Chap. II. 
BUSHMEN—BAKALAHARI. 
49 
colour when ripe. Many are bitter, others quite sweet. Even 
melons in a garden may be made bitter by a few bitter kengwe 
in the vicinity. The bees convey the pollen from one to the 
other. 
The human inhabitants of this tract of country consist of Bush¬ 
men and Bakalahari. The former are probably the aborigines 
of the southern portion of the continent, the latter the remnants 
of the first emigration of Bechuanas. The Buslnnen live in the 
Desert from choice, the Bakalahari from compulsion, and both 
possess an intense love of hberty. The Bushmen are exceptions 
in language, race, habits, and appearance. They are the only 
real nomades in the country; they never cultivate the soil nor 
rear any domestic animal, save wretched dogs. They are so 
intimately acquainted with the habits of the game, that they 
follow them in their migrations, and prey upon them from place 
to place, and thus prove as complete a check upon then’ inor¬ 
dinate increase as the other carnivora. The chief subsistence of 
the Bushmen is the flesh of game, but that is eked out by what 
the women collect of roots and beans, and fruits of the Desert. 
Those who inliabit the hot sandy plains of the Desert possess 
generally thin wiry forms capable of great exertion and of severe 
privations. Many are of low stature, though not dwarfish; the 
specimens brought to Europe have been selected, hke coster¬ 
mongers’ dogs, on account of their extreme ugliness; conse¬ 
quently English ideas of the whole tribe are formed in the same 
way as if the ughest specimens of the Enghsh were exhibited in 
Africa as characteristic of the entire British nation. That they 
are hke baboons is in some degree true, just as these and other 
simise are in some points frightfully human. 
The Bakalahari are traditionaUy reported to be the oldest of 
the Bechuana tribes, and they are said to have possessed enor¬ 
mous herds of the large horned cattle mentioned by Bruce, until 
they were despoiled of them 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 locahty 
is not always sufficient of itself to account for difference in races. 
The Bakalaliari retain in undying vigour the Bechuana love for 
E 
