BUSHMEN.— BAKALAHARI. 55 



color when ripe. Many are bitter, others quite sweet. Even 

 melons in a garden may be made bitter by a few bitter kengwe 

 in the vicinity. The bees convey the pollen from one to the 

 other. 



The human inhabitants of this tract of country consist of Bush- 

 men and Bakalahari. The former are probably the aborigines of 

 the southern portion of the continent, the latter the remnants of 

 the first emigration of Bechuanas. The Bushmen live in the Des- 

 ert from choice, the Bakalahari from compulsion, and both possess 

 an intense love of liberty. The Bushmen are exceptions in lan- 

 guage, race, habits, and appearance. They are the only real no- 

 mades in the country ; they never cultivate the soil, nor rear any 

 domestic animal save wretched dogs. They are so intimately 

 acquainted with the habits of the game that they follow them in 

 their migrations, and prey upon them from place to place, and 

 thus prove as complete a check upon their inordinate increase as 

 the other carnivora. The chief subsistence of the Bushmen is 

 the flesh of game, but that is eked out by what the women. col- 

 lect of roots and beans, and fruits of the Desert. Those who in- 

 habit the hot sandy plains of the Desert possess generally thin, 

 wiry forms, capable of great exertion and of severe privations. 

 Many are of low stature, though not dwarfish ; the specimens 

 brought to Europe have been selected, like costermongers' dogs, 

 on account of their extreme ugliness ; consequently, English ideas 

 of the whole tribe are formed in the same way as if the ugliest 

 specimens of the English were exhibited in Africa as character- 

 istic of the entire British nation. That they are like baboons is 

 in some degree true, just as these and other simias are in some 

 points frightfully human. 



The Bakalahari are traditionally reported to be the oldest of 

 the Bechuana tribes, and they are said to have possessed enor- 

 mous herds of the large horned cattle mentioned by Bruce, until 

 they were despoiled of them and driven into the Desert by a fresh 

 migration of their own nation. Living ever since on the same 

 plains with the Bushmen, subjected to the same influences of 

 climate, enduring the same thirst, and subsisting on similar food 

 for centuries, they seem to supply a standing proof that locality is 

 not always sufficient of itself to account for difference in races. 

 The Bakalahari retain in undying vigor the Bechuana love for 



