A ZULU ROMANCE.
As a rule, the course of true love runs smoother in Kaffir-land than in more civilised countries. The reason for this is not far to seek. In Europe, the business of matrimony is complicated by its being associated with the impulses of the heart; but amongst our Ethiopian brethren the emotional has but little place or power. The whole affair is simply arranged by the father of the girl. Eight or ten oxen are handed over to the dusky Paterfamilias by the eligible suitor, who in exchange receives the damsel—blushing, no doubt, if one could perceive it beneath the dark skin. In rare instances, it may be a case of mutual affection; and in the true story which I am about to relate, affairs went ‘clean off the track’ in a quite phenomenal fashion. A good deal of this romantic drama, which took place in and about Maritzburg, the capital of Natal, came under the immediate notice of my wife and myself, while the rest of it was told us by one or other of the chief actors.
It was towards the close of a summer afternoon. The day had been more than usually hot, but a slight curtain of cloud was now pleasantly veiling the sun. Our house was situated on a gently rising ground on the outskirts of the town—a comfortable one-storied cottage, surrounded by a deep veranda, and standing a short distance back from the road. There would have been sultry stillness, but for the chirp and whir of insects, the too frequent ‘ping’ of the mosquito as it hovered around one’s ear, the ‘clunk-clunk’ of the frogs in a neighbouring streamlet, and the sonorous voice of our Kaffir ‘boy’ chanting some barbarous lay in one of the outhouses. Occasionally a creaking, full-laden bullock-wagon would toil past, drawn by a span of twelve or fourteen patient oxen, and overhung by a cloud of red dust, stirred up from the broad, rut-lined, arid highway. Anon, a buggy would dash jolting along, to the imminent danger of family groups of itinerant Kaffirs, who would, with a loud ‘Wow!’ jump aside; and once in a while a solitary horseman, booted and spurred, would be seen galloping to or from the town.
I was lying in a swing-hammock suspended in the veranda, smoking a cigar, and fitfully reading that day’s paper. Now and again, my eye mechanically rested on the road, watching the several wayfarers. Presently my attention was more particularly drawn to a young Zulu woman, who had opened our front gate, and was slowly walking up the path leading to our house. She was probably about seventeen years of age, though, to one unacquainted with Kaffir physique, she might have seemed at least twenty-one, and moved with the erect and graceful carriage characteristic of the race. Her dress consisted of what may be best described as a canvas tunic, which had originally been a sack, but round the arm-holes and short skirt was a border of many-coloured beads. Upon her shapely arms were brass rings and circlets of beads, while similar ornaments graced her calf and ankle. Her hair had been combed up, stiffened with red clay, and tied into a bunch—a toilet significant of her status as a married woman, the Kaffir virgin usually rejoicing merely in her primitive ‘wool.’
The young woman’s steps were directed to the back of our premises, where she disappeared. What could she be after? The next moment I said to myself that she must be one of our ‘boy’s’ relations. The kinship of one’s Kaffir boy, be it here remarked, is invariably very extensive; and unless you exercise some strictness, your rearmost premises are very apt to be invaded by his parents, his brothers, ‘his sisters and his cousins and his aunts,’ not to speak of his uncles and vaguely remote relatives. Our boy, Capelle by name, had been told that we were not to be annoyed by frequent visits from his friends; and as that day he had already welcomed and hospitably fed—with our maize-meal—about half-a-dozen of his acquaintances, I somewhat resented the coming of this youthful matron.
It was in my mind to jump out of the hammock and remonstrate with our domestic, when I heard stealthy footsteps in the veranda. The next moment Capelle stood before me, asking permission, as far as I could make out, for his sister to remain overnight. My wife now appeared, telling me that Capelle and the young woman had been having high words in the Kaffir-house. Thereupon I questioned him as to the cause of the quarrel. ‘Baas’ (Master), he began; and then delivered a fluent discourse in his native tongue, doubtless full of information, but almost wholly unintelligible to me, until my wife acted as interpreter. My better-half, having to scold and direct the boy, had in about two years’ time mastered the colloquial Kaffir generally spoken in Maritzburg kitchens. Out of the facts extracted from Capelle and his sister by cross-examination, the following interesting narrative was evolved.
