Chapter Thirteen.
The Natal Kaffirs—Pseudo-Christianity—Ideas of a future state—The Kaffir prophets—Black lawyers—A wife’s true value—Husband and wife—White savage versus black—Injustice towards the Kaffirs—Nobody wrong—Necessity of an army—Mr Holden’s opinion—Severity sometimes necessary—Real character of the Kaffir.
The Kaffirs about Natal are a fine honest set of men; they will outwit you in a bargain like Englishmen, if they can; but this all seems to be fair, and in the way of trade. If I went to a kraal for some milk or anything, they would at once ask me what I would give them for it, and if I offered a certain amount of snuff or money, they would wrangle for more; but if I explained to them that I came as a guest, they nearly always gave freely what I wanted. The less they had been accustomed to white traders, the more generously disposed they seemed. I never felt that I incurred the slightest risk in going singly anywhere amongst these people. They seem to have a very wholesome dread of an Englishman’s power, and so consider it policy to make him a friend. They were peaceably disposed, in spite of our bad government, and seemed willing to listen to the missionaries, many of whom were located in the district. The labours of these teachers were, however great, unsatisfactory; for whilst they taught by word what was right, many other white men taught by deeds what was wrong; the simple-minded savage was therefore sadly puzzled, and was often, I thought, inclined to look upon us as a set of humbugs, from this difficulty of separating the bad from the good. “Are your laws and your God so good, that you send teachers to benefit us, and yet you cannot get your own men to obey them?” was the question of a young Kaffir to me, after he had seen a drunken Englishman in the streets of Pietermaritzburg during the day.
It too frequently happens, that in our eagerness to civilise the savage, as we term it, we but impart to him the vile qualities that are common amongst the white men. The natural equilibrium of the savage mind is thus upset, and only those instructions are retained that agree with the man’s own inclination. I once met a Kaffir whose clothes gave evidence of his having lived near white men. When asked to do some work for me, he refused, stating as his reason, that the black man was as good as the white, and he did not think, therefore, one ought to work for the other. He was sitting down at the time drinking and smoking. Upon investigating this case, I found that a missionary, endeavouring to instil religious principles into this savage, and give him a motive for becoming a Christian, had assured him that in the sight of the Creator there was no difference between a black and a white man. This fact was enough for our friend, he jumped at the offer of baptism, answered to the name of Lazarus, professed belief in everything, and sat down with the comfortable idea of being as good as the best white man that he had ever seen. This man, of course, would do more harm than good amongst his fellows; they could discover the false reasoning, but would conclude that it had been taught by the missionary, and would reject, in consequence, all religious instruction. All these Kaffirs seemed to have a capacity for appreciating the beauties of their country, wild and graceful as it is to the English eye, which gazes with delight on the sweet-scented evergreens and graceful vines. The glories of the European conservatory are here but a common tree or an overgrown weed. Amongst scenes like these, the men I employed as aids in hunting had received their instruction. The heavens and the stars were their wonders and puzzles, spooring, throwing the assagy, and tending the cattle, their courses of study; the wild animals that they frequently encountered had infused into them a dash of their own savage natures; their barters and ambitions were limited to a few cattle, a blanket, and a gun.
Every man of whom I inquired, appeared to believe in a future state, and that his position in that state would depend upon his deeds in the present one. His ideas on the subject were as wild and uncultivated as his country. Still he had a belief that by doing certain things he propitiated the spirit that ruled over the future. May not these simple but earnest proceedings of the good savage, joined to an ever-present wish to do right, obtain for him from above (when weighed in the scale of mercy) the position of the man intrusted with one talent? That he does not do what is right according to our Christian notions, is often the result of imperfect instruction, and the want of proper example. But he is in a less dangerous position than the civilised being who has received his ten talents in the shape of education, and yet wilfully neglects to use them in the right way. In judging these Kaffirs, if there appeared any indication of the good, or what could he admired in their thoughts or deeds, I placed it on record in my memory, with just the same impartiality that I did when anything equally bad was shown.
It is too frequently the custom, not only when judging the savage, but also our own kindred,
“That for some vicious mode of nature in them,
Or
By the o’ergrowth of some complexion,
* * * * * * * * * *
These men—
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect;
Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star—
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo)
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: The dram of base
Doth all the noble substance often dout,
To his own scandal.”
