596 
BACHAPIN TASTE. — PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION. 
exhibiting in what degree the Bachapins are possessed of ornamental 
taste. The grace of these decorations is evident, and of some, the 
elegance of turn is not surpassed in the works of more pohshed 
nations. Of the three following figures, which have been copied 
from their knife-sheaths, the two first are remarkably beautiful : I do 
not recollect having seen elsewhere any thing exactly similar to that 
on the left. 
In the imitative arts, the few attempts which came under my 
observation, were in the rudest style, and manifested little natural 
talent of this kind. I was once shown what was regarded by the 
natives as a superior effort in the art of delineation, and which was ex- 
hibited as one of their best specimens : it has been already noticed at 
page 453. It was nothing more than the outlines of some animals, 
daubed against the wall of their house ; but which were so ill drawn 
as barely to be recognised. 
The carved figures in relief, which are sometimes seen ornament- 
ing their knife-handles and a few other utensils, are the work of the 
Bichuana nations beyond them to the north-east, who appear, from 
various specimens of their manufactures, to be a much more ingenious 
people, and to have advanced in arts several degrees beyond the 
Bachapins ; a circumstance which seems clearly to indicate the 
quarter whence civilization, if it may be called so, has commenced its 
progress into the interior of Southern Africa. On the western coast, 
bounded by a wide and unfrequented ocean, there existed formerly 
no source from which a knowledge of arts could be derived ; and con- 
