The personal adventures of the narrator and the literary skill displayed were perhaps the most interesting features of the narrative;—but the purport was to defend the character of Cetywayo. The man had been told that being a Christian and an emissary from Natal he would probably be murdered if he went on to the Chief’s Kraal; but he had persevered and had been brought face to face with the King. Then he had made his speech. “I have come, O King, to tell you that your friend Langalibalele is safe.” For it was supposed in Zulu-land that Langalibalele, who shall have the next chapter of this volume devoted to him, had been made away with by the English. At this the King expressed his joy and declared his readiness to receive his friend into his kingdom, if the Queen of England would so permit. “But, O King,” continued the audacious herald, “why have you sent away the missionaries, and why have you murdered the converts? Tell me this, O King, because we in Natal are very unhappy at the evil things which are said of you.” Then the King, with great forbearance and a more than British absence of personal tyranny, explained his whole conduct. He had not sent the missionaries away. They were stupid people, not of much use to any one as he thought, who had got into a fright and had gone. He had always been good to them;—but they had now run away without even the common civility of saying good-bye. He seemed to be very bitter because they had “trekked” without even the ceremony of leaving a P.P.C. card. He had certainly not sent them away; but as they had left his dominions after that fashion they had better not come back again. As for the murders he had had nothing to do with them. There was a certain difficulty in ruling his subjects, and there would be bad men and violent men in his kingdom,—as in others. Two converts and two only had been murdered and he was very sorry for it. As for making his people Christians he thought it would be just as well that the missionaries should make the soldiers in Pieter Maritzburg Christians before they came to try their hand upon the Zulus.
I own I thought that the highly polished black traveller who was sitting before me must have heard the last little sarcasm among his white friends in Natal and had put the sharp words into the King’s mouth for effect. “I think,” said my fair friend, “that Cetywayo had us there,” intending in her turn to express an opinion that the poor British soldier who makes his way out to the Colony is not always all that he should be. I would not stop to explain that the civilization of the white and black men may go on together, and that Cetywayo need not remain a Savage because a soldier is fond of his beer.
Such was the gist of the diary,—which might probably be worth publishing as shewing something of the manners of the Zulus, and something also of the feeling of these people towards the English. Zulu-land is one of the problems which have next to be answered. Let my reader look at his map. Natal is a British Colony;—so is now the Transvaal. The territory which he will see marked as Basuto Land has been annexed to the Cape Colony. Kafraria, which still nominally belongs to the natives, is almost annexed. The Kafrarian problem will soon be solved in spite of Kreli. But Zulu-land, surrounded as it is by British Colonies and the Portuguese settlement at Delagoa Bay, is still a native country,—in which the king or chief can live by his own laws and do as his soul lusts. I am very far from recommending an extension of British interference; but if I know anything of British manners and British ways, there will be British interference in Zulu-land before long.
In the meantime our own Colony of Natal is peopled with Zulus whom we rule, not very regularly, but on the whole with success. They are, to my thinking, singularly amenable; and though I imagine they would vote us out of the country if a plebiscite were possible, they are individually docile and well-mannered, and as Savages are not uncomfortable neighbours. That their condition as a people has been improved by the coming of the white man there can be no doubt. I will put out of consideration for a moment the peculiar benefits of Christianity which have not probably reached very many of them, and will speak only of the material advantages belonging to this world. The Zulu himself says of himself that he can now sleep with both eyes shut and both ears, whereas, under tribal rule, it was necessary that he should ever have one eye open and one ear, ready for escape. He can earn wages if he pleases. He is fed regularly, whereas it was his former fate,—as it is of all Savages and wild beasts,—to vacillate between famine and a gorge. He can occupy land and know it for his own, so that no Chief shall take away his produce. If he have cattle he can own them in safety. He cannot be “smelt out” by the witchfinder and condemned, so that his wealth be confiscated. He is subjected no doubt to thraldom, but not to tyranny. To the savage subject there is nothing so terrible as the irresponsible power of a savage ruler. A Dingaan is the same as a Nero,—a ruler whose heart becomes impregnated by power with a lust for blood. “No emperor before me,” said Nero, “has known what an emperor could do.” And so said Dingaan. Cetywayo would probably have said the same and done the same had he not been checked by English influences. The Zulu of Natal knows well what it is to have escaped from such tyranny.
