THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



293 



tongue to the gashes. They thus readily distinguish between 

 the bitter and sweet. The bitter are deleterious, but the sweet 

 are quite wholesome. This peculiarity of one species of plants 

 bearing both sweet and bitter fruit occurs also in a red, eatable 

 cucumber, often met with in the country. 





WOMEN FILLING UP EGG-SHELLS WITH WATER. 



The Bushmen, also known as Bakalahari, choose their resi- 

 dences far from water on account of their dread of visits from 

 strange tribes. They not unfrequently hide their liquid supplies 

 in pits and build fires over them. When water is desired, the 

 women come with twenty or thirty of their vessels in a bag or 

 net on their backs. These water-vessels consist of ostrich egg- 

 shells, with a hole in the end of each barely large enough to 

 admit one's finger. The women tie a bunch of grass to one end 

 of a reed about two feet long, and insert it in a hole dug as deep 

 as the arm will reach ; then ram down the wet sand firmly round 

 it. Applying the mouth to the free end of the reed, they form 

 a vacuum in the grass beneath, in which the water collects, and 

 in a short time rises into the mouth. An egg-shell is placed on 



