In The Evening We Met Some Bushmen, Who Volunteered
To Show Us A Pool; And Having Unyoked, I Walked Some
Miles in search of it.
As it became dark they showed their politeness - a quality which
is by no means
Confined entirely to the civilized - by walking in front,
breaking the branches which hung across the path, and pointing out
the fallen trees. On returning to the wagon, we found that being left alone
had brought out some of Fleming's energy, for he had managed to come up.
As the water in this pond dried up, we were soon obliged to move again.
One of the Bushmen took out his dice, and, after throwing them, said that God
told him to go home. He threw again in order to show me the command,
but the opposite result followed; so he remained and was useful,
for we lost the oxen again by a lion driving them off
to a very great distance. The lions here are not often heard.
They seem to have a wholesome dread of the Bushmen, who, when they observe
evidence of a lion's having made a full meal, follow up his spoor so quietly
that his slumbers are not disturbed. One discharges a poisoned arrow
from a distance of only a few feet, while his companion simultaneously
throws his skin cloak on the beast's head. The sudden surprise
makes the lion lose his presence of mind, and he bounds away
in the greatest confusion and terror. Our friends here showed me the poison
which they use on these occasions. It is the entrails of a caterpillar
called N'gwa, half an inch long. They squeeze out these,
and place them all around the bottom of the barb, and allow the poison
to dry in the sun. They are very careful in cleaning their nails
after working with it, as a small portion introduced into a scratch
acts like morbid matter in dissection wounds. The agony is so great
that the person cuts himself, calls for his mother's breast
as if he were returned in idea to his childhood again,
or flies from human habitations a raging maniac. The effects on the lion
are equally terrible. He is heard moaning in distress, and becomes furious,
biting the trees and ground in rage.
As the Bushmen have the reputation of curing the wounds of this poison,
I asked how this was effected. They said that they administer
the caterpillar itself in combination with fat; they also rub fat into
the wound, saying that "the N'gwa wants fat, and, when it does not find it
in the body, kills the man: we give it what it wants, and it is content:"
a reason which will commend itself to the enlightened among ourselves.
The poison more generally employed is the milky juice
of the tree Euphorbia (`E. arborescens'). This is particularly obnoxious
to the equine race. When a quantity is mixed with the water of a pond
a whole herd of zebras will fall dead from the effects of the poison
before they have moved away two miles.
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