CH. XX FIRST MEETING WITH BUSHMEN 329 



believe that "the proper study of mankind is 

 man." 



The first Bushmen I ever saw were met with on 

 the banks of the Orange river on January 4, 1872, 

 in the country then occupied by the Korana chief 

 Klas Lucas and his people. 



In my diary of that date I made the following 

 notes of this experience : — 



''January 4, 1872. — Whilst poking about along 

 the river, looking for guinea-fowls, I came upon a 

 Bushman's lair amongst the trees by the water's 

 edge. A few boughs woven together and forming 

 a sort of canopy was all they had in the way of a 

 habitation ; the only weapons they possessed were 

 rude -looking bows and neatly made poisoned 

 arrows, some about two and a half feet in length, 

 fashioned from reeds, whilst others were only a foot 

 long. Their language seemed even fuller of clicks 

 and clucks than the Korana, and altogether to a 

 casual observer they appeared to be very few steps 

 removed from the brute creation. The following 

 day three more Bushmen came to the waggon 

 begging for tobacco ; they were taller and better 

 looking than those I had first seen." 



During the following month (February 1872) I 

 met with a good many more Bushmen, and hunted 

 with them in the Southern Kalahari to the west of 

 the Scurfde Berg. At that time these people had 

 no firearms of any kind, but they all carried small 

 toy-like bows and bark quivers containing poisoned 

 arrows. 



During the twenty years succeeding my first 

 meeting with Bushmen on the banks of the Orange 

 river, I met with scattered communities of this 

 primitive race throughout every portion of the 

 interior of the country, where Bantu tribes had not 

 been able to establish themselves owing to the 

 aridity of the soil and the scarcity of water in 



