"When I met with the first Bushmen I ever saw, on the banks of the Orange River in 1872, I was a very young man, and, regarding them with some repugnance, wrote in my diary that they appeared to be removed by a very few steps from the brute creation. That was a very foolish and ignorant remark to make, and I have since found out that though Bushmen may possibly be to-day in the same backward state of material development and knowledge as once were the palæolithic ancestors of the most highly cultured European races in prehistoric times, yet fundamentally there is very little difference between the natures of primitive and civilised men, so that it is quite possible for a member of one of the more cultured races to live for a time quite happily and contentedly amongst beings who are often described as degraded savages, and from whom he is separated by thousands of years in all that is implied by the word 'civilisation.' I have hunted a great deal with Bushmen, and during 1884 I lived amongst these people continuously for several months together. On many and many a night I have slept in their encampments without even any Kafir attendants, and though I was entirely in their power I always felt perfectly safe among them. As most of the men spoke Sechwana I was able to converse with them, and found them very intelligent, good-natured companions, full of knowledge concerning the habits of all the wild animals inhabiting the country in which they lived.... I have never seen their women and children ill-treated by them, and I have seen both the men and the women show affection for their children." Elsewhere Selous speaks of "John"--a member of the close-related Korana clan--who was in his service, as "of a pale yellow-brown colour, beautifully proportioned, with small delicately made hands and feet." From preface by Henry Balfour to the book _Bushmen Paintings Copied_, by Helen Tongue. "It is certain that the designs representing animals, etc., which are painted upon the walls of their caves and rock-shelters, frequently exhibit a realism and freedom in treatment which are quite remarkable in the art of so primitive a people. The skill with which many of the characteristic South African animals are portrayed testifies not only to unusual artistic efficiency, but also to a close observance of and an intimate acquaintanceship with the habits and peculiarities of the animals themselves.... The paintings are remarkable not only for the realism exhibited by so many, but also for a freedom from the limitation to delineation in _profile_ which characterises for the most part the drawings of primitive peoples, especially where animals are concerned. Attitudes of a kind difficult to render were ventured upon without hesitation, and an appreciation even of the rudiments of perspective is occasionally to be noted." Note from the same book, by S. Bleek, daughter of the well-known Dr. Bleek, of the Grey Library at Cape Town (1870).