masters. One of these that I passed on the road, a very old man, died (as I was told) the day after of weakness and fatigue. Most of these fugitives carried a thick, stout staff, generally headed with a heavy gritstone of 2 lbs. weight or more, rounded off, and with a hole bored through the middle of it, in order to increase the force of the stick for the purpose of digging up roots and bulbs out of the ground; and at the same time for piercing the hard clay hillocks, which are formed to the height of 3 or 4 feet, by a kind of ants (Termes), a species of insect of which the Boshiesmen's food in a great measure consists.* It gave me no small pain to see the poor old fugitives frequently wasting the remains of their strength on these hardened hillocks in vain, some other animals, that feed on ants, having worked their way into them, and consumed all their provisions beforehand."

Burchell adds his testimony:

"We were visited by two natives, whose kraal, they said, was at some distance eastward, and who being out in search of wild roots happened to observe our track, and had discovered us by following it. One of them wore on the side of his head, as an ornament, and tied close to the hair, a circular plate of shining brass 3 inches in diameter. The other carried, what my Hottentots called a 'graafstok (a digging-stick) to which there was affixed a heavy stone to increase its force in picking up bulbous roots. The stone, which was 5 inches in diameter, had been cut or ground, very regularly, to a round form, and perforated with a hole large enough to receive the stick and a wedge by which it was fixed in its place."

Livingstone, in his last journal, but quoting from memory, as is plainly discernible by the figure given, states: "In 1841 I saw a Bushwoman in the Cape Colony with a round stone and a hole through it; on being asked, she showed me how it was used by inserting the top of a digging-stick into it and digging a root. The stone was to give the stick weight."

In addition to this written evidence I endeavoured to find other testimony with the result that a Mr. Turner, from near Griqua. Town, remembered very well Bushmen and Korannas using the "kwe." The stone was fastened at the lower part of the stick.

Mr. Bodenstein-at whose place Dr. A. W. Rogers, Director of the Cape Geological Survey, found a very large perforated stone made of steatite (an unusual occurrence), but cleft in the centre

* The Termes workers are, possibly on account of their colour, called still "Bushman's Rice," in Dutch, "Rijs miere."

saw the

stick.

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Vaalpense," use the stone fixed at the top end of the Men, women, and children all dug with it."

I succeeded in procuring the photograph here produced of what

But

is plainly intended to be an old Bushwoman using the ! kwè. these people are so eager to say, Yah, baas," i.e., to assent to The Vaalpense," so-called by the Dutch, would seem to be not Bush people, but very degraded Bechuanas, belonging therefore to the Bantu-speaking race which we call generally Kaffir.

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any suggestion made or question put to them, that I concluded from her physiognomy that she was also willing to please. However, when this photograph was shown to the Bushwoman of whom we took a cast, and who is represented in Pl. XXVIII., not only did she acknowledge that it was a true position, but seizing a stick she gave a most energetic display of the two or three different styles

FIG. 13.

of manipulation of the handle required for the orthodox extraction of roots. This evidence completely corroborates the use of the perforated stone as part of a digging implement, and very likely also the implement with which, or partly by means of which, the snares or game-pits were dug. But was this its sole raison d'être? Plainly not!

In Europe these globular stones are considered to have been clubheads. In France, and in England, as well as in Northern Europe

they are spherical or ovoid; in the Mediterranean region they are either spherical or pyriform, and better finished. The Atacama

FIG. 14.

Desert specimen, Fig. 159, does not differ much in shape from South African ones, nor does the Tanganyka Plateau implement, Fig. 158, which is, however, somewhat quadrangular.

Fortunately, we have proofs that in South Africa the ! kwè was not only used for weighting digging-sticks but also as club-head, and this proof is afforded by Bushman paintings from the Orange River Colony, which through the kindness of Professor B. Young, of the Transvaal University College, I am able to reproduce here.*

These parietal paintings represent Bush people or Korannas going a-digging. The women hold the stick with the kwè in position. (text-fig. 13).

In text-fig. 14, men are seen carrying the same, but in some figures the stick is there, but not the stone.

The third scene, text-fig. 15, shows another use for the ! kwè. It is now a club-head; the stick is short; the stone is affixed to the top, and the stick protrudes for a short distance.

FIG 15.

This scene is plainly a mythical one, and as such is difficult of explanation, but there can be no doubt in this case as to the purpose of the ! kwè.

It is now very evident that these implements served the purpose of adding weight to the digging-sticks, and were used as well as heads to clubs.

Mr. J. P. Johnston has also published these very interesting scenes. Kolben says in speaking of the Hottentots: Every morning, excepting when the husband goes a-hunting or fishing, which happens not often, the Hottentot woman goes to gather certain roots and milk the cow for the sustenance of the family. These roots . . . she digs up with a stick of iron or olive-wood, pointed." There is here no mention of a perforated stone to add weight to the stick. But as the perforated stones are far from uncommon in the immediate neighbourhood of Cape Town, I found several in the precincts of the town, either Kolben quoted from memory, with the inevitable result, or these stones were possibly discarded at the time of his visit (1715).

In New Guinea stones perforated seemingly in the same manner as our South African examples are mostly used for heading clubs; some are sharpened at each end. A few of these are natural stones; the greater part are, however, undoubtedly worked. See Haddon's "Classification of the Stone Clubs of British New Guinea," Journ. Anthr. Instit., xxx., 1900.