THE KALAHARI AND THE BUSHMEN.
Reasons why Droughts are prevalent in South Africa—Vegetation admirably suited to the Character of the Country—Number of Tuberous Roots—The Caffre Water-Melon—The Mesembryanthemums—The Animal Life of the Kalahari—The Bushmen, a Nomadic Race of Hunters—Their Skill in Hunting—Their Food—Acuteness of their Sight and Hearing—Their Intelligence and Perseverance—Their Weapons and Marauding Expeditions—Their Voracity—Their Love of Liberty—The Bakalahari—Their Love for Agriculture—Their Ingenuity in procuring Water—Trade in Skins—Their timidity.
A geographical position, not unlike that which condemns the plains along the western foot of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes to perpetual aridity, renders also the greater part of tropical and sub-tropical Southern Africa subject to severe droughts, and in general to great scarcity of rain. For the emanations of the Indian Ocean, which the easterly winds carry towards that continent, and which, if equally distributed over the whole surface, would render it capable of bearing the richest productions of the torrid zone, are mostly deposited on the eastern slopes of the mountain-chains, which, under various denominations, traverse eastern South Africa from north to south; and when the moving mass of air, having crossed their highest elevations, reaches the great heated inland plains, the ascending warmth of that hot dry surface gives it greater power86 of retaining its remaining moisture, and few showers can be given to the central and western lands. Thus, while the sea-board gorges of the eastern zone are clad with gigantic forests, and an annual supply of rain there keeps a large number of streams perpetually flowing, Damara Land, the Namaqua country, and the Kalahari, are almost constantly deprived of moving water.
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From these general remarks it might be imagined that regions so scantily supplied with one of the prime necessaries of life could be nothing but a dead and naked waste; yet, strange to say, even the great Kalahari, extending from the Orange river in the south, lat. 29°, to Lake Ngami in the north, lat. 21°, and from about 24° E. long. to near the west coast, has been called a desert simply because it contains no flowing streams and very little water in wells; as, far from being destitute of vegetable or animal life, it is covered with grass and a great variety of creeping plants, interspersed with large patches of bushes and even trees. In general, the soil is a light-coloured, soft sand; but the beds of the ancient rivers contain much alluvial soil, and, as that is baked hard by the burning sun, rain-water stands in pools in some of them for several months in the year.
The abundance of vegetation on so unpromising a soil may partly be explained by the geological formation of the country; for as the basin-shape prevails over large tracks, and as the strata on the slopes where most of the rain falls dip in towards the centre, they probably guide water beneath the plains, which are but ill-supplied with moisture from the clouds.
Another cause, which serves to counteract the want or scarcity of rain, is the admirable foresight of Nature in providing these arid lands with plants suited to their peculiar climate. Thus creepers abound which, having their roots buried far beneath the soil, feel but little the effects of the scorching sun. The number of these which have tuberous roots is very great—a structure evidently intended to supply nutriment and moisture when, during the long droughts, they can be obtained nowhere else.
One of these blessings to the inhabitants of the desert is the Leroshua, a small plant with linear leaves, and a stalk not thicker than a crow’s quill; but on digging down a foot or87 eighteen inches beneath, the root enlarges to a tuber, often as big as the head of a young child, which, on the rind being removed, is found to be a mass of cellular tissue, filled with fluid much like that in a young turnip. Owing to the depth beneath the surface at which it is found, it is generally deliciously cool and refreshing. Another kind, named mokuri, is seen in other parts of the country, where long-continued heat parches the soil. This plant is an herbaceous creeper, and deposits under ground a number of tubers, some as large as a man’s head, often in a circle, a yard or more horizontally from the stem. The natives strike the ground on the circumference of the circle with stones, till, by hearing a difference of sound, they know the water-bearing tuber to be beneath. They then dig down a foot or so and find it.
But the most wonderful plant of the desert is the Kengwe, the water-melon of the Caffres. In years when more than the usual quantity of rain falls, vast tracts of the country are literally covered with these juicy gourds, and then animals of every sort and name, including man, rejoice in the rich supply.
The creeping plants of the desert serve, moreover, a double purpose; for, besides their use as food, they fix, by means of their extensive ramifications, the constantly shifting sands—thus rendering similar services to those of the sand-reed (Ammophila arundinacea) on the dunes along the sandy coasts of the North Sea.
The Mesembryanthemums are another family of plants admirably adapted to the Kalahari, as their seed-vessels remain firmly shut while the soil is hot and dry, and thus preserve the vegetative power intact during the highest heat of the torrid sun; but when rain falls, the seed-vessel opens and sheds its contents, just when there is the greatest likelihood of their vegetating. This is the more wonderful, as in other plants heat and drought cause the seed-vessels to burst and shed their charge.
One of this family possesses a tuberous root, which may be eaten raw; and all are furnished with thick, fleshy leaves, with pores capable of imbibing and retaining moisture from a very dry atmosphere and soil; so that if a leaf is broken during the greatest drought it shows abundant circulating sap.
The peculiar and comparatively abundant vegetation of the88 arid plains of South Africa explains how these wastes are peopled by herds of herbivorous animals, which in their turn are preyed upon by the lion, the panther, or the python. Hundreds of elands (Boselaphus oreas) gemsbucks, koodoos, (Strepsiceros capensis), or duikers (Cephalopus mergens), may often be seen thirty or forty miles from the nearest water. These, having sharp-pointed hoofs well adapted for digging, are able to subsist without water for many months at a time, by living on moist bulbs and tubers; while the presence of the rhinoceros, of the buffalo and gnu (Catoblepas Gnu), of the giraffe, the zebra, and pallah (Antilope melampus), is always a certain indication of water being within a distance of seven or eight miles.
KOODOO.
The tribes of the Kalahari consist of Bushmen, probably the aborigines of the southern part of the continent, and of Bakalahari, the remnants of an ancient Bechuana emigration.
The diminutive Bushman occupies nearly the lowest degree in the scale of humanity. Equalled in size by the Chimpanzee, far surpassed by the Gorilla, and with as little prominence of the nasal bone as in those highest of the Simiæ, he nevertheless walks erect, and by the equal and uninterrupted series of his comparatively small teeth, by his well-developed great toe and the large opposable thumb, by his plantigrade foot and prehensile hand, vindicates his claim to the genus man. Inhabiting the arid deserts of South Africa, from the confines of the Cape Colony to the banks of the Zambesi, or possibly even as far north as the valley of the Nile, he is the only real nomad in South Africa, as the scanty means of subsistence the land affords compel him to a life of constant wandering. He never cultivates the soil excepting perhaps for the sake of a little dacha or wild hemp for smoking, nor rears any domestic animal save wretched dogs. As a hunter he rivals the American Indian in his intimate acquaintance with the habits of the game, and the skill he evinces in their capture. He follows them in their migrations from place to place, and proves as complete a check upon89 their inordinate increase as the other carnivora. When game is scarce, he manages to live on bulbs, snakes, lizards, termites, ants’ eggs, locusts, and any other garbage he can get. Inured to every privation, he equals the camel in his endurance of hun............