Some six months previous, this young woman, whose name was ’Manthla, had plighted her troth to one Umhlassu, who was now working as a porter at an ironmonger’s in Maritzburg, and was rapidly saving up the money to buy the necessary cattle wherewith to purchase her from her papa. He had now eight oxen, only two short of the number required, and had secured a hut for her reception. For her part, ’Manthla had given Umhlassu a pair of earrings, a necklace, a snuff-box, bead ornaments for the head, and other gifts such as Kaffir maidens present to their lovers. Unfortunately, another wooer had come to her father, offering twelve bullocks for ’Manthla; and the parent, very naturally—for such doings are not unknown even in Mayfair—favoured the wealthier suitor. The oxen were accepted there and then, without the daughter being consulted in the matter. As a rule, the reception of the live-stock by the father is an important point in the marriage-service of the Zulus. The next step is the arranging of the wedding-feast, at which there generally is dancing for two or three days, as well as the consumption of one of the oxen which form part of the ‘marriage-settlement,’ not to mention the drinking galore of native beer.
’Manthla had steadily declined to take any part in the proceedings, though she had been in the charge of the matrons of the kraal, who had dressed her hair in the manner already described. With still greater persistence, she refused to accompany Indebbelish, her would-be lord and master, to his kraal, even going the length of producing a knife and protesting she would take away her life, rather than become his bride. Her father threatened to beat her with a stick; all her friends upbraided her; and finally, she was handed over to the old women, who kept her a prisoner and all but starved her, to induce a better state of mind. Her almost unheard-of defiance of ‘use and wont’ astonished the marriage-party; but their amazement reached its climax when, in the midst of the festivities, it was discovered that ’Manthla had seized a favourable opportunity to escape. She had travelled on foot fifty miles into Maritzburg, and it was at the close of that journey that I had seen her from our veranda.
When ’Manthla had greeted her brother and told him the whole story, he was of course highly indignant at her disregard of tribal custom. He rated her in good sound terms, jeered at her, and treated her to a variety of ill-favoured epithets, in which the Zulu vocabulary is unusually rich. It was the sound of this fraternal reproof which my wife had heard. There was really nothing for it but to give shelter to the fugitive for at least one night. It would scarcely have been humane to have turned ’Manthla adrift, tired and hungry as she was; and accordingly the ‘pilgrim of love’ was allowed to take her fill of porridge and sleep on the kitchen floor.
Early next morning, as I was mounting my cob at the stable-door, preparatory to a ‘spin’ over the veldt before breakfast, there appeared an elderly Kaffir, who held up the forefinger of his right hand and exclaimed ‘Inkosi!’—the native salutation of respect. This was no less a personage than Pank, the father of ’Manthla and of our boy Capelle. He was attired in a soldier’s old coat, and ragged trousers that descended no farther than his knees. On his head was a battered felt hat; while through the lobe of one ear was stuck a cigar, and through the other a cylindrical ‘snuff-box.’ Though old Pank had come in hot haste from the kraal all those fifty miles, and was presumably in a state of great mental agitation, he sauntered into our back-yard as carelessly as if he had only casually dropped in from next door. I have noticed the same characteristic in several other Kaffirs. After the afore-mentioned salutation, Pank’s lean face broadened into a grin, and he vivaciously ejaculated two or three times: ‘It’s allee right, allee right!’ This phrase, which proved to be the only English at his command, was introduced with great frequency, and sometimes with ludicrous effect. This optimist remark, however, was not upon his lips when he caught sight of his daughter ’Manthla timidly peeping out from the door of the Kaffir-house. His face darkened in expression, and pouring forth a volley of reproaches, the ‘stern parient’ approached her. I stood anxiously watching the interview, fearing lest violence might be the outcome. But after Pank had uncorked the vial of his wrath, it quickly evaporated, and in a short time he sat down on his haunches, took the snuff-box from his ear and regaled himself with a hearty pinch.
I rode off; and on my return, half an hour later, the old fellow was in our kitchen, calmly consuming a large pot of porridge. It turned out that he had ordered ’Manthla to be ready to accompany him at once to the kraal of Indebbelish. Alas, however, for the ‘best-laid schemes!’ When the babba (father) went into the Kaffir-house, he found ’Manthla had again fled. His anger and disgust were now turned upon Capelle, who vowed he had had no hand in her flight. The father retorted, the son recriminated, and it was only by rushing out and brandishing my riding-whip that order was restored. The old man suddenly grinned and exclaimed: ‘Allee right, allee right!’ and then his eye catching sight of a big iron pot which had fallen into disuse, he asked if we could spare it. My wife sarcastically inquired if there was anything else he would like; upon which Pank requested a bottle of castor-oil, for the purpose of anointing his body when he reached home. This being given him, the injured father strode away, with the big pot over his head like a huge helmet, and we hoped we had seen the last of him. Not at all! In five minutes or so the old rascal came back, begging Capelle’s wages for the next three months. It is customary for the babbas to collect the money due to their sons, but payment in advance was altogether without precedent. Happily, by disbursing the wages due for a month which had almost expired, we for a time got rid of the father of our heroine.
