56 THE BAKALAHARL 



agriculture and domestic animals. They hoe their gardens annu- 

 ally, though often all they can hope for is a supply of melons and 

 pumpkins. And they carefully rear small herds of goats, though 

 I have seen them lift water for them out of small wells with a bit 

 of ostrich egg-shell, or by spoonfuls. They generally attach them- 

 selves to influential men in the different Bechuana tribes living 

 adjacent to their desert home, in order to obtain supplies of spears, 

 knives, tobacco, and dogs, in exchange for the skins of the animals 

 they may kill. These are small carnivora of the feline species, 

 including two species of jackal, the dark and the golden ; the 

 former, "motlose" {Megalotis capensis or Cape fennec), has the 

 warmest fur the country yields; the latter, "pukuye" (Canis me- 

 somelas and C aureus), is very handsome when made into the 

 skin mantle called kaross. Next in value follow the " tsipa" or 

 small ocelot {Felis nigripes), the "tuane" or lynx, the wild cat, 

 the spotted cat, and other small animals. Great numbers of puti 

 {duiker) and puruhuru {steinbuck) skins are got too, besides 

 those of lions, leopards, panthers, and hyaenas. During the time 

 I was in the Bechuana country, between twenty and thirty thou- 

 sand skins were made up into karosses ; part of them were worn 

 by the inhabitants, and part sold to traders : many, I believe, 

 find their way to China. The Bakwains bought tobacco from 

 the eastern tribes, then purchased skins with it from the Baka- 

 lahari, tanned them, and sewed them into karosses, then went 

 south to purchase heifer-calves with them, cows being the highest 

 form of riches known, as I have often noticed from their asking 

 "if Queen Victoria had many cows." The compact they enter 

 into is mutually beneficial, but injustice and wrong are often per- 

 petrated by one tribe of Bechuanas going among the Bakalahari 

 of another tribe, and compelling them to deliver up the skins 

 which they may be keeping for their friends. They are a timid 

 race, and in bodily development often resemble the aborigines of 

 Australia. They have thin legs and arms, and large, protruding 

 abdomens, caused by the coarse, indigestible food they eat. Their 

 children's eyes lack lustre. I never saw them at play. A few 

 Bechuanas may go into a village of Bakalahari, and domineer 

 over the whole with impunity ; but when these same adventurers 

 meet the Bushmen, they are fain to change their manners to 

 fawning sycophancy ; they know that, if the request for tobacco 



