Then the rain ceased slashing on branch and pool, And swift came the sunshine, after; And the thrush and the yaffel screamed, "April Fool !" -New Review. SOME VERY NOBLE SAVAGES. BY LIEUTENANT-COLONEL H. KNOLLYS, R.A. "For the Right which needs assistance, 'Gainst the Wrong which needs resistance," is a plea which may appropriately be urged in behalf of the inhabitants of a remote corner in our world-wide empire-Zululand. Though not much larger than Wales, it possesses a potentiality for the development of resources which may ultimately render it one of the foremost districts on the face of the earth in point of wealth and population; and above all, it may be regarded as a test place for the justice and wisdom, or the converse, of our dealings with the natives of South Africa. My stay in the country was short, and my direct experience was consequently limited; and yet-should I not say, therefore?—my fresh impressions may not be undeserving of attention, by the same reasoning which assigns a special value to a woman's first thoughts, or to a winetaster's instantaneous verdict? One evening toward the close of 1890, accompanied by a brother officer, I am speeding along the fifty miles of roughly outlined track leading from Verulam, the Natal railway terminus, to the Zulu frontier. Our vehicle, the red, two-wheeled, "V.R." mail-cart, so familiar in the precincts of St. Martin's-le-Grand, seems oddly out of place in these wilds, which, save for small clusters, at long intervals, of European little tin erections, and for a few Kafir kraals, are absolutely uninhabited. Our luggage is quite nominal in amount-we have been even obliged to commit to the transport of an ox-wagon a friendly Christmas plum-pudding intrusted to us at Maritzburg as a poetical souvenir to an English sojourner at Eshowe. Our four half-broken horses, lashed by our reckless half-breed driver, lay themselves out like greyhounds at a desperate gallop, which at times takes away our breath, and makes us cling to our cart for dear limb and life. Then, with scant notice, night closes in pitch-dark, and we find ourselves standing on the steep heights overhanging the Tugela river, discarded by our driver, and utterly at a loss as to our next proceeding. But some five or six savages suddenly and unexpectedly start up out of the darkness, sign to us to follow them down boat ferry us across the broad river, silent, a craggy pathway, and in a cranky little swift, and tepid as it splashes over our hands. The fireflies are sparkling through the hot inky atmosphere, the bull-frogs startle us with their bellowing, the thunder is rolling with an incessant awful roar, and, as bewildered, I pant up the precipice on the other side, a savage seizes my wrist with a vice-like yet kindly grasp, and leads me like a prisoner to our haven of rest, a small tin wayfarer's tenement. within We are now in Zululand proper, the area of the military operations of 1879, and even the few days I spent here, far from the presence of all save three or four white men, and surrounded by a Zulu population, gave me some glimmer of native habits, of native character, and of the idiosyncrasies of the locality. True, this was subsequently confirmed or corrected by further experience, but for simplicity's sake I here introduce some of my first impressions. One day having heedlessly left my small kit spread over the floor of my lean-to outside room, I find on my return, two hours after, about thirty Zulu men and women of all ages crowded about the open door, many staring with curiosity at the collection of flannel shirts and other clothing, boots, knife, tobacco, and even money. Any one of these naked savages might with impunity have helped himself to any of these articles, which would have been a perfect treasure to him. But the idea never seemed to have entered their heads not the smallest trifle was missing. Genuine untainted Zulus are too noble to be thieves. They exult in the possession of a flannel shirt, they fully appreciate the gift of a shilling; but their native code of honor forbids pilfering, and property is far more safe in their midst than were it deposited in a first-class English hotel, or subjected to the inquisition of the landlady of a first-class London lodging. At intervals the natives came to the store to purchase blankets, or sugar, or some other requirement of their simple lives; but the law here effectually restrains Europeans from selling to them those two articles which elsewhere are unscrupulously traded, and which are the curses of the South Mealies are the chief food of the Kafirs, African race firearms, including gun- but they rejoice at an occasional opporpowder, and spirits. The former restric- tunity of feasting off a tough "trek" ox tion is rigidly enforced, both wholesale -no matter if it has died from natural and retail, and has done much to diminish causes-albeit their glimmering of religious the recklessness of bloodshed which is the superstition forbids them the use of animal invariable characteristic of all savage food. They loathe fish as we should loathe tribes. Even when I landed at Durban eating a snake; but, on the other hand, an official instantly snatched up my gun, their fancies for certain tit-bits run in a and ere I could recover it I had fully to curious direction. One afternoon a spray satisfy the civil custom-house superintend- of glittering green foliage is brought to ent as to my identity and bona fides. At me, from whence are depending the most Pietermaritzburg I succeeded in obtaining enormous caterpillars I have ever seen in a small quantity of powder only through my life, as thick as my thumb, and twice the special order of a magistrate, to whom as long,-fat green fellows, studded with I was called on to declare that I required small sparkling scales. The little Zulu girl it merely for sporting purposes. The from whom they had been obtained wept amount so authorized is limited, I believe, because we had taken away her food." to 10 lb. in twelve months to one appli- Iflatly declined to try a caterpillar or two, cant. Unhappily the law