AFRICAN BUSHMEN. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE KALAHARI AND THE BUSHMEN. 



Keasons why Droughts are prevalent in South Africa — Vegetation admirably 

 suited to the Character of the Country — Number of Tuberous Koots — 

 The Caifre Water-Melon —The Mesembryanthemums — The Animal Life of the 

 Kalahari — The Bushmen, a Nomadic Eace of Hunters — Their Skill in Hunting 

 — Their Food — Acuteness of their Sight and Hearing — Their Intelligence and 

 Perseverance — Their Weapons and Marauding Expeditions — Their Voracity — 

 Their Love of Liberty — The Bakalahari — Their Love for Agriculture — Their 

 Ingenuity in procuring Water — Trade in Skins — Their timidity. 



AG-EOGEAPHICAL position, not unlike that which con- 

 demns the plains along the western foot of the Peruvian 

 and Bolivian Andes to perpetual aridity, renders also the greater 

 part of tropical and sub-tropical Southern Africa subject to 

 severe droughts, and in general to great scarcity of rain. For 

 the emanations of the Indian Ocean, which tlie easterly wind^ 

 carry towards that continent, and which, if equally distributed 

 over the whole surface, would render it capable of bearing the 

 richest productions of the torrid zone, are mostly deposited on 

 the eastern slopes of the mountain-chains, which, under various 

 denominations, traverse eastern South Africa from north to 

 south ; and when the moving mass of air, having crossed their 

 highest elevations, reaches the great heated inland plains, the 

 ascending warmth of that hot dry surface gives it greater power 



