Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/280

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258 Reviezvs.

the late Dr. Bleek's two reports and Miss Lloyd's further report to the Cape Government printed after his death. It is conse- quently a great boon, for which we have long been looking almost in despair, to have an instalment in exienso of the texts so pain- fully collected years ago by the Father of Bantu philology and his devoted sister-in-law. Dr. Theal has contributed an admirable introduction on Bushman migrations and on Dr. Bleek's work in rescuing their language and folklore from oblivion. Miss Lloyd's preface supplies details on the latter subject and the necessary explanations, so far as it is possible to supply them in print, of the clicks and other phonetic peculiarities indicated in the texts.

Many sides of Bushman life are illustrated in the volume before us. Not the least interesting are the naive and touching accounts, dictated by the poor fellow whose name is translated " Dream," of his capture and imprisonment, his kindness to his brother's orphan child, and his affection for his family and home. These bespeak for an outcast race a measure of human sympathy essential to the complete understanding of its thoughts and aspirations, of its organisation and inner experiences.

For students of philology, the printing of the Bushman texts face to face with the English rendering and that of the parsing of a portion of the tale of the Resurrection of the Ostrich are valuable. For students of folklore, if there are any beside Miss Lloyd and her nieces who are initiated in the mysteries of the Bushman tongue, they may be occasionally useful. It is therefore a matter of congratulation that the texts and parsing have been printed. And it is probably desirable that all the rest of the texts should be printed too. It is assuredly desirable that the transla- tions should be printed. But it is not necessary for students either of philology or folklore that the remaining texts should be printed face to face. Space might be saved in future by printing them either at the foot of the page or in an appendix in smaller type. Many of the remaining texts appear to be of great interest ; some few, (such as the Hottentot legends referred to in Dr. Bleek's Report of 1875), are of none, except possibly for philological purposes. It would be an irreparable loss if the former were not made available to anthropological students. Somewhat