444 Transactions of the South African Philosoiohical Society. 



looked upon the lightning as a kind of bird as the Basuto and other 

 tribes do. 



They also believed in witchcraft, but not to the same extent as 

 the Bantu. The awful evils attendant upon witchcraft, such as 

 " smelling out," do not seem to have prevailed amongst them. This 

 practice exists largely wherever natives possess cattle, and is often 

 the means of getting rid of dangerous rivals or of increasing a chief's 

 wealth. As the Bushmen possessed no cattle, the reason for the 

 practice did not exist. A Bushman's only notion of the value of 

 cattle was to eat them. 



The Bushmen buried their dead near the caves where they lived, 

 and marked the site with a small cairn of stones. I have seen 

 several of these little piles, but whether they mark Bushman graves 

 or not I cannot say. The Basuto when appealed to either could not 

 or would not give any information on the subject. I have not been 

 able to discover if the Bushmen had any ideas of immortality. 



Of all the Bushmen relics their paintings are the most interesting. 

 They are common in the caves or rock shelters of Basutoland. 

 They generally occur near the crests of the hills in Cave Sandstone, 

 an Upper Triassic rock. This rock is interbedded near the base with 

 soft green mudstones, often containing dinosaurian footprints, and 

 occasionally bones of the same animals. These mudstones weather 

 away much more rapidly than the sandstone, which is tough in 

 texture, giving rise to openings, large and small, at different levels, 

 with overhanging ledges. These openings are not true caves, being 

 usually quite exposed on three sides. On the smooth faces of the 

 cliffs one often meets with Bushman paintings. These paintings are 

 usually small, not more than 4 or 5 inches in height. The prevail- 

 ing colours are brown and black, with occasionally blue and yellow. 

 One is struck with the accuracy of detail in the delineation of the 

 characteristic habits of the animals painted. They are practically 

 destitute of perspective, but in spite of this they are wonderfully 

 accurate and true to life. 



It would seem from a study of such paintings as I have seen that 

 they were done by a single artist in each cave, as the same colours, 

 shapes, and attitudes constantly recur. There is nothing in the 

 paintings to indicate relative age or development, as they are all 

 about equal in point of execution. Where differences exist they are 

 generally due to better or worse preservation, but we may be sure 

 that to reach such a high state of art must have meant a long stage 

 in development. The age of most of the paintings in Basutoland 

 can be definitely settled as within the last seventy years, and many 

 of them within fifty years. There are caves, such as those in the 