is occasionally whereupon a native eagerly selects a couple evaded by the criminal greed of whites, of the finest, pinches off their tails, manipchiefly from the Cape Colony, some of ulates glove-fashion the wriggling creatures whom occupy a high social status, and one with the other, frizzles them before who have succeeded in baffling the utmost the fire, and finally daintily devours the efforts of the Natal authorities, and in es- nauseous morsel, with the lingering enjoytablishing a regular traffic through a secret ment of an English schoolboy eating a fine route called "the Gun Runner's Pass." fresh strawberry. As regards the prohibition of the sale of liquor to the natives, even anti-total abstinence opinions must rejoice that the law is here generally successful, though of course it is evaded in some out-of-the-way places by miscreants who, for the sake of a few sovereigns, perpetrate an evil-doing perhaps as great as is within the power of man to commit. Let it be remembered that with savages drink means, not detriment, but downright destruction and death. In the Transvaal they are permitted to buy, at almost a nominal price, as much as they please. They toss it down like water, and the slaughtering results are appalling. Never once during my sojourn in Zululand did I see a drunken savage; and possibly this atmosphere of general sobriety may have influenced even the European hard drinkers. Total abstinence advocates may be interested in hearing that proprietors of drinking-stores declare the amount of ginger-ale consumed has of late become amazing, even among white laborers toiling under the glare of an almost tropical sun.* * Though wandering from my subject, I cannot forbear mentioning that, during the recent intense Cape heat, the gunner parties employed in the formidable labor of mounting 23-ton guns have daily taken out with them 66 Close at hand was "Bond's Drift," the ferry across the Tugela connecting the Natal and Zululand roads; and here I encountered an occasional European teamster, or a farmer, or a ferryman, or a Government messenger, or a doctor, of whom three or four are dotted about, at distances of thirty or forty miles apart. They form a pleasing contrast to the loafing specimens of the same class in the more populous parts of South Africa, who seem to assume that a worthless fellow in England is instantly levelled up to a valuable member of a colony the moment he disembarks. These Zululand strays, however rough in dress and off hand in address, are frequently stamped with certain characteristics of gentlemen, leading to the deduction that they have been drafted from a far higher community than their present avocations would imply, and that they are bravely battling against adverse fortune. came across a strange specimen of an agent for an American life insurance company, who, with an amusingly scanty equipment in his saddle-bags, was riding hundreds of miles through these wilds on the chance of a bag of oatmeal, which, stirred up in small quantities in water, is eagerly drunk, effectually quenches thirst, and affords a singular amount of support. picking up a chance subscriber. Enterprise could hardly go further. My companion was desirous of visiting the grave of a relation who had died in this neighborhood during the Zulu war; and one sweltering morning we betake ourselves to Fort Pearson, seven miles distant, where once were concentrated so much national attention and so many private sorrows, but now lost in a weird solitude which is almost oppressive. We found the old earthworks easily enough, and their very outline spoke volumes. No formulated scarps, bastions, or banquettes: merely a gradation of rough parapets hastily thrown up under the stress of peril, and trending one above the other toward the apex of the highest hills. Our enemy was numerous as the hosts of Sennacherib, but unskilled as the ancient Britons; and truly an antiquarian Oldbuck might declare the rude trace an intrenchment of some prehistoric nation until deceived by a Zulu's declaration, "I mind the bigging of it." Long and fruitless, however, was our search for the grave, during which we only just escaped treading on a monstrous reptile-until at last we hap upon a small "God's acre" enclosed with barbed fencing, and marked by an exceptionally tall, gaunt euphorbia tree-a species of giant cactus. Though the spot is covered with beautifully tangled growth, it is in the same condition of careful delimitation as when left by the survivors eleven years ago. Conspicuous among thirteen graves, marked by simple wooden crosses, is a plain white tombstone, whereon we read that Captain Wynne, R. E., here died of fever in 1879, and the text, "I believe in the resurrection of the body." Stay; here are some more words blurred by sun and climate: "Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori'-and there flashes across my recollection the pathetic circumstances I had heard many years ago specially accounting for this quotation from Horace. In the midst of the toil, the sickness, and the fighting of the campaign, Wynne used to elicit the friendly chaff of his comrades by his persistency in classical quotations. One day he too was stricken by that fatal malaria which played such havoc among our inen. After a few hours, feeling that his end was at hand, he sent for some of his brother officers, intrusted to them certain measures and messages consequent on his approaching death-he had left a young wife in England-and added in dying accents, with a dying smile: "Now I must make a last quotation, and I do not think you fellows will chaff me this time-' Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori'"'—and so slept into the dawn of that eternal day which fools call death. Musing in profound reverie on the coincidence which had brought the halfforgotten story face to face with my chance visit to the subject's solitary grave in the wilds of South Africa, I am startled almost out of my skin by a deep organsound, "Ha-a-a," at my elbow. A Zulu had noiselessly crept up to me, and uttering this wonted note of respectful