XX STATURE OF THE MASARWA 337 



I have never seen any pigmy Bushmen. Those 

 I met with on the Orange river and in the country 

 to the west of Griqualand in 1872, as well as a small 

 number I saw near the Vaal river above its junction 

 with the Orange in the same year, may not have 

 been as tall as the average of the Masarwa farther 

 north, but I feel sure that all the men were well 

 over five feet in height. 



Speaking generally, I should say that the Bush- 

 men that I have seen — and they were many — whilst 

 they were considerably lighter in colour and shorter 

 and more slightly built than Kafirs, were at the same 

 time darker skinned than most Koranas, and neither 

 so thickset nor so short of stature as the average of 

 those people. 



The average height of the Masarwa men I have 

 met with in the country extending from the western 

 border of Matabeleland to Lake N'gami would 

 certainly, I think, be over 5 feet 4 inches, and I have 

 seen many of these people standing quite 5 feet 8 

 or 9 inches, and a few even 6 feet. 



I have, however, occasionally seen men amongst 

 them of a distinctly Korana type, short and stout 

 built in figure, very light in colour, with small black 

 glittering eyes, high cheek-bones, and hair growing 

 in small tufts. There were two young men of this 

 type amongst the Masarwa Bushmen living near the 

 Mababi river in 1884. They reminded me very 

 forcibly of the life-sized figure of a Cape Colony 

 Bushman in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes 

 in Paris, though they were, I think, nearly if not 

 quite five feet in height. From time to time, no 

 doubt, members of various Bantu tribes have fled 

 to the desert for refuge from their enemies and 

 amalgamated with the Bushmen, and this may 

 account for the greater stature observable amongst 

 certain clans of Masarwas, when compared with full- 

 blooded Koranas, or with the Bushmen of the Cape 



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