He is a thrall, and must remain so probably for many a year to come. I call a man a thrall when he has to be bound by laws in the making of which he has no voice and is subject to legislators whom he does not himself choose. But the thraldom though often irrational and sometimes fantastic is hardly ever cruel. The white British ruler who is always imperious,—and who is often irrational and sometimes fantastic,—has almost always at his heart an intention to do good. He has a conscience in the matter—with rare exceptions, and though he may be imperious and fantastic, is not tyrannical. He rules the Zulu after a fashion which to a philanthropist or to a stickler for the rights of man, is abominable. He means to be master, and knowing the nature of the Zulu, he stretches his power. He cannot stand upon scruples or strain at gnats. If a blow will do when a word has not served he gives the blow,—though the blow probably be illegal. There are certain things which he is entitled to demand, certain privileges which he is entitled to exact; but he cannot stop himself for a small trifle. There are twenty thousand whites to be protected amidst three hundred thousand blacks, with other hundreds of thousands crowding around without number, and he has to make the Zulu know that he is master. And he quite understands that he has to keep the philanthropist and Exeter Hall,—perhaps even Downing Street and Printing House Square,—a little in the dark as to the way he does it. But he is not wilfully cruel to the Zulu, and not often really unkind.
I was riding, when in Natal, over a mountain with a gentleman high in authority when we met a Zulu with his assegai and knobkirrie.[17] It is still the custom of a Zulu to carry with him his assegai and knobkirrie, though the assegai is unlawful wherever he may be, and the knobkirrie is forbidden in the towns. My companion did not know the Zulu, but found it necessary, for some official reason, to require the man’s presence on the following morning at the place from which we had ridden, which was then about ten miles distant. The purport of the required attendance I now forget,—if I ever knew it,—but it had some reference to the convenience of the party of which I made one. The order was given and the Zulu, assenting, was passing on. But a sudden thought struck my companion. He spoke a word in the native tongue desiring that the assegai and knobkirrie might be given up to him. With a rueful look the weapons were at once surrendered and the unarmed Zulu passed on. “He knows that I do not know him,” said my companion, “and would not come unless I had a hold upon him;”—meaning that the Zulu would surely come to redeem his assegai and knobkirrie.
Then I enquired into this practice, and perhaps expostulated a little. “What would you have done,” I asked, “if the man had refused to give up his property?” “Such a thing has never yet occurred to me,” said the gentleman in authority. “When it does I will tell you.” But again I remonstrated. “The things were his own, and why should they have been taken away from him?” The gentleman in authority smiled, but another of our party remarked that the weapons were illegal, and that the confiscation of them was decidedly proper. But the knobkirrie on the mountain side was not illegal, and even the assegai was to be restored when the man shewed himself at the appointed place. They were not taken because they were illegal, but as surety for the man’s return. I did not press the question, but I fear that I was held to have enquired too curiously on a matter which did not concern me. I thought that it concerned me much, for it told me plainer than could any spoken description how a savage race is ruled by white men.
The reader is not to suppose that I think that the assegai and knobkirrie should not have been taken from the man. On the other hand I think that my companion knew very well what he was about, and that the Zulu generally is lucky to have such men in the land. I say again that we must have resort to such practices, or that we must leave the country. But I have told the tale because it exemplifies what I say as to the manner in which savage races are ruled by us. We were all shocked the other day because an Indian servant was struck by a white master, and died from the effects of the blow. The man’s death was an unfortunate accident which probably caused extreme anguish to the striker, but cannot be said to have increased at all the criminality of his act. The question is how far a white master is justified in striking a native servant. The idea of so doing is to us at home abominable;—but I fear that we must believe that it is too common in India to create disgust. It is much the same in Zulu-land. Something is done occasionally which should not be done, but the rule generally is beneficent.
Of all the towns in South Africa Pieter Maritzburg is the one in which the native element is the most predominant. It is not only that the stranger there sees more black men and women in the streets than elsewhere, but that the black men and women whom he sees are more noticeable. While I was writing of “The Colony,” as the Cape Colony is usually called in South Africa, I spoke of Kafirs. Now I am speaking of Zulus,—a comparatively modern race of savages as I have already said. I have seen a pedigree of Chaka their king, but his acknowledged ancestors do not go back far. Chaka became a great man, and the Zulus swallowed all the remainder of the conquered tribes, and became so dominant that they have given their name to the natives of this part of the continent.