greeting, with his right hand raised high over his head in salute, and his left grasping an assegai and a knob-kerry, he stood motionless and splendidly stalwart, like a carved statue of the ideal noble savage. Pointing to a brass badge on his arm, inscribed "Zulu Tugela Patrol," in token of amity, he made signs that he could. show us another resting-place of our countrymen, and led us to a second enclosure as neat as the first, where I counted sixty graves of British soldiers, and where the frequency of "died from fever" was a more melancholy record than "killed in action." Game is plentiful in parts of Zululand, but circumstances prevented my undertaking any shooting expeditions. I can only state that about the Tugela veldt are abundance of partridges and quail in season, alligators are numerous in the river, and monkeys swarm in the woods. I witnessed the exceedingly revolting sight of the skinning of four of our lations," the slaughter of which is only just saved from being wanton cruelty in that their pelts are not entirely without value. poor re The facilities for locomotion in England -where at Clapham we are right for Earlscourt and Kensington; change here for Constantinople and Jericho, obscures in the minds of stay-at-homes the constant and foremost difficulty of accomplishing point to point distances in savage countries. Very gladly, therefore, do we avail ourselves of the opportunity of a four-muled cart to convey us to Eshowe, thirty miles in the interior of Zululand. Our route, the sole one within an extensive area of country, is little more than a track, unmetalled, unfenced, and undrained. Yet the amount of labor which the Colonial Government has wisely be stowed on it has been considerable. Here and there a slight cutting or an elementary embankment has been effected, the biggest of the big boulders have been shoved aside, and the most advantageous curves up and down the nearly mountainous heights have been rudely indicated. By this rough-and ready method of civilization, communication, hitherto impracticable, has been opened up, and has facilitated the introduction into a barbarous country of the blessings-I admit the curses likewise of the nineteenth century. In the Transvaal and the Orange Free State I saw no instances on a parallel scale of this beneficent road-making. The general aspect of the Zulu country is that of evenly rolling mountains, occasionally dotted with brilliant red-sand patches, and generally covered with rich turf, which is beautiful in its emerald green during the rainy season, but which in course of time produces a sense of monotony in the horizon. Yet, when we come to details, we find under our very eyes plenty to charm. In the lower lands the view is relieved by innumerable thornbushes a source of treasure to the natives, as constituting their only fuel. The twisting water-courses-there are no navigable rivers-mark out streaks of lovely though rank vegetation, where are mingled tall grasses, enormous ferns, waving palms, graceful bamboos, and gaunt euphorbias; and out of the tangled masses start many brilliantly plumaged birds, which, however, are songless, in disadvantageous contrast to the sober-hued prima donnas of our English copses. Zululand is not a fishing country, and the numerous stagnant pools are only tenanted by coarse fish, scarcely worth catching. Here and there are plots seldom more than half an acre in extent of luxuriant mealies, cultivated by women, to whom the Zulus habitually relegate field labor. More curious than aught else are the kraals -clusters of ten or twelve bee-hive-shaped wattle-and-daub dwellings, without window or chimney, and for a door a mere aperture through which the inhabitants can just manage to crawl. Peer inside, however, and, contrary to the usual ex perience of natives, there is nothing dirty or disgusting; the Zulus are singularly cleanly in their habits. The unlighted interior is sombre and pungent with the smoke, for which no exit is provided, of the cooking fuel; but the few household goods are neatly arranged. The floor, hardened with the invaluable mixture of mud-and-water, is tidily swept, and there is not a sign of nasty débris within or without. The native mind is characterized by a curious incapacity to imagine any shape beyond a circle, and consequently the kraals are enclosed in an annulus, with a flimsy outside fencing and an inside paling where the cattle are penned. Each group forms the headquarters of a family, comprising perhaps two or three generations. A Kafir provides himself with two or more wives, each of whom insists on having her separate tenement; and though it is stated that the husband maintains strict discipline in his little harem, traits of woman nature assert themselves with persistent irrepressibility. Here is a dignified-looking savage stalking in front; close at his heels steps his tall young wife, with the perfect grace of women accustomed to carry pitchers of water on their heads, and with all the haughty coquetry of conscious beauty; far behind trudges the poor old mate of early years, ugly, bowed, and broken, and seeming mutely to implore forbearance from her successful rival. The maternal instinct appears to be more strongly developed among the Zulus than is usual with savages. The women toil in the sun or walk for miles with infants carefully slung behind their backs. I noticed in one small settlement a multitude of eighty or ninety mothers assembled for the enforced vaccination of children, and although a tax of 6d. per head is levied, the natives recognize the blessings of the process with an intelligent gratitude which would put Leicester to shame. The chattering, the petting, and pride of this black baby-show was very amusing; their charges were singularly bright and forward; but, characteristically of savages, this precocious development is suddenly arrested at an early age. Would that I could speak their language! It is of Italian harmony, and so easily acquired that most of the English officers have picked up a smattering of it. Its peculiarity is three sorts of curious clicks |