THE MONKEYFOLK OF SOUTH AFRICA 17 



another danger threatened. We had heard rumours from 

 time to time of another people with black skins and woolly 

 heads. One day when we were sunning ourselves on the 

 rocks, a great army of the very people we had heard about 

 came marching over the hill. They carried large things, 

 which we afterwards learned were war shields. They also 

 had spears, known as assegais, and sticks with big knobs 

 on the end of them. They swept past, and from our 

 retreat high up in a krantz, we saw them spread out in new- 

 moon shape, and, chanting a war song, they quickly formed 

 a circle. Then we saw what the meaning of it all was. 

 They had surrounded a whole tribe of Bushmen. These 

 pigmy people were brave. They didn't give in without a 

 fight. Spreading out, they vanished into crevices, caves, 

 behind boulders, and into the thorny tangled scrub. As 

 the great black host closed in, shower after shower of tiny 

 poisoned arrows were shot amongst them. Taken by 

 surprise, great numbers were struck and soon died, for a 

 wound by one of those Uttle arrows always meant certain 

 death. Covering themselves with their huge shields, the 

 Kafirs rushed in on the Bushmen, and soon all the latter 

 were slain. 



MORE RACES OF PEOPLE CAME 



These black people, we learned, were Zulus. It seems 

 these Zulus were a great nation, whose home was in Zululand. 

 Every now and again their armies swept over South Africa, 

 killing everybody they could find. They were such great 

 fighters that no other nation of black people could stand 

 against them. 



Then other races of people came, and spread themselves 

 out all over the country. One of those races was that 

 which you call the Hottentots. Their skins are yellow, they 

 have little beady eyes, high cheek-bones, and tapering chins. 



B 



