A Kaffir’s Play.
The red Kaffir is a man with a good deal of character, which he does his best to destroy. The pure kraal Kaffir, who lounges negligently in his red blanket or squats on his loins by the fire at night, telling interminable stories about nothing in particular, has many points which mark him from the “town boy”—the spoiled child of civilisation, who treads tenderly in his hard “Blucher” boots, and covers his corduroy trousers with bright patches of other material; who has to support his weary frame against every pillar and post and corner he comes across, and who is generally shiftless, saucy, and squalid.
The kraal Kaffir is lean, long, and tough, dignified in his movements, courteous to his friends, given over to long spells of silence broken by fits of noisy eloquence, his sullen, solemn face seldom lit up by a smile, and his black smoke-stained eyes smouldering always with an unquenchable fire, that flames out when he meets a Fingo on the highway, or when the fire-water runs through his veins at the beer-drinking.
The red Kaffir is a warrior. He is also a lawyer. I am not certain whether he most prefers to settle a dispute by argument or by the kerrie, but I think his idea of greatest happiness would be a long disputation extending over a week, to be rounded off with the clashing of kerries. Some people, who have seen the wide smile on the face of a West Coast negro, accept that all-pervading grin as the main feature of the entire black race, and argue from it that all blacks are good-tempered children, prone to every impulse. That is not true of the Kaffir. He is of the Bantu stock, which includes the Zulu and the Basuto, whose chief sentiment is stern pride of race, whose ruling expression is one of sullen reserve, and whose national impulse is to fight. They were cradled somewhere in the valley of the Nile, the hot nursery of fierce races; their remote ancestors swept South, destroying as they went, and the southernest fringe are Amaxosa of the Cape frontier, the men who have waged five separate wars with the red-coats of England and the sure-shooting border settlers. Pringle has, in these lines, given a vivid picture of the Kaffir:
“Lo! where the fierce Kaffir
Crouches by the kloof’s dark side,
Watching the settlers’ flocks afar—
Impatient waiting till the evening star
Guides him to his prey.”
Under the fierce ordeal of war the Kaffir thrived. His limbs were free and straight, his step springy, his eyes far-seeing, his nostrils could sniff the taint in the air, his deep melodious voice could boom the war-cry or the message across the wide valleys. As a man of peace he looks squalid in his broken clothes; he moves stiffly in his boots; he sings hymns in a queer, high note, with great melancholy but little meaning; goes reeling home from dirty canteens, and is a hopelessly casual labourer. He is the victim of civilisation, of strange laws, and in the confusion of many counsellors his only hope is the goal which has been offered to the already civilised labourer of a more favoured race—three acres and several cows, with a title of his own. There lies his salvation. If he could get his title to a plot of land sufficient for his wants, he may retain some of those characteristics which made conquerors of his warrior ancestors, if not he will go under in the struggle in a pair of uncomfortable boots, with a bottle of brandy in his hands, and strange oaths of civilised man on his lips.
“Yes,” said Abe; “the Kaffir can use two things better’n a white man, easy—his tongue and his stick. I seed a Kaffir onct get the better of a fencing master.
“I were sitting in the schoolyard, away up in town, where a sergeant from the barracks were showing the big boys how to use a singlestick. There were a Kaffir, leaning his chin on the top of the gate, looking on, with no more life in his face than a chip of mahogany.
“Bymby the sergeant he spotted the Kaffir, and he sed, sed he, ‘Now, you boys; I’ll jes’ show you what singlestick play is,’ and he called to the Kaffir to come in.
“Well, the black feller, he came in—very slow, pulling his blanket up to his chin, and looking like a young horse all ready to bolt in a minnit. The end of his long kerrie peeped out below his blanket, and the sergeant touched it with his ash stick, then stood on guard.