The Zulus as seen in Maritzburg are certainly a peculiar people, and very picturesque. I have said of the Kafir that he is always dressed when seen in town, but that he is dressed like an Irish beggar. I should have added, however, that he always wears his rags with a grace. The Zulu rags are perhaps about equal to the Kafir rags in raggedness, but the Zulu grace is much more excellent than the Kafir grace. Whatever it be that the Zulu wears he always looks as though he had chosen that peculiar costume, quite regardless of expense, as being the one mode of dress most suitable to his own figure and complexion. The rags are there, but it seems as though the rags have been chosen with as much solicitude as any dandy in Europe gives to the fit and colour of his raiment. When you see him you are inclined to think, not that his clothes are tattered, but “curiously cut,”—like Catherine’s gown. One fellow will walk erect with an old soldier’s red coat on him and nothing else, another will have a pair of knee breeches and a flannel shirt hanging over it. A very popular costume is an ordinary sack, inverted, with a big hole for the head, and smaller holes for the arms, and which comes down below the wearer’s knees. This is serviceable and decent, and has an air of fashion about it too as long as it is fairly clean. Old grey great coats with brass buttons, wherever they may come from, are in request, and though common always seem to confer dignity. A shirt and trowsers worn threadbare, so ragged as to seem to defy any wearer to find his way into them, will assume a peculiar look of easy comfort on the back and legs of a Zulu. An ordinary flannel shirt, with nothing else, is quite sufficient to make you feel that the black boy who is attending you, is as fit to be brought into any company as a powdered footman. And then it is so cheap a livery! and over and above their dress they always wear ornaments. The ornaments are peculiar, and might be called poor, but they never seem amiss. We all know at home the detestable appearance of the vulgar cad who makes himself odious with chains and pins,—the Tittlebat Titmouse from the counter. But when you see a Zulu with his ornaments you confess to yourself that he has a right to them. As with a pretty woman at home, whose attire might be called fantastic were it not fashionable, of whom we feel that as she was born to be beautiful, graceful, and idle, she has a right to be a butterfly,—and that she becomes and justifies the quaint trappings which she selects, so of the Zulu do we acknowledge that he is warranted by the condition of his existence in adorning his person as he pleases. Load him with bangle, armlet, ear-ring and head-dress to any extent, and he never looks like a hog in armour. He inserts into the lobes of his ears trinkets of all sorts,—boxes for the conveyance of his snuff and little delights, and other pendants as though his ears had been given to him for purposes of carriage. Round his limbs he wears round shining ornaments of various material, brass, ivory, wood and beads. I once took from off a man’s arm a section of an elephant’s tooth which he had hollowed, and the remaining rim of which was an inch and a half thick. This he wore, loosely slipping up and down and was apparently in no way inconvenienced by it. Round their heads they tie ribbons and bandelets. They curl their crisp hair into wonderful shapes. I have seen many as to whom I would at first have sworn that they had supplied themselves with miraculous wigs made by miraculous barbers. They stick quills and bones and bits of wood into their hair, always having an eye to some peculiar effect. They will fasten feathers to their back hair which go waving in the wind. I have seen a man trundling a barrow with a beautiful green wreath on his brow, and have been convinced at once that for the proper trundling of a barrow a man ought to wear a green wreath. A Zulu will get an old hat,—what at home we call a slouch hat,—some hat probably which came from the corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly three or four years ago, and will knead it into such shapes that all the establishments of all the Christys could not have done the like. The Zulu is often slow, often idle, sometimes perhaps hopelessly useless, but he is never awkward. The wonderfully pummelled hat sits upon him like a helmet upon Minerva or a furred pork pie upon a darling in Hyde Park in January. But the Zulu at home in his own country always wears on his head the “isicoco,” or head ring, a shining black coronet made hard with beaten earth and pigments,—earth taken from the singular ant hills of the country,—which is the mark of his rank and virility and to remove which would be a stain.