"The Bushmen are originally a Hottentot race--of that I think there is little doubt; but I believe they are a race of people produced by circumstances, if I may use the expression. The Hottentot on the plains lives a nomad life, pasturing and living upon his herds. The Bushman may be considered as the Hottentot driven out of his fertile plains, deprived of his cattle, and compelled to resort to the hills for his safety and subsistence--in short, a Hill Hottentot: impelled by hunger and by injuries he has committed depredations upon the property of others until he has had a mark set upon him; his hand has been against every man, and he has been hunted like a wild beast, and compelled to hide himself in the caves of almost inaccessible rocks and hills. "Thus, generation after generation, he has suffered privation and hunger, till the race has dwindled down to the small size which it is at present. Unable to contend against force, his only weapons have been his cunning and his poisoned arrows, and with them he has obtained his livelihood--or rather, it may be said, has contrived to support life, and no more. There are, however, many races mixed up with the Bushmen; for run-away slaves, brought from Madagascar, Malaya, and even those of the mixed white breed, when they have committed murder or other penal crimes have added to the race and incorporated themselves with them; they are called the Children of the Desert, and they are literally such." "Have you seen much of them?" "Yes, when I was in the Namaqua-land and in the Bechuana territory I saw a great deal of them. I do not think that they are insensible to kindness, and moreover, I believe that they may often be trusted; but you run a great risk." "Have they ever shown any gratitude?" "Yes; when I have killed game for them, they have followed me on purpose to show me the pools of water, without which we should have suffered severely, if we had not perished. We were talking about lions; it is an old-received opinion, that the jackal is the lion's provider; it would be a more correct one to say that the lion is the Bushman's provider." "Indeed!" "I once asked a Bushman, `How do you live?' His reply was, `I live by the lions.' I asked him to explain to me. He said, `I will show what I do: I let the lions follow the game and kill it and eat it till they have their bellies full, then I go up to where the lion is sitting down by the carcass, and I go pretty near to him; I cry out, "What have you got there, cannot you spare me some of it? Go away and let me have some meat, or I'll do you some harm." Then I dance and jump about and shake my skin-dress, and the lion looks at me, and he turns round and walks away; he growls very much, but he don't stay, and then I eat the rest.'" "And is that true?"