Sugar, salt, kerosene, cotton blankets, tobacco, snuff, lanterns, Jew's-harps, concertinas, mouth organs, beads, cheap spangles, bright calicoes, whistles, and numerous other things of a tawdry character are what Zulus spend their money on. Six cents is the cheapest purchase he can make, as the three-penny piece is the smallest coin in circulation. They will haggle and haggle with a trader sometimes for half an hour over a six-cent purchase, if the trader will listen to them.
"Bonsella" is a word one will often hear if he has dealings with the Zulu. "Bonsella" means he wants something that does not belong to him. With a six-cent purchase he will insist on a "bonsella." A thin slice of a small bar of soap, a few grains of sugar, a little pinch of salt, a piece of string will do, if he cannot do better; and should he fail in getting something from the trader he will ask for a drink of water.
With similar weapons, and each equally skilled in their use, and even numbers, one is pretty safe in making the statement that no man can fight better nor for a longer period than the Zulu. Their military uniform used to be cow-tails secured to a ring around the neck. The tails were so thick they presented the appearance of a complete robe or skin. The Zulu can store enough food away at one meal to last him for 24 to 36 hours without becoming fatigued. He can run from 50 to 70 miles without stopping. Coupled with these staying qualities, it was the custom with some of the Zulu kings to kill all soldiers who returned defeated in battle. That left but two courses open to him—death or victory.
The Zulu has but a poor and varied quality of religion. Some select the sun as their guiding light, others a white bird, again hawks will appeal to him as being worthy to look up to. Unlike the Mohammedan, his knees are not calloused from kneeling to gods of any sort.
Missionaries claim to have 200,000 followers of the Christian religion, which is nearly one-quarter of the Zulu population—one million. People who live in black countries place little credit to the native for having adopted the European faith. In fact, there is a prejudice against the mission native. If a man in South Africa were in need of two "boys," and two mission "boys" and two kraal "boys" had appeared for work at the same time, he would at once select the kraal "boys." When a native begins to wear shoes and a European hat, his usefulness as an employee generally proves of doubtful quantity. When he embraces the Christian religion he is limited to but one wife. That does not absolve him, however, from coming forward with the cows for his bride.
Zululand, and South Africa generally, is well looked after by European mounted police. The duty of the mounted police is to see that firearms do not find their way to the native; that whisky is not smuggled over the border; to learn if discontent exists that might turn into a revolution. The native police, unmounted, arrests natives for minor offenses, and tries to find out from his brother violations of the law that the white man could not know other than through his minion.
"Ba, ba" (father), is a native salute to a European. A bow always accompanies the words. It is customary to return the native's recognition, although some Europeans will not go to the trifling trouble to do so, which is discourteous, to say the least.
Should one be benighted, a European does not think twice as to whether he will go to a native's hut and sleep on the floor with the family. In so doing he will be offered every hospitality.
Deadly, poisonous snakes are so numerous in this section that settlers carry with them a snakebite outfit. This consists of a strong cord, a syringe containing a poison antidote, and a small lance attached. In Zululand and Natal a rattle-snake is considered almost harmless. The puff adder, that coils itself in a pathway and is very sluggish, bites one by a backward spring. His fangs grow that way. He cannot bite after one has passed him. Death shortly ensues from the bite of this reptile if not attended to at once.
A person will die in 20 to 30 minutes after being bitten by a mamba. There are two kinds of this deadly snake—the green and black—but no difference in the quality of poison they inject into their victim. Death from a mamba's bite is said to be an awful one. Sometimes the bitten person's head will burst and appear as a pumpkin would look when thrown with force on a stone. This will account for the settlers carrying the snakebite outfit. The cord is used to wrap around the member bitten above where the fangs entered, to keep the poison from getting further into the system; the lance is used to cut out a piece of flesh where bitten, and the syringe is used to inject the antidote accurately at the raw part of the member where the fangs stopped. This precautionary measure must be gone through within a couple of minutes or one will fall a victim to the mamba's fangs. The snakes grow in length from three to four feet.