The sun., 1908-03-22
AFRICAN BUSHMEN DOOMED.
Dr. RudOlf Pooh TO Make = Study Of Dis
appearing Race.

A letter received in New York from Dr.
Rudolf Pooh, the well known anthropologist
says:
| am about TO start under the auspices
of the Imperial Academy Of Sciences OF
Vienna for the kalahari Desert in South Africa
to make a study Of the bushmen. The race
is rapidly dying out and the sole purpose
Of my expedition IA to add to our knowledge
OF this people before they become extinct
The fact has been reoogn lied for some
years that this African race is destined to
extinction. This is all the more remarkable
because everywhere else the African races
are more than holding their own.
Pestilence, war and the evils that the
whites introduce are powerless TO obliterate
them. Africa is growing steadily in native
population
But the bushmen are now reduced TO a
handful and every year they are dwindlng.
Circumstances are too hard for them and
il is not believed they could be saved even
by a change in their conditions.
The bushmen inhabt the great desert Of
South Africa. There is no running water,
and vet among the sand wastes there are
by digging and in places IL comes so near
the surface that vegetation 1ourishes and
many animals find nurture in the desert.
The huahman are only 9 few inJhys
taller than the pygmies Of central Africa.
They live In rock caves or In huts OF sticks
and grass. They seldom wear more than a
leather apron to protect their legs from
thorns.
They subsist on the scant vegetation, on
roots and on the animals they kill. Clubs,
bows and arrows and few spears are their
only weapons, They are primitive, but
they do not buy their wives; they have
been faithful to those whites who have
befriended them, and they paint and draw
In an astonishing manner. Much has been
written Of the thousands Of animal paint
ings with which they adorn the rocks and
the walls OF their caves.
Why do they not abandon the desert TO
which they are oonfnedl They could not
II they would. They are hemmed around
by pastoral and agricultural regions, all
occupied by strong tribes, who kill them
like vermin If they venture across the
line.
II they were free TO leave the desert it
s doubtful II they would do 50, for they
are hunting people, and such tribes have
never voluntarily become pastoral or an
agricultural community, Whenever cattle
have been given 10 the bushmen they
have killed them, for they will not herd
them.
The whites have been even more de-
structive Of the bushmen than their native
enemies Late In the eighteenth century
the Dutch used to shoot these little people
as they would game. II In recorded that
in the ten years ending in 1895 the Dutch
killed 2,lSO bushmen.
They have always shrunk from contact
with civilization, and to-day. when they
see white protectorates planted all around
them, they are retreAting further into the
desert. The whites are invading the more
fertile valleys. are stalking out ranches
and building little settlements. are killing
off the game that Is the hereditary food
OF the desert nomads, ploughing the places
where the bushmen go for berries and
edible roots and narrowing the area In
which they can live.
They seem wholly unable TO live under
new conditions, and the old conditions are
passing away. All who know them best
saV that their absolute determination is
a question Of only few years.