Some of the Kaffir prophets are most wonderfully eloquent and clear. They will talk for an hour or two without being at a loss for a word, and, strong in argument, they can bring many examples to make good their case. They are very gentlemanly in their language, and I do not think that they use as much personal abuse as do many gifted orators in civilised countries. An Englishman ought not to underrate their talents in this particular, or he will probably be worsted in an encounter of words. A proof of this lawyer-like talent was exhibited by a great chief near Natal; he was met, however, with equal skill by the officer who went to him as ambassador. There is no greater crime amongst savages than for a simple man to accumulate cattle in large quantities, as it is thought an attempt to rival his chief. When this is the case, a cause for slaughter and appropriation is soon discovered; the other parties are equally on the alert to watch for suspicious demonstrations against them. If they suppose that anything is intended, they leave their cattle, and make a rush into the district under English control: they are there safe, and cannot be pursued by the army of the indignant chief, as it would be a breach of frontier rules. The chief to whom I refer had upon one occasion crossed the boundary after a renegade; so we sent an ambassador to him to remind him of his conduct, and demand an apology. On the matter being discussed, the Kaffir remarked that it was very hard that we did not allow him to punish his traitors by following and slaying them. “If,” said he, “your own men mutinied, murdered your officers, and ran into my country, you, I know, would want to follow and punish them, while I am not allowed to do so.” It was true enough that, should this have happened, we certainly should have followed and captured the mutineers. So the ambassador had but one answer, which was, “The Englishman’s laws are so just and good that all men, black or white, run to them instead of away from them.” A Kaffir is very grasping in bargains; he will always ask much more than he purposes taking, and will argue and talk for a considerable time before he can be beaten down. If some easy person once pays a high price for an article, it is afterwards very difficult to obtain the same sort of thing for a lower, and the market is at once spoiled. A man of mine wounded by accident an old Kaffir woman in the leg; the headman of the kraal at once demanded from me a cow as compensation, as accidents are not recognised by Kaffirs. He brought his dinner and snuff-box to my hut early, and sat talking until late, for three days, gradually lessening his demands, until two sticks of Cavendish tobacco eventually satisfied him. Had I given in to his exorbitant demand, the price would have been an established one, and an old Kaffir woman could not have been wounded under the penalty of a cow. The Kaffir notation is different from ours; they calculate so many elephants’ tusks = so much money, so much money = one cow; six cows = one wife; this being the highest currency amongst them. It may strike many of my readers (in case I have them) as odd, that a wife should be valued at such a price. Their family arrangements, however, are different from ours: whereas our first expense is generally the least, with them it is the greatest, and the only one; all that takes place afterwards being interest on their original investment. If a Kaffir has a large family, especially of girls, they are soon made useful in the cultivation of his gardens, and, when at a “coming-out” age, are sold at their fair valuation in cattle. The honeymoon over, Mrs Matuan, or Eondema, is set to work at once at turning over the Indian-corn garden, or making baskets to hold milk, etc. The master of the house, in the mean while, has a look at his cattle while they are feeding, milks the cows on their return at night, and then lies in his hut smoking dakka, a very intoxicating root, something between tobacco and opium. Thus, an investment in wives is a very common custom amongst rich Kaffirs. I made a great mistake on one occasion when I intended to give the Kaffir Monyosi a reproof. On going to his kraal, on a warm beautiful day, to ask him to come out and shoot, he told me that he was very lazy, and wanted to stay in his hut and smoke. I told him to come out and shoot, and show himself to be a man, and not stop in his hut all day like a woman (thinking of our English customs). He gave a knowing sort of grin, and said, “The men stop in all day; the women go out and work!” A Kaffir’s riches consist in either wives or cattle, some of the great chiefs having a hundred wives, and many thousand head of cattle.
Travellers vary in their accounts of the nature of the South-African savage. Each should speak according to his experience, but at the same time he should judge fairly, and with all due allowance for the ignorant state of these people.
