"I'd rather face all the Kafirs in Kaffraria than one Zulu, Petrus!" protested George. "I'm never afraid of Mutla."
"Wait until you see some of the happy-faced, laughing Zulus of Natal—the Durban 'ginrickshaw' Zulu boys for instance. You will never be afraid of them. Zulus are not all dangerous—like Dirk. Many of them make good, honest house-servants, and are to be trusted. Kafirs work better in the fields. Fine specimens as many of them are, yet the best of them are not the equals of the magnificent big Zulus of Natal and Zululand—splendidly built, coal-black giants like Dirk."
"Petrus, here come two Kafirs now!" whispered George.
"Those are Hottentots, George," laughed Petrus. "Don't you see their tufty hair—all little wiry balls with open spaces between, just like the Bushman's. Both are little yellow-brown, flat-faced people who click, click, when they try to talk. The word 'Hottentot' means a 'Stammerer' or 'Jabberer.' We cannot understand their jargon, and Uncle Abraham and I have to talk to them by signs. The Kafirs scorn the Hottentots, and the Hottentots hate the pigmy Bushmen. They won't work together. There goes a little Bushman, now. They have no lobes to their ears. Many of them sleep out in the open—winter and summer. On cold nights they sometimes lie so close to the fire that they blister their bodies until the skin peels off. But they are great little hunters. They always know where to find water. They will watch the flight of the birds, or spoor some animal to his drinking-place, and when on the hunt they'll eat the flesh of anything, from an elephant to a mouse."
"Ugh! Snakes, too, Koos?"
"Yes. Snakes, lizards, tortoises, grubs, frogs, locusts, flying ants, ostrich eggs, wild honey, young bees, nestling birds of all kinds, and all sorts of bulbs and roots they dig up with pointed sticks. And you know how their arrowheads are always smeared with poison."
"Ugh! Bushmen must be disgusting! No wonder the Kafirs hate them. I should, too!" protested George. "Look! Petrus, we've reached the Kafir kraals!"
Spread out before them, just beyond a few tall trees, were twenty or more odd-looking huts, arranged in a semicircle. They could see the naked little black children playing about and hear their chatter. Beautiful herds of fat cattle, guarded by huge, dark-hued Kafirs, came slowly winding along the road past them, on their way to the cattle-kraals for their evening milking. It was almost sunset.
"Petrus, see those black clouds! It's going to rain!"