330 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



sufficient quantities to satisfy the needs of a settled 

 population possessed of large herds of cattle, sheep, 

 and goats. 



Thus at least nineteen-twentieths of the whole 

 of the enormous area of country included in the 

 Bechwanaland Protectorate are entirely uninhabited 

 except by the descendants of the aboriginal Bush- 

 men, the more civilised Bantu living crowded 

 together in a few large towns. Khama's old town 

 of Shoshong, which was abandoned more than 

 twenty years ago, was said to contain 20,000 

 inhabitants, practically his whole tribe. 



In the last Annual Report of the Transvaal 

 Native Affairs Department, it is stated that the 

 Bushmen living in the valley of the Limpopo in the 

 Northern Transvaal are known as Maseroa, and are 

 distinct from the ordinary South African Bushmen. 



All the Bushmen I have seen, whether those 

 living on or near the Orange river, or along the 

 eastern border of the Kalahari, or throughout the 

 Bechwanaland Protectorate, from the Chobi river 

 to Lake N'gami and the Botletlie, and from thence 

 to the Limpopo, appeared to me to be very much 

 the same in appearance and absolutely identical in 

 their ways of life and the fashion of their dress and 

 weapons. Here and there no doubt there has been 

 a certain admixture of Bantu blood amongst them ; 

 but seeing how little they vary as a rule both in 

 appearance and in habits and manner of life in 

 widely separated areas, I think that for the most 

 part they must be a pure and distinct race throughout 

 the o^reater part of the countries they inhabit. 



The name given by Khama's people to the Bush- 

 men living in the country ruled over by that chief, 

 which is spelt "Maseroa" in the Report above 

 referred to, is pronounced — at least so it always 

 seemed to me — Ma-sarr-wa (with the ''r" very 

 much rolled), and the singular — the word signify- 