The frontier Kaffirs, I have before said, are confirmed rascals; but I doubt whether we have not made them so ourselves; and we are pursuing a plan to form the Natal Kaffirs on the same model. Let us see whether other writers differ from me in their conclusions with regard to the savages. Captain Harris, in his “Wild Sports of Southern Africa,” says: “How truly it has been remarked by Captain Owen, that the state of those countries which have had little or no intercourse with civilised nations is a direct refutation of the theory of poets and philosophers, who would represent the ignorance of the savage as virtuous simplicity,—his miserable poverty as frugality and temperance,—and his stupid indolence as laudable contempt for wealth. Widely differing, indeed, were the facts which came under our observation; and doubtless it will ever be found that uncultivated man is a compound of treachery, cunning, debauchery, gluttony, and idleness.” Here the hinge appears to turn upon the term uncultivated man; and I am convinced that there are very many in the most civilised countries of Europe who as well deserve the term, without any of the excuses, as the savages of Africa,—at least, as those about Natal, of whom I now speak. Was the treatment I received at the kraal of Inkau, alone and at their mercy, either a compound of “treachery,” “cunning,” or “debauchery”? The gluttony and idleness I care not to defend; but these are not very grievous crimes to lay to the charge of able-bodied men who can taste meat scarcely once a week.
I doubt whether I should have been treated as well in many of the manufacturing districts of England as I was here in Africa. In the former place, the only notice a stranger may get is having “arf a brick eaved at him,” or being “pinned by a bull pup.”
Imagine the feelings of a Highland chieftain and his clan upon being quietly told that they must move away from their mountains and their country, but must not grumble, because the government has made a grant of land of five acres per man for his people on the Plumstead marshes, or some other place equally unsuited to their taste; the only reason assigned for this act being that their ancestors’ land, hallowed by victories and associations, is now required for a cotton-spinning manufactory. Would these otherwise loyal subjects become rebels, think you?
Now let us see if the treatment of the Kaffirs of Natal is very different from this. It must be borne in mind that the poor heathen, in addition to his natural amor patria, believes firmly that the spirits of his fathers are watching over him from the hills that they have during life inhabited; and that if he quits those hills, he, in a measure, withdraws from their care. The Journal of the Bishop of Cape Town, dated June 9th, 1850, states: “I have heard to-day from a lady who lives in the neighbourhood, that the chief, Umnini, of whom I have before spoken, removed from his lands on the Bluff (Natal) last Friday. He came to bid her farewell before he left; for they had been kind neighbours to each other. It was not without sorrow that he quitted his birthplace, where he has resided all his life, and withstood in his fastnesses the victorious troops of Tshaka, who conquered the whole country, and brought into subjection all the native chiefs, except this one and another. But now we want his land; it is important for our growing settlement at D’Urban that it should be in our possession; therefore he must go. He is weak and we are strong.” Although it is not sacrilege to suppose a bishop might be mistaken, still we will ask which of the two following is the more probable case:—
That the Lord Bishop of Cape Town knew perfectly well what he was writing about, had good information of the facts he mentioned, and merely forbore from using stronger language on account of his holy character; or, that he was quite wrong altogether, and was mistaken with regard to the affair?
Might it not have been Umnini’s own wish that caused him to quit the land on which he had dwelt for half a century? Could it not have been that he at last came to consider the soil that had drunk the blood of his warriors who died in defending it from the attacks of the savage Tshaka, as desecrated by the act instead of hallowed? Or did he not consider that though hundreds of moons had shone upon him and his fathers in this place, future moons ought hereafter to shine upon him in a less fertile soil; and therefore, agreeing to the white man’s wishes, he willingly quitted his home for the price of a few head of cattle and went forth a wanderer?
As to our strength and the Kaffirs’ weakness—oh, no! those things never happen here; if they did, some might ask, with the innocence of the child in the show, which was the uncultivated savage famous for “a compound of treachery and cunning,” and which the Christian. The same ambiguous answer might naturally be returned, “that we had paid our money and might take our choice.”
These proceedings are all very well, if we look merely to this world as all and everything; but when we think of the next, the reflection is hardly so satisfactory.
