128 APPENDIX. [sect. 



unpunished. With vast numbers the ideas of common hon- 

 esty, public law, private duty, and proper obligation between 

 man and man, are, to a great extent, in abeyance. Sekomi, 

 a Bechuana chief, tried to palliate an act of extortion by- 

 shewing that it was not swindling 1 . On one occasion our 

 traveller concluded that an old Bushman had no con- 

 ception of morality whatever. He says of him "When 

 his heart was warmed by our presents of meat, he sat by 

 the fire relating his early adventures: among these was his 

 killing five other Bushmen. 'Two/ said he, counting on his 

 fingers, ' were females, one a male, and the other two calves.' 

 — • What a villain you are to boast of killing women and 

 children of your own nation ! what will God say when you 

 appear before him?' — 'He will say/ replied he, 'that I was 

 a very clever fellow.' This man now appeared to me as 

 without any conscience, and, of course, responsibility, but, 

 on trying to enlighten him by further conversation, I dis- 

 covered that, though he was employing the word which is 

 used among the Bakwains when speaking of the Deity, he 

 had only the idea of a chief, and was all the while referring 

 to Sekomi, while his victims were a party of rebel Bushmen 

 against whom he had been sent 2 ." 



Dr Burchell informs us that the Batlapis view murder 

 with perfect indifference. Mr Moffat adds that during his 

 stay among these people a man killed his wife in a rage. 

 Remarking of this crime, "When I endeavoured to repre- 

 sent to the chiefs, with whom I was familiar, as old ac- 

 quaintance, the magnitude of such crimes, they laughed, I 

 might say inordinately, at the horror I felt for the murder 

 of a woman by her own husband 3 ." 



The Bushmen and Bakalahari are unspeakably degraded ; 

 making the beasts of the field their companions, they are 

 become almost assimilated to them in their every-day life. 



1 Travels, p. 146. 2 Ibid. p. 159. 



3 Missionary Labours, &c. p. 465. 



