PALAEOLITHIC RACES 683 



cealed pitfalls, or suspending a heavily weighted weapon over 

 the path to the water pools. 



The pursuit of large game was the occupation of the men, 

 but there was also a chase of small game, and this, as well as 

 the collection of vegetable food, was the work of the women. 

 No one who has travelled over the Karoo can have seen 

 without surprise the monstrous ant-hills which disturb the 

 irregularity of the plain : the " eggs " of the ants, or more 

 properly termites, known to the white man as Bushman's rice, 

 were a food they could fall back upon when other resources 

 failed. Provided with a digging stick — that is, a stick pointed at 

 one end and weighted by a perforated stone at the other — the 

 women would unearth large quantities of these " eggs." When 

 sufficient had been obtained they were cleaned by sifting 

 away the accompanying sand, and then, with the addition of 

 a little fat, roasted over a fire until they turned a nice brown. 

 Cooked in this way they are said to have been delicious eating. 



Locusts were a favourite dish, and the swarms of these 

 great insects which darken the air in their flight * were looked 

 forward to as bringing a time of plenty. They were not only 

 eaten fresh, but preserved for hard times by drying and 

 pounding up into a powder. This was boiled into a sort of 

 porridge, or mixed with honey and made into a cake : in the 

 latter form it was appreciated even by Europeans. Frogs 

 and serpents were dainty eating : poisonous serpents were 

 decapitated before being cooked ; their flesh has the flavour of 

 chicken. 



The vegetable kingdom was ransacked for all that it could 

 afford, even the seeds of wild grasses were collected and stored 

 for winter use. How short a step it seems from this to agri- 

 culture ; but to take this step requires qualities that the 

 Bushman never possessed, and inconsistent with his uncon- 

 querable love of a wild life. A kind of bread was made out 

 of the pithy interior of Zamias, or of the root of Testudinaria 

 elephas. Water was carried either in ostrich eggs, sometimes 

 elaborately adorned with incised lines, or in part of the 

 intestine of a zebra or the paunch of a gnu. It is pleasant to 

 find that these hardy hunters were not unacquainted with 

 cheerful stimulants ; they brewed an excellent mead from wild 



1 I once mistook them for smoke pouring in clouds from a forest supposed to 

 be on fire. 



