

 but always killed and ate them as quickly as possible. Their 

 principal weapons were bows and poisoned arrows. Lichten- 

 stein asserts that they had no names, J but this was probably 

 an error. Bleek regards them as the lowest of human races, 

 and Haeckel even goes so far as to assert that they seem " to 

 the unprejudiced comparative student of nature, to manifest 

 a closer connexion with the gorilla and chimpanzee than with 

 a Kant or a Goethe." 



The Veddalis. 

 The Veddahs, or wild tribes who inhabit the interior of 



* 1. c. p. 321. On the Origin of Language, by 



f 1. c. p. 144. W. H. J. Bleek. Edited by Dr. E. 



Travels in Southern Africa, Haeckel, pp. 4, 5. 

 \o\. i. p. 192. 



