【正文】 erous desert in the world：the Kalahari. After the short rainy season, there are many water holes, and even rivers. But after a few weeks, the water sinks away into the deep Kalahari sand. The water holes dry up, and the rivers stop flowing. The grass fades to a beautiful blond color that offers excellent grazing for the animals. But for the next nine months, there39。ll be no water to drink. So most of the animals move away, leaving the beautiful blond grass uneaten. Humans avoid the deep Kalahri like the plague because man must have water to live. So the beautiful landscapes are devoid of people, except for the little people of the Kalahari. Pretty, dainty, small and graceful, the Bushmen. Where any other person would die of thirst in a few days, they live quite contentedly in this desert that doesn39。t look like a desert. They know where to dig for roots and bulbs and tubers and which berries and pods are good to eat. And of course they know what to do about water. For instance, in the early morning, you can collect dewdrops from leaves that were carefully laid out the previous evening. Or a plume of grass can be a reservoir. And if you have the knowhow, an insignificant clump of twigs can tell you where to dig, then you e to light with an enormous tuber. You scrape shavings off it with a stick that is split for a sharp edge. You take a handful of the shavings, point your thumb at your mouth and squeeze. They must be the most contented people in the world. They have no crime, no punishment, no violence, no laws, no police, judges, rulers or bosses. They believe that the gods put only good and useful things on the earth for them to use. In this world of theirs, nothing is bad or evil. Even a poisonous snake is not bad. You just have to keep away from the sharp end. Actually, a snake is very good. In fact, it39。s delicious and the skin makes a fine pouch. They live in the vastness of the Kalahari in small family groups. One family of Bushmen might meet up with another family once in a few years. But for the most part, they live in plete isolation, quite unaware that there are other people in the world. In the deep Kalahari, there are Bushmen who have never seen or heard of civilized man. Sometimes they hear a thundering sound when there are no clouds in the sky, and they assume that the gods have eaten too much again and their rummies are rumbling up there. Sometimes they can even see the evidence of the gods39。 flatulence. Their language has an idiosyncrasy of its own. It seems to consist mainly of clicking sounds. They are very gentle people. They39。ll never punish a child or even speak harshly to it. So of course their kids are extremely wellbehaved. And their games are cute and inventive. When the family needs meat, the hunter dips his tiny arrow in a brew that acts as a tranquilizer. So when he shoots a buck, it only feels a sting and the arrow drops out. The buck runs away, but soon it gets very drowsy and it stops running. After a while, it goes to sleep. And the hunter apologizes to his prey. He explains that his family needs the meat. The one characteristic which really makes the Bushmen different from all the other races on earth is the fact that they have no sense of ownership at all. Where they live, there39。s really nothing you can own. Only trees and grass and animals. In fact these Bushmen have never seen a stone or a rock in their lives. The hardest things they know are wood and bone. They live in a gentle world, where nothing is as hard as rock, or steel or concrete.