It is time that we again followed her fortunes. When ’Manthla ran away from our house, she betook herself to Umhlassu, who, true lover that he was, forsook his work, packed up his blankets, and went off with his bride to his own kraal. Feasting and dancing were again indulged in, this time, however, by the bridegroom’s relatives. Hearing of this, the unsuccessful Indebbelish indignantly demanded the cattle back from ’Manthla’s father; but this just request was point-blank refused. Indebbelish saw he had no other alternative but to trudge into town to institute an action for ‘breach of promise’ against Babba Pank. The machinery of the native court in Maritzburg was in due course set in motion, and the case appointed to come off in three weeks, a fact we knew one evening by the advent of Indebbelish, who was about the most handsome Kaffir we had ever seen. He came to have a chat with Capelle, who had favoured his wooing in time past, and was still friendly. We naturally objected to have our larder drawn upon alternately by the plaintiff and defendant in the pending suit, and so declined to give Indebbelish board and lodging. But he made up for this by calling night after night and smoking Capelle’s tobacco.
At length the great day of the trial dawned, and with it came the beaming face of ’Manthla’s father with his irrepressible ‘Allee right!’ He marched in and billeted himself upon us for about six days. I am not aware whether this was owing to prolonged litigation or to the enjoyment of living at some one else’s expense. At all events, when the week expired, the babba vouchsafed the information that the case had gone against him, and that he had to restore the bullocks, at the same time cheerily adding: ‘It’s allee right, allee right!’ Nevertheless, he went away very downcast, after another ineffectual attempt to collect Capelle’s wages in advance. A day or two afterwards, the cattle were returned to Indebbelish with a bad grace; but Umhlassu gave Babba Pank eight oxen, with a promise of other two at some future period; and the heart of the old man rejoiced. The sympathies of my wife had been aroused in favour of Indebbelish; but her interest instantly vanished when she found that ‘the poor, forsaken young man,’ long previous to his ‘courtship’ of ’Manthla, was already possessed of three wives! When Indebbelish received back the oxen from the babba, he simply drove them off to another kraal, and purchased an ebony virgin to complete his connubial quartet.
About eighteen months afterwards, I happened to be amongst the Saturday morning throng on the Market Square of Maritzburg. Hundreds of people—English, Dutch, Indian, and Kaffir—were moving about the dusty expanse of ground, which was covered with auctioneers’ stands, bullock-wagons, sacks of produce, cows and horses on sale, and large quantities of the miscellaneous household goods which find their way to colonial marts. At one part of the ground, a number of Kaffir wives were squatted alongside heaps of firewood, which they had conveyed into town, and were now selling. As I observed them, my boy Capelle suddenly drew my attention to a woman who was walking towards the group. She carried a great load of firewood in long lengths poised upon her head, and a baby slung behind her in a blanket. I dimly recollected her face; Capelle told me her name, and ran forward to speak to her. It was none other than the heroine of the love-match—poor ’Manthla!
CONCERNING LOVE.[4]
IN TWO PARTS.—PART II.
Having in the former part of this paper considered certain theories concerning the nature, qualities, power, and vitality of love, we would now invite the attention of our readers to some of the symptoms, evidences, and effects of that passion. Here we find ourselves upon somewhat firmer ground, for the field now before us is not so much that of theory and definition as of observation and experience. While the profoundest philosophers find themselves at a loss in attempting to formulate some satisfactory theory on the subject, the most unsophisticated observer can tell us something of the signs and tokens by which love manifests its presence. The symptoms of the tender passion are both varied and varying, and we have it on the authority of Addison that there is no other passion which produces such contrary effects in so great a degree. Byron describes love as bearing within itself ‘the very germ of change.’
For a thoroughly comprehensive catalogue of love’s tokens take the reply of Silvius to Phebe in As You Like It. ‘Good shepherd,’ says Phebe, ‘tell this youth what ’tis to love.’ ‘It is,’ replies Silvius, ‘to be all made of sighs and tears; it is to be all made of faith and service; it is to be all made of fantasy, all made of passion, and all made of wishes; all adoration, duty, and observance; all humbleness, all patience, and impatience; all purity, all trial, all observance.’ If the foregoing be accepted as an accurate description of what it is to love, one is enabled to understand the belief that the reason why Love is not included among the virtues is that it combines them all in one.
