418 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



In the Humansdorp case the rock-engraving was situated very 

 high on the face of the roclv, as if the ground at the foot had been 

 removed for a considerable depth by natural agencies. It is not too 

 much to assume that there also a Bushman could not resist the 

 temptation of " improving " on the sculptor's art. That it is not very 

 long ago is shown by the good state of preservation of the game 

 pits, &c. The distance from the ground to the sculpture would be 

 nothing for men accustomed to climb up vertical surfaces by means of 

 wooden pegs driven in the crevices of the rock. (Some of these pegs 

 are still to be found in situ). But these paintings need not be neces- 

 sarily the work of Bushmen. South African aborigines other than 

 Bushmen have executed "paintings" which are, it is true, bad 

 imitations of genuine productions, but not always so." I know 

 of some near the Cango Cave, Fraserburg, Danielskuil, New 

 England, &c., in the Cape Colony. 



Paintings of a similar nature are now known to exist in 

 Senegalese Mauritania. I have heard of some in Nigeria. 



It is not possible to arrive at another conclusion that in South 

 Africa, as in Mauritania, both the rock-engravings, and perhaps also 

 the rock-paintings show a conspicuous retrogression. The better 

 finished are prohahly the most ancient ; the decadent art set in tvith 

 the arrival of the neiv -comers or neiu races. 



From the profuse quotations here given one thing stands out, viz., 

 that there is no evidence that the Bushmen of the present time were 

 the original authors of these rock- engravings. 



But if the Bushman of to-day is not the creative genius that com- 

 posed these artistic productions, shall we ever know the race that was 

 so talented ? From hearsay evidence the Bush people themselves 

 admitted that before them there was another race occupying the land. 

 That that artistic race was the Strand Looper f is very doubtful, 



* In the Folk-Lore Journal (Cape Town, II., 1880), is published a letter from 

 the late C. S. Orpen, from Smithfield (Orange Eiver Colony), to this effect: 

 " I was lately in Elands Berg, over Caledon (Orange Eiver Colony) looking for 

 caves, and a Boer lady, at whose house I was, opened a door of an inner room and 

 showed me her wall adorned by several hundred paintings made by a Mosuto, who 

 had been brought up with Bushmen in the Maluti. They were very well done — 

 all sorts of game, Boers on horseback, &c. The Mosuto drew twelve figures per 

 diem, and considered that a day's work. 



t Strand Looper, a race of Hottentots living along the seashore of South Africa, 

 Dr. F. Shrubsall, as a result of his recent investigations on Bushmen and Hot- 

 tentot crania, pronounces them to constitute a purer group than that of the 

 Bushmen, and apparently quite distinct from that of the Hottentots ; the 

 up-country Bushmen appears intermediate between the Strand Loopers and 

 the Hottentots ; the Bushmen, and still more the Strand Loopers, are further 

 removed from the Negroid type than are the Hottentots. (Annals S. Afric. 

 Mus., v., 1907, p. 249.) 



