xx LANGUAGE OF THE MASARWA 333 



year ; and as he had previously learned to speak 

 Dutch from a Griqua master, I could converse 

 freely with him. In 1873, when elephant-hunting 

 in the Linquasi district to the west of Matabeleland, 

 we saw a great many Masarwas (Bushmen), and 

 noticing that their language, full of clicks and clucks 

 and curious intonations of the voice, was similar in 

 character to that I had heard spoken by the Koranas 

 on the banks of the Orange river in 1871, I asked 

 John if he could understand them, but he only 

 laughed and said, ' No, sir.' During the next 

 two years, however, John had a lot to do with 

 the Masarwas ; and one day, towards the end of 

 1874, as we were returning from the Zambesi to 

 Matabeleland, I heard him conversing quite familiarly 

 with some of these people. ' Hullo, John,' I said, 

 ' I thought you told me that you could not under- 

 stand the Bushmen?' 'Well, sir,' he answered, 

 ' at first I thought I couldn't, but gradually I found 

 that I could understand them, and that they under- 

 stood me, and, in fact, I can say that with a few 

 slight differences these Bushmen speak the same 

 language as my people on the Orange river.' A 

 Griqua family too, the Neros, who for many years 

 lived in Matabeleland, all spoke Sasarwa (the lan- 

 guage of the Masarwas) with perfect fluency, and 

 they all assured me that they had had no difficulty 

 in learning it, as it was almost the same lancruaee 



O O O 



as that spoken by the Koranas." Now surely these 

 facts are worthy of note. My boy John (who ran 

 away from the Griqua master whose slave he then 

 was and came to me in 1871) followed my fortunes 

 for twenty-five years, and was always a most faith- 

 ful servant, and in his younger days a very good 

 elephant hunter. He is still alive to-day, and long 

 ago christened himself John Selous. 



John was born (probably about the middle of the 

 last century) and brought up on the banks of the 