Dryden has given us several accounts of the way in which the tender passion operates upon the mind. In one passage he says:
Love various minds does variously inspire:
He stirs in gentle natures gentle fire,
Like that of incense on the altar laid;
But raging flames tempestuous souls invade:
A fire which every windy passion blows;
With pride it mounts, and with revenge it glows.
The same writer, descending to more everyday observations, and speaking of the condition of a person in love, declares:
You pine, you languish, love to be alone,
Think much, speak little, and in speaking sigh.
This is certainly a faithful description of the conventional lover, whom you meet in novels, and there are no doubt a great many sentimental people who still languish and sigh, after the old romantic pattern. Yet there are a great many more who get through all their love experiences with very little languishing and very few sighs. They are much too busy, or too cheerful, or too matter-of-fact, to indulge their passion to the pining or languishing degree; so that tears and sighs and groans are not by any means inevitable or necessary symptoms of love. While one lover is to be found ‘sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow,’ another is discovered basking joyfully in the sunshine of his love, and singing with Moore that
There’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream.
Ovid remarks that tears are by no means unserviceable in love, because by tears you may touch a heart of stone. He therefore advises the lover to endeavour that his mistress should find him with his cheeks bathed in tears; and he adds, that if you are not quite equal to the shedding of genuine tears, you may bathe your eyes and cheeks by other means. But Ovid is discoursing on the art of love, and what we are at present considering are the true marks of the genuine passion. There are, no doubt, few matters in which there has been, since the world began, so much dissimulation and hypocrisy as in love affairs, and Ovid’s artful suggestions recall the profane observation of a cynical writer, that ‘Love consists of a little sighing, a little crying, a little dying—and a deal of lying.’ It is not our present purpose, however, to enter upon the false in love, or the spurious impersonations which stalk about in his name. Let it suffice to say that Ovid’s crafty advice is founded on the fact that true love is often tearful and desponding. It may not be, as Silvius puts it, ‘all sighs and tears,’ but even the most sanguine love may have its moments of sadness and doubt. ‘Love,’ says one of the poets—
Love, though most sure,
Yet always to itself seems insecure.
And Scott declares that ‘Love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.’ Another poet argues that unless you quake and are struck dumb when your mistress enters the room, you have loved amiss, and must begin anew.
But if love is sometimes downcast and fearful, it just as often soars aloft on the pinions of hope, for ‘Love can hope where Reason would despair.’ The lover has a miraculous way of finding hope and encouragement amid the most unpromising circumstances. He can feed for weeks together on a word or a glance; and if his mistress frown and turn her back upon him, he must still lay the flattering unction to his soul that she merely frowns, as Shakspeare expresses it somewhere, to beget more love in him. Truly, the lover had need be ‘all patience,’ for ’tis a fickle god he woos. If he would not woo in vain, he must bear with a thousand caprices, inconstancies, and tyrannies.
Lovers are proverbially blind to each other’s shortcomings, and their praises of each other are therefore untrammelled by ordinary scruples on the score of veracity. ‘There never,’ says Bacon, ‘was a proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person loved.’ It is therefore at once easy and natural for men and women under the influence of the tender passion to present to each other, and to swallow with the keenest relish, a great deal of this kind of food.
If we are to credit the French poet Chamfort, who says he has seen women of all countries, an Italian woman does not believe that she is loved by her lover unless he is capable of committing a crime for her, an Englishwoman an extravagance, and a Frenchwoman a folly. Let us hope that worthier performances than these are sometimes demanded in token of love’s sincerity—acts of self-denial, of merit, of generosity, and of faithfulness. Richter is of opinion, however, that ‘love requires not so much proofs as expressions of love—it demands little else than the power to feel and to requite love.’ Dryden gives expression to the same idea, when he says:
All other debts may compensation find,
But Love is strict, and must be paid in kind.
How often has love spurned riches, power, enjoyment, the good opinion of the world, and everything else, in order to meet responsive love amid poverty, suffering, deprivation, and even dishonour! True love will sacrifice everything to be requited; for ‘Lovers all but love disdain.’
