Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/78

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
68
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

known authority on South African matters of science. The boy to whom he refers belonged to a wild tribe living in caves in the Drakenberg, who plundered outlying farms, and were pursued by the neighboring colonists. He was wounded and captured, then sent to hospital, and subsequently taken into service. He was under Dr. Mann's observation in the year 1860, and has recently died, to the great regret of his employer, Mr. Proudfoot, to whom he became a valuable servant.

Dr. Mann writes as follows: "This lad was very skillful in the proverbial Bushman art of drawing animal figures, and upon several occasions I induced him to show me how this was managed among his people. He invariably began by jotting down, upon paper or on a slate, a number of isolated dots which presented no connection or trace of outline of any kind to the uninitiated eye, but looked like the stars scattered promiscuously in the sky. Having with much deliberation satisfied himself of the sufficiency of these dots, he forthwith began to run a free bold line from one to the other, and as he did so the form of an animal—horse, buffalo, elephant, or some kind of antelope—gradually developed itself. This was invariably done with a free hand, and with such unerring accuracy of touch that no correction of a line was at any time attempted. I understood from this lad that this was the plan which was invariably pursued by his kindred in making their clever pictures." It is impossible, I think, for a drawing to be made on this method unless the artist had a clear image in his mind's eye of what he was about to draw.

Other living races have the gift of drawing, but none more so than the Esquimau. I will therefore speak of these, and not of the Australian and Tasmanian pictures, nor of the still ruder performances of the old inhabitants of Guiana, nor of those of some North American tribes, as the Iroquois. The Esquimaux are geographers by instinct, and appear to see vast tracts of country mapped out in their heads. From the multitude of illustrations of their map-drawing powers, I will select one from those included in the journals of Captain Hall, at p, 224, which were published last year by the United States Government under the editorship of Professor J. E. Nourse. It is the f ac-simile of a chart drawn by an Esquimau who was a thorough barbarian in the accepted sense of the word. That is to say, he spoke no language besides his own uncouth tongue, he was wholly uneducated according to our modern ideas, and he lived in what we should call a savage fashion. This man drew from memory a chart of the region over which he had at one time or another gone in his canoe. It extended from Pond's Bay, in lat. 73°, to Fort Churchill, in lat. 58° 44', over a distance in a straight line of more than 960 nautical, or 1,100 English, miles, the coast being so indented by arms of the sea that its length is six times as great. On comparing this rough Esquimau outline with the Admiralty chart of 1870, their accordance is remarkable. I have seen many route maps