The younger warriors, fierce, arrogant, despising the white man because they do not know him, have repeatedly begged to be allowed to invade Natal. They urge, in pursuance of their request, that they will conquer the country, restore to their king all the fugitives who have run away from him, and inflame their own minds, and those of the young and ignorant, by glowing descriptions of the rich spoil which would fall to the conquerors, of the herds of cattle, the tons of beads, the quantities of fire-arms and ammunition, and, in fact, the unlimited supply of everything which a Kaffir’s heart can possibly desire. The older men, however, who have more acquaintance with the white men, and a tolerably good experience of the fact that when a white man fires his gun he generally hits his mark, have always dissuaded their younger and more impetuous comrades from so rash an attempt.
Strangely enough, the argument which has proved most powerful is really a very weak one. The Kaffir, like other men, is brave enough when he can comprehend his danger; but he does not at all like to face a peril which he cannot understand. Like all unknown things, such a peril is indeed terrible to a Kaffir’s mind, and this unknown peril is summed up in the word cannon, or “By-and-by”—to use the native term. Why cannon are so called will presently be mentioned. The Kaffirs have heard that the dreadful By-and-by eats up everything—trees, houses, stones, grass; and, as they justly argue, it is very likely to eat up Kaffir soldiers. Of course, in defending a fort against Kaffirs, cannon, loaded with grape and canister, would be of terrible efficacy, and they would be justified in declining to assault any place that was defended with such dreadful weapons. But they do not seem to be aware that guns in a fort and guns in the bush are two very different things, and that, if they could decoy the artillery into the bush, the dreaded weapons would be of scarcely more use than if they were logs of wood. This distinction the Kaffir never seems to have drawn, and the wholesome dread of cannon has done very much to insure tranquillity among the impetuous and self-confident soldiery of Kaffirland.
The odd name of “By-and-by” became attached to the cannon in the following manner:—When the natives first saw some pieces of artillery in the Natal district, they asked what such strange objects could be, and were answered that they would learn “by-and-by.” Further questions, added to the firing of a few shots, gave them such a terror of the “By-and-by,” that they have never liked to match themselves against such weapons.
The Zulu tribes are remarkable for being the only people in that part of Africa who have practised war in an European sense of the word. The other tribes are very good at bush-fighting, and are exceedingly crafty at taking an enemy unawares, and coming on him before he is prepared for them. Guerilla warfare is, in fact, their only mode of waging battle, and, as is necessarily the case in such warfare, more depends on the exertion of individual combatants than on the scientific combination of masses. But the Zulu tribe have, since the time of Tchaka, the great inventor of military tactics, carried on war in a manner approaching the notions of civilization.
Their men are organized into regiments, each subdivided into companies, and each commanded by its own chief, or colonel, while the king, as commanding general, leads his forces to war, disposes them in battle array, and personally directs their movements. They give an enemy notice that they are about to march against him, and boldly meet him in the open field. There is a military etiquette about them which some of our own people have been slow to understand. They once sent a message to the English commander that they would “come and breakfast with him.” He thought it was only a joke, and was very much surprised when the Kaffirs, true to their promise, came pouring like a torrent over the hills, leaving him barely time to get his men under arms before the dark enemies arrived.
As, in Kaffir warfare, much stress is laid upon the weapons, offensive and defensive, with which the troops are armed, it will be necessary to give a description of their weapons before we proceed any further. They are but few and simple, and consist of certain spears, called “assagais,” short clubs, called “kerries,” and shields made of the hides of oxen.
Almost every nation has its distinguishing weapons, or, at all events, one weapon which is held in greater estimation than any other, and which is never used so skilfully as by itself. The Australian savage has the boomerang, a weapon which cannot be used rightly except by an Australian. Many Europeans can throw it so as to make it perform some trifling evolution in the air, but there are none who can really use it as an efficient weapon or instrument of hunting. The Dyak has his sumpitan, and the Macoushie Indian his analogous weapon, the zarabatana, through which are blown the tiny poisoned arrows, a hundred of which can be held in the hand, and each one of which has death upon its point. The Ghoorka has his kookery, the heavy curved knife, with which he will kill a tiger in fair fight, and boldly attack civilized soldiers in spite of their more elaborate arms. Then the Sikh has the strange quoit weapon, or chakra, which skims through the air or ricochets from the ground, and does frightful execution on the foe. The Esquimaux have their harpoons, which will serve either for catching seals or assaulting the enemy. The Polynesians have their terrible swords and gauntlets armed with the teeth of sharks, each of which cuts like a lancet, and inflicts a wound which, though not dangerous by itself, becomes so when multiplied by the score and inflicted on the most sensitive part of the body.
