exvi The Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society 
Government have carried out Mr. Theal’s suggestion, and asked Mr. 
Wilmot to proceed to Rome in order to search the archives for docu- 
ments relating to South Africa. 
Very little recent research has to be recorded concerning the study 
of primitive man in other parts of South Africa, although every year 
which is allowed to pass unutilized renders the work more difficult. 
The Bushman, in his native state, exists at present only in the 
Kalahari, ‘the last refuge of liberty for the expelled original inhabitant 
of South Africa,’ as Fritzsch puts it in his work quoted above. 
Whence did he come ? what is his origin ? 
The signs of Bushman occupation are everywhere, not only in South 
Africa proper, but right up into Manicaland and to the banks of the 
Zambesi. 
Did the Bushmen live there previous to the building of the temples 
of Zimbabwe and Matindaila, or did they move into the country when 
these temples and towers fell into ruins ? 
It seems improbable that a race so weak that it could easily be 
driven from its abodes by every other competitor, should have been 
able to occupy regions evidently eagerly disputed by powerful nations. 
And yet, on the other hand, is it possible that these Bushmen paintings 
which Mr, Bent mentions could have lasted up to the present day, had 
they been executed before Zimbabwe existed ? 
The Bushmen are generally considered to be the lowest of our native 
races ; but such they are only with regard to their social and political 
institutions, while in other respects they are superior to their nearest 
allies, the various tribes of Hottentots. They are intelligent, quick at 
learning, excellent observers of the phenomena of Nature, and they 
had developed the art of painting. 
Among other proofs of their powers of observation is their know- 
ledge of the stars, as shown by Mr. H. Tooke in his paper on ‘The 
Star-lore of the South African Natives,’ read before this Society in 1888, 
in which the following fitting remarks occur : 
‘The Homeric Greek has not done more towards distinguishing the 
stars of the Northern Hemisphere than have the half-starved outcasts of 
the Kalahari Desert or the cave-dwellers of the Drakensberg in respect 
of those spangling our Southern skies.’ 
I have already alluded to the wide-spread occurrence of their paint- 
ings. It grieves me to think that the process of natural and wilful 
‘destruction of these monuments of an almost extinct race is not 
arrested, 
One step in this direction has been made by this Society. Through 
the assistance of the Government and the Civil Commissioners, a list 
of all the Bushmen paintings in the country has been obtained, and the 
