Chap. II. 
FEMALE WATEE-SUCKEES. 
51 
request for tobacco is refused, these free sons of the Desert may 
settle the point as to its possession by a poisoned arrow. 
The dread of visits from Bechuanas of strange tribes causes the 
Bakalahari to choose their residences far from water; and they 
not unfrequently hide thefr supphes by filling the pits with sand 
and making a fire over the spot. When they wish to draw water 
for use, the women come with twenty or thirty of their water- 
vessels in a bag or net on their backs. These water-vessels consist 
of ostrich egg-shells, with a hole in the end of each, such as would 
admit one’s finger. The women tie a bunch of grass to one end 
of a reed about two feet long, and insert it in a hole dug as deep 
as the arm will reach; then ram down the wet sand firmly round 
it. Applying the mouth to the free end of the reed, they form a 
vacuum in the grass beneath, in which the water collects, and in 
a short time rises into the mouth. An egg-shell is placed on the 
ground alongside the reed, some inches below the mouth of the 
sucker. A straw guides the water into the hole of the vessel, as 
she draws mouthful after mouthful from below. The water is 
made to pass along the outside, not tlmough the straw. If any 
one will attempt to squfrt water into a bottle placed some distance 
below his mouth, he wiU soon perceive the msdom of the Bush- 
woman’s contrivance for giving the stream dfrection by means of 
a straw. The whole stock of water is thus passed through the 
woman’s mouth as a pump, and when taken home is carefully 
bimed, I have come into villages where, had we acted a domi¬ 
neering part, and rummaged every hut, we should have found 
notliing; but by sitting down quietly and waiting with patience 
until the villagers were led to form a favourable opinion of us, 
a woman would bring out a shellful of the precious fluid from 
I know not where. 
The so-called Desert, it may be observed, is by no means a 
useless tract of country. Besides supporting multitudes of both 
small and large animals, it sends somethmg to the market of the 
world, and has proved a refuge to many a fugitive tribe—to the 
Bakalahari first, and to the other Bechuanas in tmm—as their 
lands were overrun by the tribe of true Cafifes, called Matebele. 
The Bakwams, the Bangwaketze, and the Bamangwato all fled 
thither; and the Matebele marauders, who came from the well- 
watered east, perished by hundreds in their attempts to follow them. 
F 2 
