By the beginning of 1877 I had finished all my arrangements, and opened my exhibition of curiosities in the public hall at Kimberley. It proved financially a failure, and in spite of the co-operation of many kind friends, I found myself out of pocket by the transaction. In order, therefore, to meet my liabilities and to forward my project of returning for a time to Europe, I had to fall back upon my medical practice with more assiduity than ever.
Notwithstanding that the value of diamonds was still further depreciated, as a consequence of the prolonged drought the price of corn was much higher, so that the cost of living was largely increased. It was a great satisfaction to me that I was able to purchase a horse. I was fortunate in buying a good sound animal, that did as much work as the whole three together that I had to keep in 1873.
Largely, however, as my business developed, and beneficial as it was in replenishing my pocket, the perpetual exertion told seriously on my health, and I was obliged to seize an opportunity of taking a holiday when most of my patients seemed unlikely to require any immediate attention. I made up my mind to visit Mr. Wessel at his neighbouring farm in the Free State, where I was received with the most liberal hospitality. While I was staying there I saw a number of those remarkable carvings on rocks done by the Bushmen, which had recently been inspected by Stow the geologist, and by Captain Warren.
Though the Bushman tribe is gradually dying out, they are still to be found in certain parts of Cape Colony, but remaining, even to the present time, as impervious as ever to the influences of civilization. Formerly they occupied the rocky caves in the slopes from the heights, both in the colony and in the Free State. They are probably the oldest inhabitants of South Africa; but now one branch of them seems to have blended with the Bantu families on the north, whilst another has become amalgamated with the Hottentots more to the east. They hunt the game which they spy out from their elevated resorts with the most primitive bows and arrows; but low as is the grade of their intellectual culture, they have the very wonderful art of decorating the rocky walls of their dwellings with representations of quadrupeds, tortoises, lizards, snakes, fights, hunts, and the different heavenly bodies.
As the game became gradually destroyed by the European colonists, the Bushmen began to make raids upon the white men’s cattle, the result of which was to pave the way for their own annihilation. The true Bushman, as distinguished from the many half-breeds, has a passionate love for his rocky home, and whether he enters service by a voluntary contract or under compulsion, he will take the first opportunity of stealing a sheep and making off to his beloved hills. Instances of periods of stipulated service being faithfully fulfilled are very rare.
But as I have already intimated, these people are not altogether of the low grade of humanity that at first sight they appear to be, and a traveller may penetrate far into Central Africa before finding another tribe so skilful in its manipulation of stone, and in the manufacture of vessels out of wood, bone, or ostriches’ eggs; but most remarkable of all is the way in which, by the aid of the rudest tools, they have adorned their primitive homes with carvings that will long survive any productions of their contemporaries, the Bantus and Hottentots.
The drawings that are made inside the caves are chiefly upon sandstone in ochre of various colours. Stow, the geologist, has devoted a good deal of attention to them, and has taken many copies of the designs; and if ever it be my good fortune to recommence my South African researches, I hope to bring away some larger specimens than my want of proper tools enabled me now to obtain.
Page 438.
ROCK INSCRIPTIONS BY BUSHMEN.