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NOTES ON THE BUSHMEN OF BASUTOLAND. 

 By Eev. S. S. Doenan. 

 (Read November 27, 1907.) 



When Moshesh, the founder of the present Basuto nation, came 

 into the country now known as Basutoland — for the name dates 

 only from its occupation by him — he found scattered famiUes of 

 Bushmen Hving in the country. Whether they were recent immi- 

 grants or not no one knew. The land was at that time covered with 

 rank grass and bush ; there was abundance of game. Lions, 

 leopards, elands, gnu, rhebock, &c., were plentiful, and on these 

 the Bushmen subsisted. Elephants, though represented on one or 

 two of their paintings, do not seem to have lived in the country, as 

 it is too mountainous. 



Long before the Great Emigration of 1836 parties of Boers from 

 Cape Colony were accustomed to cross the Orange Eiver for the 

 purpose of hunting, and the game which escaped slaughter gradually 

 retired northwards. The destruction of the wild animals had an 

 intimate bearing on the fortunes of the Bushmen. 



But although Basutoland was in the possession of scattered 

 families or clans of Bushmen, their real occupation of the country 

 dates from the wars of Chaka, and the Great Trek, that is from the 

 early part of last century. There were two of these migrations. 

 The first immigrants came principally from the Cape Colony, from 

 where they were hunted out by Dutch commandoes. These bands 

 lived in what is now known as the Conquered Territory, and their 

 centre was a cave in the neighbourhood of Hermon, to the west of 

 this country near Wepener. The Bushman name for this part was 

 Qibing — a locative case from Qibi, a digging stick. These were the 

 Bushmen of Mamantso, called after their chief. As the appellation 

 is not Bushman but Sesuto, it was given to them no doubt by the 

 Basuto. They differed from other Bushmen in that they were tall, 

 strong men, evidently pointing to an admixture of Hottentot or Kafir 

 blood, most likely the former. 