Some of these weapons are peculiar in shape, and are not used in other countries, whereas some are modifications of implements of warfare spread over a great part of the globe, and altered in shape and size to suit the locality. Of such a nature is the special weapon of the Kaffirs inhabiting the Natal district, the slight-looking but most formidable spear or assagai. The spear is one of the simplest of all weapons, the simplest of all excepting the club. In its primitive state the spear is nothing but a stick of greater or lesser length, sharpened at one end. The best example of this primitive spear may be found in Borneo, where the weapon is made in a few minutes by taking a piece of bamboo of convenient length, and cutting off one end diagonally. The next improvement in spear making was to put the pointed end in the fire for a few moments. This process enabled the spear maker to scrape the point more easily, while the charred wood was rendered hard, and capable of resisting damp better than if it had been simply scraped to a point. Spears of this kind are to be found in almost every primitive savage tribe.
A further improvement now takes place. The point is armed with some material harder than wood, which material may be bone, horn, stone, metal, or other similar substance. Some nations arm the heads of their spears with sharp flakes of flint or obsidian. Some tip them with the end of a sharp horn, or even with the claws of a mammal or a bird—the kangaroo, emu, and cassowary being used for this singular purpose. In many parts of the earth, the favorite spears are armed with the teeth of sharks, while others are headed with the tail spine of the sting-ray, which not only penetrates deeply, but breaks into the wound, and always causes death. These additions to the spears, together with others formed of certain marine shells, are necessarily the productions of tribes that inhabit certain islands in the warmer seas. The last and greatest improvement that is made in the manufacture of spears is the abolition of all additions to the head, and making the head itself of metal. For this purpose iron is generally used, partly because it takes a sharp edge, and partly because it can be easily forged into any required shape. The natives of Southern Africa are wonderful proficients in forging iron, and indeed a decided capability for the blacksmith’s art seems to be inherent in the natives of Africa, from north to south and from east to west. None of the tribes can do very much with the iron, but the little which they require is worked in perfection. As is the case with all uncivilized beings, the whole treasures of the art are lavished on their weapons; and so if we wish to see what an African savage can do with iron, we must look at his spears, knives, and arrows—the latter indeed being but spears in miniature.
The heads of the Kaffir’s spears are extremely variable in form, some being a mere spike, but the generality being blade shaped. Very few are barbed, and the ordinary shape is that which is seen several times in the illustration on [page 103]. Still, wherever the blade is adopted, it has always one peculiarity of structure, whether it be plain or barbed. A raised ridge passes along the centre, and the blade is convex on one side of the ridge, and concave on the other. The reason of this curious structure seems to be twofold. In the first place, it is possible that this structure of the blade acts much as the feathers of an arrow, or the spiral groove on the rifle balls invented by Dr. Croft, and which can be used in smooth bore barrels. Colonel Lane Fox finds that if a thread be tied to the point of an assagai, and the weapon be thrown with great care, so that no revolving force is given by the thrower, the thread is found spirally twisted round the head and shaft by the time that the weapon has touched the ground. That certainly seems to be one reason for the form. Another reason is, that a blade thus shaped can be sharpened very easily, when it becomes blunt. Nothing is needed but to take a flint, or even the back of a common knife, and scrape it along the edge, and, if properly done, a single such scrape will sharpen the weapon afresh. The head is always made of soft iron, and so yields easily to the sharpening process. The reader may remember that the harpoons which we use for whale hunting are always made of the softest iron; were they made of steel, the first furious tug of the whale might snap them, while, if they were to become blunt, they could not be sharpened without much trouble and hard work at the grindstone.