182 
THE NEW AFRICA 
would spoil the meat. Then again ranging alongside, he 
despatches the enormous beast with several rapid thrusts in 
the chest, taking care to give the vicious front feet of the 
brute a wide berth, for, if caught by one of the chopping 
downward strokes of these tremendous legs, his career would 
be ended. When the beast falls at last, he covers the body 
over with grass and bushes to protect it from the keen-eyed 
vultures, and goes to the place where he left his future father- 
in-law and the family expectantly awaiting his return. Silently 
he approaches and lays down the ruddy spear at the father’s 
feet, and then with a great shout the people, old and young, 
hurry off on his back track to the place where the giraffe 
lies dead. The carcass is soon cut up, and the meat carried 
home; but, meanwhile, it is not etiquette for the youth, who 
with the father of the bride remains in the camp, to speak: 
he sits silently watching the old man, who favours him with 
an equal courtesy until the meat comes in, and then ‘ they 
all live happy ever afterwards.’ 
In cases where the matrimonial giraffe is scarce, some 
other kind of large game may be killed as a substitute. But 
the Mosarwas endeavour to comply with the old custom as 
nearly as the circumstances will allow. 
The common term Bushmen, applied indiscriminately to 
the Mosarwas and others, might lead the reader to the con¬ 
clusion that there is some relation existing between the 
Mosarwa Hottentots and the diminutive people who more 
properly bear that name. As far as I can gather, these are 
two distinct tribes, whose principal difference lies in their 
stature. There is no doubt that the Hottentots, with their 
large neighbours the Korannas, and the Bushmen proper, belong 
to one type of humanity, and form a class by themselves. 
But between the two former and the latter there is a clear 
distinguishing mark in the size. Some authorities contend 
that the Bushmen are artificially dwarfed by the many priva¬ 
tions they have undergone as fugitives from their organised 
neighbours; that their existence, spent in one successive effort 
