NOTES ON SOME BUSHMAN PAINTINGS IN THE THABA 

 BOSIGO DISTRICT, BASUTOLAND. 



By M. WiLMAN. 



During a week's trek in the Thaba Bosigo District, undertaken 

 in October last under the auspices of this Association, the writer 

 was so fortunate as to be able to examine and to make tracings* 

 of some paintings by the early inhabitants of the country. They 

 are not numerous, at least those known to the natives who accom- 

 panied the party and to those questioned on the way are not 

 numerous ; but some of them are of interest and seem well worth 

 recording. 



Most of the paintings are on the more or less perpendicular 

 walls of the so-called " caves " of the Cave Sandstones, of which 

 so much of the country is formed. The ** caves," however, though 

 often immense, are seldom of any great depth and are better 

 described as "rock-shelters." 



On the spurs of Thaba Bosigo, a long and arduous climb 

 brings one to the cave-dwellings of Ntloklolo. Here, we had 

 been assured, were paintings by the Baroa. 



The cave-dwellings, perched high up, along a very long, 

 narrow ledge of rock with gigantic caves, proved of exceptional 

 interest ; but the paintings near them had almost vanished. Some 

 had faded ; some, apparently the older and better ones, had been 

 scratched over and nearly obliterated ; while all were so far above 

 the level of the floor of the shelter that it would have been impos- 

 sible to make tracings of them, even had they been worth the 

 trouble. 



At a little distance from the dwellings, however, a few paint- 

 ings were found, some of them so faded that they could only be 

 traced after having been carefully sponged over. 



Unlike those just referred to, these proved to be miniature 

 paintings of human beings and of animals, the less faded ones 

 being not of the common light-red paint, but of a dull dark-red 

 colour, made probably from micaceous haematite, a mineral much 

 favoured by the Bushman. 



They exhibit no great skill in draughtsmanship, no varietv 

 whatever in technique, and appear to be of comparatively recent 

 date ; but they are of interest because they are so characteristic of 

 the district, similar ones being almost everywhere met with, dotted 

 among the larger, finer and probably older pictures. 



Near Little Roma is the Basuto place of execution, a steep 

 place where formerly criminals were simply and easily disposed of, 

 by being hurled down headlong. 



Hard by is Baroeng, the place of the Baroa ; a couple of pro- 

 truding rocks, with a landscape of quite extraordinary extent and 

 beauty stretching out beneath them. Here, the inhabitants were 

 positive, were paintings by the Baroa. Yet the first impression 

 was one of disappointment. 



*The5e, together with the reproductions made from them, are now in 

 the collection of the McGregor Museum, Kimberlev. 



