By Veldt and Kopje - W. C. Scully

The two airs next following are danced to by the Bacas:—

The following air is common among all the tribes between the Shangaan country, north of Delagoa Bay, and Pondoland:—

The three last examples given are songs heard by one of the writers among the Tongas and Shangaans:—

In their songs the Bantu have never got beyond a few words set to a tune of a few bars, these being sung with monotonous repetition. In spite of their monotony, the songs have a wild charm which is all their own. The Kaffirs are as loyal to their chiefs as were the Scottish Highlanders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Probably among no other people in the world is the sentiment of loyalty so strong. In each of these simple melodies a treasured story lies embalmed and fragrant. Up to the present the habiliments of civilisation sit but ill upon the savages of South Africa, whose waning ideals are clustered around the leafless tree of ancestry as a swarm of belated bees cluster over the portals of a ruined nest. In singing their songs the natives reconstruct the departed glories of the grand old “houses” which have, as they themselves say, “withered,” for a few fleeting and pathetic moments.