A WONDERFUL PEOPLE 61 



Mechanically I strode on, avoiding without 

 conscious volition the shrubs and tussocks. As 

 the moon ascended the shadows shortened and 

 became less grotesque. Fancied resemblances 

 to and suggestions of things outside; my own 

 experience, but of which my mind had formed 

 concepts that had become familiar, switched 

 thought on to other tracks; the pendulum 

 swung from the subjective to the objective. 

 Imagination built up the tiny, lithe, agile forms 

 of that race we exterminated and whose barren 

 territory we annexed, but neither occupied nor 

 made use of. I could almost hear the san- 

 dalled, pattering feet of the aboriginal dwellers 

 of these plains, — those kings of the waste 

 whose sceptre was the poisoned dart. The 

 Bushmen were in many respects a wonderful 

 people. They obeyed no chief; they had no 

 political organisation whatsoever; each family 

 governed itself independently. Yet they had 

 their fixed customs, — their general traditional 

 code of proprieties. They had knowledge of 

 the properties of plants which no others pos- 

 sessed; they had a highly-develoed dramatic 

 art. As limners they excelled, and a keen sense 

 of humour is evinced in many of their paint- 

 ings. Not alone was this sense of humour keen, 

 but it must have been very much akin to our own. 



