BUSHMEN, or BO:=JESMANS; so named by the Dutch colonists, but calling themselves SAAB, or SAAX; an aboriginal race of s. Africa, somewhat like, and yet differing from, the Hottentot, but like them having nothing in common with the Kaffer or negro. They rank with the savage of Australia among the lowest existing types of mankind, and are in a most degraded and destitute condition. They are of small stature, of dirty yellow color, and very repulsive features. The cheek-bones are large and promi nent, the eyes deep set and crafty in expression, nose small and depressed, and the hair in small woolly tufts with bald spaces between. Of 150 measured by a traveler, the tallest man was 4 ft. 9 in., and woman 4 ft. 4 in. Some are well proportioned, active, and capable of enduring great privations and fatigue. Those furthest n., near lake Ngami. are considerably larger in body. They clothe in skins and are fond of orna ments, decorating their arms and legs with beads and rings, and the women sometimes paint their faces red. They dwell in huts of reed or in holes in the ground; in the mountain districts they live among the rocks with mats for shelter. They have no cattle, nor any animals except a few half-wild dogs, nor have they the least signs of agriculture; but as they live by hunting they are well acquainted with the habits of ani mals, and follow the herds of antelope in their migrations. Their weapons are bows and arrows, the latter tipped with bone or iron, and poisoned with vegetable matter mixed with the venom of snakes or spiders, or the entrails of an extremely poisonous caterpillar are used alone. On account of the use of these fatal poisons the B. are held in dread by neighboring tribes. The discovery of their rude tools for digging tubers, scattered over wide regions not now occupied by them, indicates the existence of greater numbers of B. in earlier times. They have no approach to tribal organiza
tion, nor any chiefs; bodily strength the only distinction of superiority. Their various dialects are not understood by the Hottentots, the tongue of the latter being more agglutinative, that of the B. more monosyllabic; the Hottentots use gender in names, while the B. do not. The Hottentots can count 20; the B. only 2—calling all above that "many." The B. possess a pictorial faculty not known in any other south African tribe, and the rocks of the Cape Colony and Drakenbcrg mountains show many examples of Bushman drawings of men, women, children, and animals. Rings, crosses, and other signs, drawn in blue on rocks and stones, and believed to be centuries old, have given rise to the suggestion that these may be the remains of hieroglyphic writing; and the discovery of drawings of men and women with antelope heads, also very ancient, recalls the mythological figures of Egypt. The B. have a kind of intelligence, and are valued as servants by the Boers, being much more energetic than the Hotten tots. A wholesale destruction of B. on the borders of the colony in earlier years, reduced their numbers greatly; and though this hunting of them has ceased, their children are still captured by the Boers for servants. The B. retaliate by ravaging the farms on the border and driving off cattle. As they once occupied a much larger area, it seems probable that the B. are the remains of the earliest aborigines of s. Africa, and that they existed there before the Kaffers, and perhaps before the Hottentots. A former and more general distribution of the race is indicated by the discovery in late years of undersized people near the upper Nile basin and on the western equatorial coast land by Dr. Schweinfurth and Du Chaillu.