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When engaged in this singular performance, the dancer seems so completely wrapped up in his part, that he has no thought except to continue his performance in the most approved style. On the occasion just mentioned, the dancer did not interrupt his movement for a single moment when the white man made his unexpected entrance into the hut, and, indeed, seemed wholly unconscious of his presence. Shaking and twisting each leg alternately until it is tired does not seem to our eyes to be a particularly exhilarating recreation, especially when the performer cannot stand upright, is obliged to assume a stooping posture, and has only a space of a foot or two in diameter in which he can move. But the Bosjesman derives the keenest gratification from this extraordinary amusement, and the more he fatigues himself, the more he seems to enjoy it.
As is likely in such a climate, with such exertions, and with an atmosphere so close and odorous that an European can scarcely live in it, the perspiration pours in streams from the performer, and has, at all events, the merit of acting as a partial ablution. By way of a handkerchief, the dancer carries in his hand the bushy tail of a jackal fastened to a stick, and with this implement he continually wipes his countenance. He seems to have borrowed this custom from the Bechuanas, who take great pains in their manufacture of this article, as will be seen when we come to treat of their habits.
After dancing until he is unable even to stand, the Bosjesman is forced to yield his place to another, and to become one of the spectators. Before doing so, he takes off the rattles, and passes them to his successor, who assumes them as essential to the dance, and wears them until he, in his turn, can dance no longer. Here is another dancing tune taken down by Mr. Burchell on the same evening:—
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It may seem strange that such odd music could have any charms for an European who knew anything of music. Yet that such can be the case is evident from the words of the above mentioned traveller. “I find it impossible to give, by any means of mere description, a correct idea of the pleasing impressions received while viewing this scene, or of the kind of effect which the evening’s amusements produced upon my mind and feelings. It must be seen, it must be participated in, without which it would not be easy to imagine its force, or justly to conceive its nature. There was in this amusement nothing which can make me ashamed to confess that I derived as much enjoyment from it as the natives themselves. There was nothing in it which approached to vulgarity, and, in this point of view, it would be an injustice to these poor creatures not to place them in a more respectable rank than that to which the notions of Europeans have generally admitted them. It was not rude laughter and boisterous mirth, nor drunken jokes, nor noisy talk, which passed their hours away, but the peaceful, calm emotion of harmless pleasure.
“Had I never seen and known more of these savages than the occurrences of this day, and the pastimes of the evening, I should not have hesitated to declare them the happiest of mortals. Free from care, and pleased with a little, their life seemed flowing on, like a smooth stream gliding through flowery meads. Thoughtless and unreflecting, they laughed and smiled the hours away, heedless of futurity, and forgetful of the past. Their music softened all their passions, and thus they lulled themselves into that mild and tranquil state in which no evil thoughts approach the mind. The soft and delicate voices of the girls, instinctively accordant to those of the women and the men; the gentle clapping of the hands; the rattles of the dancer; and the mellow sound of the water drum, all harmoniously attuned, and keeping time together; the peaceful, happy countenances of the party, and the cheerful light of the fire, were circumstances so combined and fitted to produce the most soothing effects on the senses, that I sat as if the hut had been my home, and felt in the midst of this horde as though I had been one of them; for some few moments ceasing to think of sciences or of Europe, and forgetting that I was a lonely stranger in a land of untutored men.”
Nor is this a solitary example of the effect of native music in its own land, for other travellers have, as we shall see, written in equally glowing terms of the peculiar charms of the sounds produced by the rude instruments of Southern Africa, accompanied by the human voice.
We now come to the instrument which is, par excellence, the characteristic instrument of Southern Africa. The water-drum is a rather curious musical instrument, but there is one even more remarkable in use among the Bosjesmans, which is a singular combination of the stringed and wind principles. In general form it bears a great resemblance to the Kaffir harp, but it has no gourd by way of a sounding-board, and the tones are produced in a different manner. This instrument is called the Goura, and is thus described by Le Vaillant:—