Whatever form its manifestations may take, it may be assumed that the fickle god will not fail to show itself. ‘There are two things not to be hidden,’ says the proverb—‘Love and a cough.’ It may be expressed by sighs and tears, by a dejected and distracted mien, and by what Shakspeare calls ‘the pale complexion of true love.’ It may be discovered in tell-tale blushes—‘celestial rosy red, Love’s proper hue,’ as Milton puts it—in bashful awkwardness, and in a distressing self-consciousness in the presence of the adored object. And it may be shown no less plainly and emphatically in quiet self-devotion, dutifulness, and self-sacrifice. It often identifies itself with various kinds of manias, such as a mania for composing amatory epistles or writing verses, a mania for going to church, for haunting a particular street, or for buying kid gloves, patent-leather boots, and eau-de-Cologne. These, with many other similar and equally harmless symptoms, are quite familiar.
Then there is a more extravagant class of manifestations that the hard unfeeling world would describe as folly. When love reaches what Bacon calls ‘the mad degree,’ there is absolutely no limit to the excesses that may be perpetrated in its name. But of the comparatively harmless kinds of folly there is usually a considerable admixture in even the sedatest loves. Thomson describes the lover as ‘the very fool of nature.’ It is not, of course, to be supposed that he is ever conscious of his folly—when he is engaged in it, at all events—for
Love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
Yet it cannot be denied that the folly in love is, to the lovers, by no means the least agreeable part of it.
I could not love, I’m sure,
One who in love were wise,
is Cowley’s frank confession; and most lovers, if they carefully examine their experience and speak the truth, will echo the sentiment. Wisdom would never give utterance to all those fond, foolish fancies, those ‘airy nothings,’ and sweet flatteries that the lover prizes so much; and wisdom would often dictate a degree of prudence and reserve and formality that could never be endured by two hearts that beat as one.
The proverb holds, that to be wise and love,
Is hardly granted to the gods above.
After what we have seen of Cupid’s fickleness and ever-varying moods, it will not be imagined that when love is not all smiles and sunshine, it is therefore insincere or undesirable. In the words of the poet Walsh:
Love is a medley of endearments, jars,
Suspicions, quarrels, reconcilements, wars,
Then peace again.
After the storm, the sun returns as bright and genial as before, and the air is all the purer and the sweeter for the electric war that has disturbed its stillness. The love that cannot outlive a few misunderstandings and disagreements can hardly claim to be considered as genuine, and had better be allowed to pass at once into the limbo of exploded myths. The truth is, however, that Love often dispenses his favours in a very eccentric way, and each favour is sometimes paid for with a more than proportionate amount of suffering; so that the lover must be often tempted to exclaim with Addison:
Mysterious love! uncertain treasure!
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure?
Yet he will probably resolve the problem in much the same manner as the poet does in completing the stanza:
Endless torments dwell about thee,
Yet who would live and live without thee?
Spenser finds that ‘love with gall and honey doth abound,’ and in computing the proportion of each, he expresses the belief that for every drachm of honey there is a pound of gall. Notwithstanding this, however, he is prepared to assert that
One loving hour
For many years of sorrow can dispense;
A drachm of sweet is worth a pound of sour.
This is the attitude which the lover must adopt; and if the gall preponderate in his experience—which we sincerely hope it won’t—he must comfort and sustain himself with thoughts of the honey he has enjoyed, and that may be yet in store for him.
If the course of true love does not run smooth, that is not always because the way is not clear enough or level enough, but very often entirely on account of Love’s injudicious and impracticable behaviour. If Love will indulge his propensity to masquerade in the guise of frenzy or delirium, folly or extravagance, there is nothing at all surprising in his getting into trouble. But what is the use of sermonising? Notwithstanding all the striking lessons he has received, and the painful experiences through which he has passed, Cupid is still much the same wilful, rollicking, mischief-loving sprite that he was when he first appeared upon our planet; and so, no doubt, he will remain to the end of the chapter.
At the same time, when all is said and done, is it not just possible that Love gets blamed for a good deal of trouble and mischief for which he is really not responsible? Do people not often cry out against Love’s tyranny and unreasonableness, when they ought to blame their own selfishness, or pride, or blundering stupidity? Love must be treated as an honoured guest, not as a slave; and if he leave us, may we not reasonably ask ourselves, before we begin to upbraid and revile him, whether we have not driven him away by our own neglect and heartlessness and querulous impatience? When we consider how he is sometimes treated, the wonder is, not so much that he should have departed, as that he should have stayed so long.