NATIVES OF SOUTH AFRICA.
The aborigines of South Africa have been described as savages of a very degraded type. "They were pigmies in size, yellowish-brown in color, hollow-backed, and with skins so loose that in times of famine their bodies were covered with wrinkles and flaps. On their heads were rows of little tufts of wiry hair hardly larger than peppercorns, and leaving the greater portion of the surface bald.
"Their faces were broad in a line with the eyes, their cheeks were hollow, and they had flat noses, thick lips, and receding chins. They anointed their bodies with grease when any was obtainable, and then painted themselves with soot or colored clay.
"The clothing of the males was the skin of an animal hung loosely over the shoulders; that of the females was little more than a small leathern apron. To the eye of a European, no people in any part of the world were more unattractive.
"These savages were thinly scattered over every part of the country from a very remote period; for implements, such as arrowheads and perforated stones similar to those which they had in use when white men first met them, have been found in positions where the overlying materials must have been undisturbed for an incalculable time."
Such were the Bushmen, as the Europeans have named these pigmies. "They had no domestic animal but the dog, and they made no effort to cultivate the soil. They lived by the chase and upon wild plants, honey, locusts, and carrion.
"They had no government other than parental. This they ceased to acknowledge when able to care for themselves. They had feeble frames, wholly unfitted for toil, yet they possessed very keen vision and could detect objects at a great distance. They were fleet of foot, and could endure great hardships in the chase. Their only weapon was a frail bow. The arrowhead was coated with a poison so deadly that even the slightest wound was mortal."
In addition to the Bushmen, the first settlers on South African soil found a people much superior. They belonged to the race now known as the Hottentots, and must have occupied the soil long before the advent of the white man. Several points of resemblance can be traced between these two peoples, yet there are many essential differences in the shape of the head and face; for instance, the ear of the Bushman is lobeless, a marked contrast to that of the Hottentot.
The Bushmen and Hottentots were constantly at war with each other. The Hottentots lived in communities, each with its own chief. They depended mainly upon the milk of cows and ewes for food; for they did not practice agriculture. They had horned cattle, gaunt and bony, and sheep covered with hair in place of wool. These sheep had fatty tails of great weight. With the exception of the dog, these were the only domestic animals. The men lived in indolence; their only occupation was moving from place to place with their herds and flocks, as pasturage failed. If the supply of milk became short, the women gathered bulbs and roots of nutritious properties to eke out an existence. These people slept in huts, which consisted of slender wooden frames covered over with matting, and which could be easily taken down at a moment's notice, and set up again on a new camping ground almost as quickly as tents.
Such were the people with whom Europeans had to deal, when the first settlements were made in South Africa. There was another branch of the human family that began to invade South Africa even before it was settled by the white man. It formed a part of the great Bantu family, which occupies all of Central Africa extending from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.