XIX STARVING BUSHMEN 403 



valued of my hunting trophies. Having off-saddled 

 Bob tor a short time, I again set off, and, carrying 

 the gemsbuck's head before me on the saddle, at last 

 reached the waggons about 2 p.m. The meat and 

 skin I was forced to leave to the vultures, for which 

 I was the more sorry as the animal was in fine condi- 

 tion ; but as I had not a single Kafir with me I could 

 not do otherwise, for, not knowing when we should 

 again get water, and my horse having had none since 

 noon the previous day, I could not load him up too 

 heavily. In the evening, just at sundown, we again 

 reached the river. At the place where we struck it, 

 it was very narrow, with steep banks and not many 

 reeds in it. 



At this place we found living a family of three- 

 quarters-starved Bushmen. It is a marvel how these 

 poor wretches managed to keep body and soul 

 together. They had been living for a long time 

 past, they said, on nothing but a few small berries 

 and an odd tortoise, and were in such a fearful state 

 of emaciation that it made one shudder to look at 

 them. Their hollow shrunken faces looked like 

 skulls with dried skins stretched tightly over them. 

 All the flesh on their limbs seemed to have atrophied, 

 the knee and elbow joints and the bones of the pelvis 

 standing out in unsightly knobs, whilst (owing to 

 their having to eat a great quantity of very in- 

 nutritious food to sustain life at all) their stomachs 

 were enormously distended ; altogether they were as 

 pitiful-looking objects as it is possible to imagine. 

 I gave them some meat and a little corn, and told 

 them that on the following day if they would go 

 with me and show me game, I would shoot them a 

 good supply of meat. This they willingly agreed to 

 do, though the old gray-headed father of the family 



