Rock-Eiijmviiinfs of Anim%ls and the Human Figure. 409 



Why should only the ferce, naturm be represented in these graffiti, 

 and not the cattle which the Hottentots — great shepherds, and on 

 that account great nomads — had always with them ? ''' 



On that ground alone there is some justification in coming to the 

 conclusion as I do, that these rock -engravings are anterior to the 

 immigration of the Hottentots. 



III. 

 Who were the Eock-Engravers? 



There is no doubt that among the aborigines of mixed Hottentot 

 race, especially among those called ''Bushmen " in the up-country 

 districts and also near the coast of Cape Colony, there are still 

 individuals very proficient in the art of carving, and some of their 

 productions are really surprising. I have the handle of a home-made 

 awl carved into the typical shape of a Hottentot head with prominent 

 cheek-bones, slanting eyes, &c. ; on a slab is carved the typical Cape 

 cart with two impatient horses, and the driver, a farmer in his best 

 Sunday clothes, and with long, flowing beard, holding the reins, &c. 

 But the term " Bushman " has been, and is still, applied to so 

 many mixed aborigines of the Khoi Khoin races that at the present 

 moment it is absolutely misleading. 



Stow, in his posthumous work, assumes, however, that the oldest 

 South African inhabitant was the Bushman, and ft divides the race 

 into two sections : the painters and sculptors, explaining their 

 migrations southwards " from the relics they have left of their former 

 ownership." This theory may at once be dismissed, because these 

 relics have now been found where Stow did not know them to exist. 

 In page 43 he states that the makers of these sculptures lived in 

 large communities, and were one of the two main branches of the 

 Bushmen, one being cave-dwellers whereas the other lived in towns of 

 from one to two hundred huts, the position of these huts in the hills 

 being marked with a semicircle of stones. He connects these last- 

 named people with the makers of sculptures because of the number 

 of chippings, chiefly representations of animals, occurring in these 

 spots. He gives two such examples found on " kopjes " or com- 

 manding positions in these terms : — 



" We have already noticed the diflerence in the habitations of the 

 two main branches of the Bushmen. Those who were the cave- 



* In a cave quite lately discovered at Hauston, near the seashore of the Caledon 

 District, in the Cape Colony, bones of all these animals, as well as those of the 

 ruminants of the antelope tribes, elephants, hippopotami, &2., were found mixed 

 together. 



^'ii^ 



