THE SICHUANA LANGUAGE.

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech."

Gen. xi. I.

"Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."-Gen. v. 7.

THE question of Language is one of the most important in connexion with Dr Livingstone's African discoveries past or future. It will here be shewn that such is especially the case with the Sichuana, spoken by the Bechuana tribes.

Being the means of communication between man and man, Language is concerned with all the great topics embraced in the central African question.

For the following condensed account of this language I am indebted to the kindness of Professor Sedgwick, who allows me to make a few notes from a copy of an unpublished work of Dr Livingstone's sent to him as a parting memorial of friendship by our traveller two days before the expedition set sail. This book "An Analysis of the Language of the Bechuanas by David Livingstone" was written by him in 1852, at Kuruman. 25 copies only were printed in February, 1858, for the use of the Members of the Zambesi expedition, with a view of imparting to them a general idea of the structure of South African languages. Hence this information to the general reader is entirely new. Our limits will not admit of more than a brief view of this subject.

We may here remark that the word Sichuana is an adjective applied to anything belonging to the nation. The national name Bechuana is simply the plural of Mochuana, a single individual.

In reference to the general question of affinities in language, it is very striking to observe the likeness in several respects between this and the ancient Egyptian. Chevalier Bunsen, in his "Egypt's Place in Universal

arising from the animal-worship on the banks of the Nile. For a like reason the Bechuanas will not eat fish.

The Makololo pound maize in large wooden mortars; the exact counterpart of which may be seen on the Egyptian monuments'.

The mode of weaving cotton in Angola, and throughout central Africa, is so like that of the same people, that our traveller has introduced a wood-cut from Sir Gardiner Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, illustrative both of this and the above practice.

With reference to the peculiarities of race, our traveller says; "The monuments of the ancient Egyptians seem to me to embody the ideal of the inhabitants of Londa, better than the figures of any work of ethnology I have met with."

As regards the mode of dressing the hair among the Banyai, he says: "As they draw out their hair into small cords a foot in length, and entwine the inner bark of a certain tree round each separate cord, and dye this substance of a reddish colour, many of them put me in mind of the ancient Egyptians*."

Other traces of that wonderful people may be seen; such as the rite of circumcision, the doctrine of the metempsychosis, and some other arts and customs.

These indications are interesting and important, since they help the question of the unity of our race, and shew how influential and permanent the teaching of one people becomes on the minds and practice of another; hence bidding us to hope the more for the lasting influence of true civilization and Christianity on untaught heathen and idolaters.

Do climate

This question is merely mooted here. Dr. and geographi- Pritchard says such is largely the case; Dr situation Livingstone says but little. The former reasons à posteriori; the latter à priori. Dr Pritchard

cal

influence race?

1 Travels, p. 196.

3 Ibid. p. 624.

2 Ibid. p. 400.

4 Ibid. p. 379.

says that climate and geographical situation make men in time brave, cowardly, bright, or stupid; Dr Livingstone says that men choose, when they can, a mountainous or a flat country, in accordance with their native energy and national predi lections.

The outline of Dr Pritchard's argument is as follows: the same races evidence marked differences of physical character and particularity of complexion, which are successive, or by gradations in accordance with climate and geographical situa tion. This he illustrates by numerous examples1.

Dr Livingstone consents to all this as far as colour is concerned, but not so much in other respects. He also supports his argument by a reference to facts. Admitting that such variations are observable as Dr Pritchard indicates, he attributes these, as above stated, to race, not to outward circumstances. Hear his argument: "But though it is all very well, in speaking in a loose way, to ascribe the development of national character to the physical features of the country, I suspect that those who are accustomed to curb the imagination in the severe way employed to test for truth in the physical sciences would attribute more to race or breed than to mere scenery. Look at the Bushmenliving on the same plains, eating the same food, but often in scantier measure, and subjected to the same climatorial and physical influences as the Bakalahari, yet how enormously different the results! The Bushman has a wiry, compact frame; is brave and independent; scorns to till the ground or keep domestic animals. The Bakalahari is spiritless and abject in demeanour and thought, delights in cultivating a little corn or pumpkins, or in rearing a few goats. Both races have been looking at the same scenes for centuries'."

"The cause of the difference observed in tribes inhabiting the same localities, though it spoils the poetry of the 1 See Work, Vol. II. Chap. xv. § I.

2 Letter dated Teté.

thing, consists in certain spots being the choice of the race or family. So when we see certain characters assembled on particular spots, it may be more precise to say that we see the antecedent disposition manifested in the selection, rather than that the part chosen produced a subsequent disposition. This may be evident when I say that, in the case of the Bakalahari and Bushmen, we have instances of compulsion and choice. The Bakalahari were the first body of Bechuana emigrants who came into the country. They possessed large herds of very long-horned cattle, the remains of which are now at Ngami. A second migration of Bechuanas deprived them of their cattle and drove them into the desert. They still cleave most tenaciously to the tastes of their race. While, for the Bushman, the desert is his choice, and ever has been from near the Coanza to the Cape. When we see a choice fallen on mountains, it means only that the race meant to defend itself. Their progenitors recognised the principle, acknowledged universally, except when Caffre police or Hottentots rebel, viz. that none deserve liberty except those who fight for it. This principle gathers strength from locality, tradition develops it more and more, yet still I think the principle was first, foremost, and alone vital'."

With reference to colour, our traveller makes some remarkable statements. He says that heat alone does not produce blackness of skin, but heat and moisture combined.

He suspects that five longitudinal bands of colour run across the South African Continent: "Apart from the influences of elevation, heat, humidity, and degradation, I have imagined that the lighter and darker colours observed in the native population, run in five longitudinal bands along the southern portion of the continent. Those on the seaboard of both the east and west are very dark; then two bands of 1 Letter dated Teté.

lighter colour lie about three hundred miles from each coast, of which the westerly one, bending round, embraces the Kalahari Desert and Bechuana countries; and then the central basin is very dark again1.'

African dis

practice.

This is an important subject even in a miseases and na- sionary point of view. We have before seen tive medical the importance to African missionaries and travellers of possessing medical and surgical knowledge2. It is well here to give an idea of the direction and extent of the availability of such knowledge, in order that the departments the most useful and likely to be wanted may be known.

Of African diseases, it is generally acknowledged that fever is the most prevalent and fatal. There are also pneu monia and other inflammations; rheumatism, disease of the heart, and indigestion. Hooping cough is frequent, but ophthalmia very prevalent.

Many of our own diseases are happily unknown in Africa. The doctor heard possibly of one case of hydrophobia among the Bakwains. But he met with no consumption, no scrofula, no confirmed insanity or hydrocephalus, cancer or cholera; neither some internal complaints, nor cutaneous diseases, and but little idiocy. Small-pox and measles twenty years ago ravaged the interior, being caught from the coast, but have not appeared since.

He makes a curious statement about a certain loathsome disease, viz. that it dies out of itself in the pure African race; and is virulent and permanent or not, just in accordance with the proportion of European blood in the veins of the patient.

A comparison of these tables of diseases shews that civilization, like all other earthly goods, is not an unmixed blessing.

1 Travels, p. 339.

2 See note, p. 13.