exhibiting in what degree the Bachapins are possessed of ornamental
taste. The grace of these decorations is evident, and of some, the
elegance of turn is not surpassed in the works of more polished
nations. Of the three following figures, which have been copied
from their knife-sheaths, the two first are remarkably beautiful: I do
not recollect having seen elsewhere any thing exactly similar to that
on the left.
In the imitative arts, the few attempts which came under my
observation, werp in the rudest style, and manifested little natural
talent of this kind. I was once shown what was regarded by the
natives as a superior effort in the art of delineation, and which was exhibited
as one of their best specimens : it has been already noticed at
page 453. It was nothing more than the outlines of some animals,
daubed against the wall of their house; but which were so ill drawn
as barely to be recognised.
The carved figures in relief, which are sometimes seen ornamenting
their knife-handles and a few other utensils, are the work of the
Bichuana nations beyond them to the north-east, who appear, from
various specimens of their manufactures, to be a much more ingenious
people, and to have advanced in arts several degrees beyond the
Bachapins; a circumstance which seems clearly to indicate the
quarter whence civilization, if it may be called so, has commenced its
progress into the interior of Southern Africa. On the western coast,
bounded by a wide and unfrequented ocean, there existed formerly
no source from which a knowledge of arts could be derived • and consequently,
in that portion of the continent, few traces of civilized
notions are now discoverable : but on the eastern, the existence of
nations, higher northward, among whom science and arts have flourished,
may reasonably be considered as the remote cause that the
state of society and arts among the northeastern tribes, was found,
as Hottentots who have visited them reported to me, to be more
advanced, in proportion as they travelled farther in that direction.
As a practical illustration of the extremely slow pace at which
knowledge moves through these countries, it may be remarked that
the Bachapins are now only first beginning to acquire the art of working
in iron. The only blacksmith at this time at Litakun, was the
man whom I have already mentioned *, and who had very lately
learnt it by attentively watching the operations of the smiths at
Melitta the chief-town of the Nuakketsies, where he had been on a
visit to barter for iron goods of their manufacture : the Bachapins
having been hitherto in the habit of obtaining all articles of that kind
from these northeastern nations.
As a proof of the skill with which the Nuakketsies work in that
metal, I subjoin at the end of the chapter, a representation of the
head of a kôveh, a sort of hassagay which is distinguished from the
rumo or lërumo, the ordinary sort f, by the barbed form of its blade,
and its jagged stem. The upper figure shows the iron head with a
part of the wooden shaft ; the lower figures are given of the natural
size, for thé purpose of exhibiting more intelligibly both in front and
in profile, the manner in which the stem is jagged. This stem
appears to have been first forged plain, with squared corners ; and
these afterwards to have been cut into sharp points standing in
opposite directions. These points are cut out from the corners, with
an accuracy which many European workmen could not surpass, and
which many others could not equal.
The kôveh, therefore, is far beyond the powers of the Bachapin
* At page 482. .. .
f The lei'kmo may be seen represented in the tenth plate of the first volume, and in
the vignette at page 186. of the present volume.