DESERT ANIMALS. 4 1 



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 

 vigour the Bechuana love for agriculture and domestic 

 animals. They hoe their gardens annually, 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 themselves 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 " (Cants mesomelas and C. aureus), is very- 

 handsome when made into the skin mantle called kaross. 

 Next in value follow the " tsipa " or small ocelot (Felis, 

 7iigripes), 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 thousand 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 Bakalahari, 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 perpetrated by one tribe of Bechuanas 

 going among the Bakalahari of another tribe, and com- 

 pelling 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 



