Though occupying about the same rank in the human family as the Fuegians, and leading a mere brute existence, the Bushmen give many proofs of intelligence. They are with difficulty roused to exertion, but when they have once conquered their habitual laziness, an uncommon perseverance characterises all their undertakings. Nothing will induce them to quit the spoor of an animal they have once pursued; they will dig for days in places where they expect to find some water.
Both in the fabrication and the use of their weapons, they show great ingenuity and skill. Like the South American Indians, they understand the art of poisoning their arrows, which scarcely ever miss the mark within a distance of eighty paces; they also have recourse to pitfalls, poisoned water, and other stratagems. In the art of surprising their game, they can hardly be surpassed. It is not an easy task, in the midst of a naked plain, to avoid the eye of the shy antelope or of the far-sighted ostrich, so as to be able to approach them within a distance of fifty or sixty paces. This, however, they perform, by slowly creeping along almost on their bellies, by strewing dust over their bodies, so as not to be betrayed by any difference of colour, and by remaining motionless as soon as the animal shows any marks of attention. This tedious pursuit often lasts several hours, without ever tiring their patience; and the prey thus tracked, however swift and wary, but seldom escapes them.
In the marauding expeditions which they frequently undertake for the purpose of stealing the cattle of their neighbours, the Caffres, Bechuanas, or Boors—for, having no property themselves, they have little regard for the property of others—they show no less expertness and cunning, never venturing an attack before having first carefully spied out every circumstance, and taken every precaution to ensure success. At the time of the last quarter of the moon, their thefts are most to be feared, for they then execute their robberies in the dark before midnight, and afterwards profit by the moonlight for a more rapid flight.
Their physiognomy has the characteristic traits of the Hottentot race, but their eye is infinitely more sharp and wild, their countenance more expressive and intelligent, and all their gestures more lively—a difference caused, no doubt, by the greater mental and bodily actions to which a life full of hardships and privations constrains them.
As may be imagined from the few ideas it has to express, their language is very poor, and, on account of its peculiar and characteristic click and its harsh gutturals, more resembles the screeching of an animal than a human idiom.
When a horde has been successful in some hunting or marauding expedition, it keeps the fact as secret as possible, for as soon as the intelligence spreads, everyone hastens to the spot to come in for his share of the feast.
For fear of being obliged to divide with others, the prey is devoured as fast as possible, with inconceivable gluttony, and what cannot be used is instantly destroyed, merely from the dog-in-the-manger motive, to keep others from its enjoyment. When, for instance, the Bushmen have found a nest of ostrich eggs, and circumstances will not allow of their remaining on the spot, they take away as many as they can carry, and break the rest; or, when they meet with a great herd of springbocks, they will wound as many as possible with their poisoned arrows, though six or eight would suffice them with food for many days. It is a state of society like that to which, probably, the communists would reduce civilized Europe, if their insane doctrines could ever be realized. Despite the many privations they have to endure, the Bushmen prefer the utter freedom of the desert to the constraint of an agricultural and pastoral life. They live in the Kalahari by choice, the Bakalahari from compulsion, and both possess an intense love of liberty.
The Bakalahari are traditionally reported to be the oldest of the Bechuana tribes driven into the desert by a fresh migration of their own nation. Though living ever since on the same plains with the Bushmen, under the same influences of climate, enduring the same thirst, and limited to the same scanty food for centuries, they still retain in undying vigour the Bechuana love for agriculture and domestic animals, hoeing their gardens annually, though often all that they can hope for is a supply of melons and pumpkins, and carefully rearing small herds of goats, although to provide them with water is a task of no small difficulty, since the dread of hostile visits from the adjacent Bechuana tribes makes them choose their abode far from the nearest spring or pool, and leads them not unfrequently to hide their supplies 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, which they insert in a hole dug as deep as the arm will reach, and 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 reeds, 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; and thus the whole stock of water passes through her mouth as a pump, and when taken home is carefully buried to prevent its loss by evaporation. A short stay among the thirsty Bakalaharis might teach us better to appreciate the blessings of an abundant supply of water.
These poor people generally attach themselves to influential men in the different Bechuana tribes near to their desert home, in order to obtain supplies of spears, knives, tobacco, and dogs, in exchange for the skins of animals which they kill. These are small carnivora of the feline race, including two species of jackal, the dark and the golden, the former of which has the warmest fur the country yields, while the latter is very handsome when made into the skin-mantle called kaross. Next in value follow the small ocelot, the lynx, the wild and the spotted cat. Great numbers of duiker and steinbuck skins are also obtained, besides those of lions, panthers, and hyænas.
The Bakalahari are a timid race, and in bodily development frequently resemble the aborigines of Australia. They have thin legs and arms, and large protruding abdomens, caused by the coarse indigestible food they eat. Their children’s eyes have no lustre, and such is their want of the animation so natural at that age that Dr. Livingstone never saw them at play.