But who is wrong? Surely it is not the soldier, who merely goes to see that the orders given to him are carried out. The Colonial Government will say it is not they that are to blame, as land must be had. And it certainly is not the English Government that should bear the onus. It appears that amongst many of the officials of South Africa, there is a practice of adhering to the letter of the law, instead of the spirit; that is in strict accordance with the character shown by the soldier, who did not save a woman from drowning when he was close beside her, because he had been taught not to act without orders, and there was nothing in the Articles of War about drowning women.
Let it not be supposed for a moment that I agree with those who are ever crying, “Do away with the soldiers,” or “Spare the poor savage from punishment.” When we have to deal with the ferocious savage, whether he is so naturally or has been made so by the mistaken policy of our forefathers, it is nothing but the strong arm and the firm hand that can and will ever keep him in subjection or prevent him from being a murderer and confirmed thief.
Soldiers may be an evil, but so are doctors; and whenever the disease war breaks out, it must be vigorously attacked by the physicians, in the shape of soldiers; and the more ably and the better these soldiers attack the disease, the sooner will it be stopped, and the less frequent will be its recurrence. It would be as ridiculous and short-sighted a policy to send away all the doctors, hoping thereby to stop sickness, as to weaken our force anywhere in any country, by withdrawing or reducing its army, in the hope of better maintaining peace.
The savage invariably considers that forbearance in war is caused by fear, and he is more ready and eager for battle after kindness and mercy have been shown him than he would be after a severe lesson. The Kaffir, when he really is a savage, is a most ferocious one; and although the distance that separates England from the Cape is so great, that events taking place there are scarcely discernible; still, they would cause a great stir did they happen nearer. Twelve hundred men, the number slain by these savages in the last war, would look a large body in Hyde Park. The same policy that punishes and subdues the aroused and vindictive Kaffir, ought to encourage and sympathise with him when he is quietly and peaceably disposed.
Since penning the preceding pages, I have read a work on Natal and the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony, by the Rev. William Holden, who was living at D’Urban during my pilgrimage in the same neighbourhood. As he was an excellent Kaffir linguist, and was always spoken of by Kaffirs and white men with respect and affection, it is gratifying to find that his fifteen years of experience bring him to the same conclusions, with regard to the treatment of the Kaffirs, at which I may be considered to have jumped hastily after only three years’ investigation. I will quote from page 215 of his work:—
“But let not those who are invested with a little brief authority use it in playing all sorts of fantastic tricks, or something worse. A Kaffir has a sharp sense of justice, and whilst he will respect and reverence the officer who will give him just punishment for his misdeeds, he will abhor the man who does him wanton wrong, and may be tempted to settle accounts in his own way.
“The Kaffirs must be treated like children. If a man has a large family, and leaves them without restraint or control, his children become a plague to himself and a scourge to the community. The Kaffirs are children of a larger growth, and must be treated accordingly; children in knowledge, ignorant of the relationships of civilised society, and strangers to many of the motives which influence the conduct of the white man. But they are men in physical and mental powers; men in the arts and usages of their nation, and the laws of their country; and the great difficulty in governing them is, to treat them as men-children, teaching them that to submit and to obey are essential to their own welfare as well as to that of others.
“Some kind-hearted Christians will say, ‘This is much too severe;’ but my firm conviction, after many years’ experience, is, that it is not merely the best, but also the only way to save the native races from ruin and annihilation; and that, had the Kaffirs on the frontier of the old colony been treated with more apparent severity after the first war, a second outbreak would not have taken place. Who, I would ask, is their best friend, the man who would save them by apparent severity, or the man who would destroy them by mistaken kindness? I presume the former. Besides, it should not be forgotten that what appears to be severe to us is not so to them, since many of them have lived under the iron rule of cruel capricious despots, with no security for fife or property, and are consequently unable to appreciate or understand our excess of civilised kindness; being strangers to those refined feelings which operate in the breast of the Christian. The result of too mild a policy is, that in a few years they are changed from crouching, terror-stricken vassals, to bold, lawless, independent barbarians.”
These latter remarks may appear out of place in a book of rough sketches of sport, but the Kaffirs were to me such trusty allies, faithful servants, and kind instructors in many, things, that, as a small token of gratitude for their services, I cannot refrain from making known the rough and thorny path that they are made to tread.