244 BUSHMAN RELICS NEAR MODDERPOOR.T. 



anklets and wristlets and black shields (or karosses). A little 

 Bushman seems to be attacking one group, and another to be fallen. 

 Another group has a dog, which friend of man was said not to 

 have been known to Zulu tribes before 1827. Hence this group 

 is probably Basuto, especially as one appears to have trousers, 

 which may have been got from the Koranas. though these did not 

 com.e to live near till the thirties. The figures are often beauti- 

 fully formed, with well rounded muscles, except the heads, which 

 are a mere bob of paint for the Bushmen, though they are careful 

 to shew the prognathous jaw of the Kafir. Sometimes also they 

 remark his lanky legs and protruding heel, as in a ridiculous picture 

 of one doubling up before the butt of an eland at bay, but some 

 of the figures are beautifully drawn, one resembling the attitude 

 of Satan in Dore's Miltonic scene of his court in Pandemonium. 

 There are some pictures of dancers with animal heads. Some 

 of the figures seem to be dancing on their knees as Basuto girls 

 sometimes do. In conclusion there is a scene of two eland, bull 

 and cow, with two figures behind the latter (perhaps by another 

 hand), and two in ambush in the reeds, while a woman stands 

 in the foreground, of whom the beasts apparently take no notice, 

 knowing she is not armed (so a native explained to me). The 

 reeds are deftly put in with a dark wash ; nothing so crude as 

 the substantial sticks, by which an English beginner would have 

 represented them — and a most vigorous group of a Kafir leaping 

 with his assegai upon a large spotted beast, leopard or what not. 



In another part of the mountain where pictures are not seen, 

 a carving on stone was found, and under the pictures I once 

 found a digging stick, which I regret to say I gave away because 

 at the time its authenticity was derided. 



I have just learnt two points more from one of the Bataung 

 who intermarried with them. The poison of their arrows was 

 not merely poisonous to the wound but also in the mouth. 

 Whereas snake's poison may be innocuous to drink, a Queen 

 Eleanor who should suck the wound of a Bushman's victim would 

 have to fill her mouth first with the secret antidote. The other 

 point is that I am assured that a Kafir, at any rate, marrying a 

 Bushman woman, as many did, was supposed to hold her tight 

 while her family rained blows upon his head (fairly thick, but 

 not so much so as a Bushman's, said my informant). This is 

 evidently a relic of marriage by capture, but my informant's 

 relative offered three cattle instead, which the Bushmen accepted 

 instead of beating him till they were tired. The Bushmen were 

 not, of course, pastoral, so that this is a fairly up-to-date example 

 of the great transition from capture-marriage to marriage-cattle 

 through which most of our ancestors have passed. 



SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE GENUS 



IVIDDRINCrONIA. 



By W. T. Saxton, AI.A. 



(Not printed.) . 



