4l8 NOTES ON SOME BUSHMAN PAINTINGS. 



A careful search, however, brought to light what seemed to 

 be engravings of somewhat unusual outline, but were in reality 

 the remains of paintings from which the colouring matter had 

 been so carefully scraped that the original outlines, of elands and 

 other animals, had been preserved entire. 



The care with which the pigment had been removed seemed at 

 the time very extraordinary, but the writer has since""been informed 

 by Mr. T. L. Fairclough, of Wepener, who knows the Basuto 

 well, that they were in the habit of using bushman-paint as medi- 

 cine, and the object probably was to collect as much of it as 

 possible. 



Matlakenff, the place of vultures, not far from here, is a ledge 

 of rock reached after a weary climb, with shady roof, vultures, 

 and a number of paintings, some of them much faded. 



These include bucks, women and men (?) as portrayed by the 

 bushman or the bushwoman, and forms nearly circular (2 J inches 

 in diameter) with appendages, that seem to be crustaceans — 

 " Things that swim about in our pools," said the Basuto guide. 



At Mohlaka-oa-tuka, which, being interpreted, means a burn- 

 ing moor, close to a Basuto village, are paintings that the Asso- 

 ciation party were, for once, able to climb down to see. Here 

 there is a wall of somewhat exposed rock, having a strip — some 

 36 feet long and 6 feet deep — covered with what at one time must 

 have been very beautiful paintings of well-drawn antelopes and 

 other animals in rich and varied hues, and with little dark human 

 figures like those above referred to, as being probablv of a later 

 date. 



In one case, however, that of a large buck rearing and two 

 pygmy hunters, the latter seem to fit the scene except for their 

 minute size and the greater freshness and the inferior quality of 

 the colour used to depict them. This may of course be the result 

 of touching up at a later date, and a lack of proportion is only 

 too common in bushman, and other, paintings. 



The larger animals have had to pay a Jieavy penalty for their 

 proximity to a village and a high-road, and the elements too have 

 dealt so unkindly with them, that it was impossible to determine 

 whether at one time they may not have been parts of elaborate 

 compositions, though occasional little scenes remain that seem 

 to suggest this. 



A few tracings were obtained shewing the eland in a variety of 

 attitudes that are a pleasing change from the usual side view. 

 The dark colour of the bodies must have been originally of a rich 

 red, and where this meets the cream tint of the necks there is 

 sometimes what might be considered as shading, but more pro- 

 bably is due to the running of the paints when fresh or later on 

 from decomposition. 



Niappering* is near the village of the chief Theko, and not 

 far from Machache, the object of our pilgrimage. Here there 

 are paintings that are well worth even a very long journey. 



A ride from camp across many a ploughed mealie-field and a 



^Referred to as " Theko's Village " in " Bushman Paintings," copied 

 by M. Helen Tongue, with a preface by Henry Balfour. Oxford, 

 1909, 4 to, 48 pp., 2 chromo collotypes, 54 col. pis., 8 illustr., map. 



