Whatever may be the case with regard to their names, it is certain that the Bosjesmans have no idea of distinctions in rank, differing, however, from the natives which surround them. The Kaffir tribes are remarkable for the elaborate code of etiquette which they possess, and which could not exist unless social distinctions were definitely marked. The Hottentots have their headmen, who possess supreme power in the kraal, though they do not exhibit any external mark of dignity. But the Bosjesman has not the least notion of rank, and affords the most complete example of anarchic life that can be conceived. In the small hordes of Bosjesmans who wander about the country, there is no chief, and not even a headman. Each horde, as a general rule, consists of a single family, unless members of other hordes may choose to leave their own friends and join it. But the father of the family is not recognized as its head, much less does he exercise any power. The leadership of the kraal belongs to the strongest, and he only holds it until some one stronger than himself dispossesses him.
It is the same with the social relations of life. Among the Kaffirs and Hottentots—especially among the former—the women are jealously watched, and infidelity to the marriage compact is severely punished. This, however, is not the case with the Bosjesmans, who scarcely seem to recognize any such compact, the marriage tie being dissoluble at the will of the husband. Although the man can divorce his wife whenever he chooses, the woman does not possess the same power—not because either party has any regard to the marriage tie, but because he is the stronger of the two, and would beat her if she tried to go away without his permission. Even if a couple should be pleased with each other, and do not wish to separate, they cannot be sure that they will be allowed to remain together; for if a man who is stronger than the husband chooses to take a fancy to the wife, he will take her away by force, and keep her, unless some one still stronger than himself happens to think that she will suit his taste. As to the woman herself, she is not consulted on the subject, and is either given up or retained without the least reference to her feelings. It is a curious fact, that in the various dialects of the Bosjesmans, there are no words that express the distinction between an unmarried girl or wife, one word being indiscriminately used.
In this extraordinary social condition the Bosjesman seems to have lived for centuries, and the earliest travellers in Southern Africa, who wrote accounts of the inhabitants of that strange land, have given descriptions which exactly tally with narratives which have been published within the last few years.
The character of the true Bosjesman seems to have undergone no change for many hundreds of years. Civilization has made no impression upon him. The Kaffirs, the Dutch, and the English have in turn penetrated into his country, and have driven him further into the wilderness, but he has never submitted to either of these powerful foes, nor has he condescended to borrow from them any of the arts of civilization. Both Kaffirs and Hottentots have been in so far subjected to the inroads of civilization that they have placed themselves under the protection of the white colonists, and have learned from them to substitute the blanket for the kaross, and the gun for the spear or arrow. They have also acted as domestic servants to the white men, voluntarily hiring themselves for pay, and performing their work with willingness. But the Bosjesman has preserved his individuality, and while the Hottentots have become an essentially subservient race, and the Kaffirs have preferred vassalage to independence, he is still the wild man of the desert, as free, as untamable, as he was a thousand years ago. Kaffirs, Dutch, and English have taken young Bosjesmans into their service. The two former have made them their slaves; the latter have tried to educate them into paid servants. But they have been equally unsuccessful, and the Bosjesman servant cannot, as the saying is, be trusted further than he can be seen, and, by a wise master, not so far. His wild nature is strong within him, and, unless closely watched, he is apt to throw off all appearance of civilization, and return to the privations and the freedom of his native state.
The principal use to which a Bosjesman servant is put is to serve the office of “fore-louper,” i. e. the guide to the oxen. When a wagon is harnessed with its twelve or fourteen oxen, the driver sits on the box—which really is a box—and wields a most formidable whip, but has no reins, his office being to urge, and not to guide. His own department he fulfils with a zest all his own. His terrific whip, with a handle like a salmon-rod, and a lash nearly as long as its line, can reach the foremost oxen of the longest team, and, when wielded by an experienced driver, can cut a deep gash in the animal’s hide, as if a knife, and not a whip, had been used. A good driver can deliver his stroke with equal certainty upon the furthest ox, or upon those that are just beneath him, and so well are the oxen aware of this, that the mere whistle of the plaited cord through the air, or the sharp crack of its lash, will cause every ox in the team to bend itself to its work, as if it felt the stinging blow across its back, and the hot blood trickling down its sides.
But the driver will not condescend to guide the animals, that task being considered the lowest to which a human being can be put, and which is in consequence handed over to a Hottentot boy, or, preferably, to a Bosjesman. The “fore-louper’s” business is to walk just in front of the leading oxen, and to pick out the track which is most suitable for the wheels. There is now before me a beautiful photograph of a harnessed wagon, with the driver on his seat, and the fore-louper in his place in front of the oxen. He is a very little man, about four feet six inches in height, and, to judge from his face, may be of any age from sixteen to sixty.
How the fore-louper will sometimes behave, if he thinks that his master is not an experienced traveller, may be seen from the following account by a traveller who has already been quoted: “My ‘leader’ (as the boy is called who leads the two front oxen of the span), on my first wagon journey, was a Bushman: he was about four feet high, and decidedly the ugliest specimen of the human race I ever beheld, without being deformed in body or limbs; the most prominent feature in his face was the mouth, with its huge, thick, sensual lips. The nose could scarcely be called a projection; at all events, it was far less distinguishable in the outline of the side face than the mouth; it was an inverted (or concave) Roman,—that is to say, the bridge formed a curve inward; the nostrils were very wide and open, so that you seemed, by means of them, to look a considerable distance into his head.
“With regard to the eyes, I am guilty of no exaggeration when I assert that you could not see the eyeballs at all as you looked at his profile, but only the hollows which contained them; it was like looking at a mask when the eyes of the wearer are far removed from the orifices cut for them in the pasteboard. The cheek-bones were immense, the cheeks thin and hollow; the forehead was low and shelving—in fact, he could scarcely be said to have a forehead at all. He was two or three shades from being black, and he had even less hair on his head than his countrymen generally; it was composed of little tight woolly knots, with a considerable space of bare skin between each.
“So much for the young gentleman’s features. The expression was diabolically bad, and his disposition corresponded to it. I firmly believe that the little wretch would have been guilty of any villany, or any cruelty, for the mere love of either. I found the only way to keep him in the slightest control was to inspire him with bodily fear—no easy task, seeing that his hide was so tough that your arms would ache long before you produced any keen sense of pain by thrashing him.
“On one occasion the wagon came to the brow of a hill, when it was the duty of the leader to stop the oxen, and see that the wheel was well locked. It may readily be imagined that a wagon which requires twelve oxen to draw it on level ground could not be held back by two oxen in its descent down a steep hill, unless with the wheel locked. My interesting Bushman, however, whom I had not yet offended in any manner, no sooner found himself at the top of the hill, than he let go the oxen with a yell and ‘whoop,’ which set them off at a gallop down the precipitous steep. The wagon flew from side to side of the road, destined, apparently, to be smashed to atoms every moment, together with myself, its luckless occupant. I was dashed about, almost unconscious of what could be the cause, so suddenly had we started on our mad career. Heaven only knows how I escaped destruction, but we positively reached the bottom of the hill uninjured.