In hollowing out the interior of the pail, the Kaffir employs a rather ingenious device. Instead of holding it between his knees, as he does when shaping and ornamenting the exterior, he digs a hole in the ground, and buries the pail as far as the two projecting ears. He then has both his hands at liberty, and can use more force than if he were obliged to trust to the comparatively slight hold afforded by the knees. Of course he sits down while at work, for a Kaffir, like all other savages, has the very strongest objection to needless labor, and will never stand when he has any opportunity of sitting. It will be seen that the pail is not capable of holding much more than the quantity which a good cow ought to yield, and when the Kaffir has done with one cow, he pours the milk into a large receptacle, and then goes off with his empty pail to another cow for a fresh supply.
The scene that presents itself in the isi-baya is a very singular one, and strikes oddly upon European ears, as well as eyes. In the first place, the figure of the milker is calculated to present an aspect equally strange and ludicrous. Perfectly naked, with the exception of the smallest imaginable apology for a garment, adorned with strings of beads that contrast boldly with his red-black skin, and with his head devoid of hair, except the oval ring which denotes his position as a married “man,” the Kaffir sits on the ground, his knees on a level with his chin, and the queer-looking milk pail grasped between them.
Then we have the spectacle of the calf trying to eject the milker, and being continually kept away from her mother by a young boy armed with a stick. And, in cases where the cow is vicious, a third individual is employed, who holds the cow by her horns with one hand, and grasps her nostrils firmly with the other. As soon as the supply of milk ceases, the calf is allowed to approach its mother and suck for a short time, after which it is driven away, and the man resumes his place. Cattle are milked twice in the day, the second time being at sunset, when they are brought home for the night. Generally, however, a cow will stand still to be milked, as is the case with our own cattle, and in that case no precaution is needed, except that of putting through the nose a stick of some eighteen inches in length. The cattle know by experience that if this is grasped and twisted it gives great pain, and so they prefer to remain quiet. The hole in the nose is made at a very early age.
1. MILKING PAIL. 2. BEER-BOWL.
3. BEER-STRAINER. 4. WATER-PIPE. 5. WOMAN’S BASKET.
So much for the strangeness of the sight, which is very unlike a corresponding scene in an English farmyard. The Kaffir is never silent while milking his cows, but thinks it necessary to utter a series of the oddest sounds that ever greeted mortal ears. Even in England there seems to be a kind of universal cow language, in which every dairy-maid and farmyard laborer is versed, and which is not easily learned by an uninitiate. But the Kaffir, who is naturally an adept at shouting and yelling, encourages the cow by all the varied screams at his command, mixed with loud whistles and tender words of admiration. One consequence of this curious proceeding is, that the cows have always been so accustomed to associate these sounds with the process of being milked, that when an Englishman buys cows he is obliged to have a Kaffir to milk them, no white man being able to produce those cries, screams, and whistles to which they have always been accustomed.
In driving the cattle, and in calling them from a distance, the Kaffir makes great use of whistling, an art in which he excels. With his lips alone he can produce the most extraordinary sounds, and by the aid of his fingers he can whistle so loudly as to half deafen any one who may be near. Sometimes, however, he has recourse to art, and makes whistles of great efficacy, though of simple construction. They are made of bone, or ivory, and are used by being held to the lower lip, and sounded exactly as we blow a key when we wish to ascertain whether it is clear.
The chiefs who possess many oxen are very fastidious about them, and have an odd fancy of assembling them in herds, in which every animal is of the same color. The oxen also undergo a sort of training, as was remarked by Retief, who was killed in battle with Dingan, the Zulu king. He paid a visit to that treacherous despot, and was entertained by dances in which the cattle had been trained to assist. “In one dance,” he says, “the people were intermixed with one hundred and seventy-six oxen, all without horns, and of one color. They have long strips of skin hanging pendent from the forehead, cheeks, shoulders, and under the throat; these strips being cut from the hide when the animals are calves. These oxen are divided into two and three among the whole army, which then dance in companies, each with its attendant oxen. In this way they all in turn approach the king, the oxen turning off into a kraal, and then manœuvring in a line from the king. It is surprising that the oxen should be so well trained; for, notwithstanding all the startling and yelling which accompany the dance, they never move faster than a slow walking pace. Dingan showed me, as he said, his smallest herd of oxen, all alike, and with white backs. He allowed two of my people to count them, and the enumeration amounted to two thousand four hundred and twenty-four. I am informed that his herds of red and black oxen consist of three to four thousand each.” I may here mention casually, that the same fashion of keeping animals of similar colors in separate herds is in force in South America, among the owners of the vast herds of horses which thrive so well in that country.
The Kaffirs manage their cattle with wonderful skill, and the animals perfectly understand the meaning of the cries with which they are assailed. Consequently, it is almost as difficult for an Englishman to drive his cows as to milk them, and assistance has to be sought from the natives. This noisy method of cattle driving is the source of much difficulty to the soldiers, when they have been sent to recover cattle stolen by those inveterate thieves, the Kaffir tribes, who look upon the cattle of the white man as their legitimate prize, and are constantly on the look-out for them. Indeed, they enact at the present day that extinct phase of Scottish life when the inhabitants of the Highlands stole the cattle of the Lowlanders, and euphemistically described the operation as “lifting;” themselves not being by any means thieves, but “gentleman drovers,” very punctilious in point of honor, and thinking themselves as good gentlemen as any in the land.