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?