UPON entering Natal we exchange the Kafir for the Zulu,—who conceives himself to be a very superior sort of man—not as being equal to the white man whom he reverences, but as being greatly above the other black races around him. And yet he is not a man of ancient blood, or of long established supremacy. In the early part of this century,—beyond which I take it Zulu history goeth not,—there was a certain chief of the Zulus whom we have spoken of as King Chaka. To spell the name aright there should be a T before the C, and an accent to mark the peculiar sound in the Kafir language which is called a click. To the uninstructed English ear Chaka will be intelligible and sufficient. He was King of the Zulus, but the tribe was not mighty before his time. He was a great warrior and was brave enough and gradually strong enough to “eat up” all the tribes around him; and then, according to Kafir fashion, the tribes so eaten amalgamated themselves with the eaters, and the Zulus became a great people. But Chaka was a bloody tyrant and if the stories told be true was nearly as great an eater of his own people as of his enemies. In his early days the territory which we now call Natal was not inhabited by Zulus but by tribes which fell under his wrath, and which he either exterminated or assimilated,—which at any rate he “ate up.” Then the Zulus flocked into the land, and hence the native population became a Zulu people. But Zulu-land proper, with which we Britons have no concern and where the Zulus live under an independent king of their own, is to the North of Natal, lying between the Colony and the Portuguese possession called Delagoa Bay.
It may be as well to say here a few words about the Zulus on their own land. I did not visit their country and am not therefore entitled to say much, but from what I learned I have no doubt that had I visited the nation I should have been received with all courtesy at the Court of his dreaded Majesty King Cetywayo,—who at this moment, January, 1878, is I fear our enemy. The spelling of this name has become settled, but Cetch-way-o is the pronunciation which shews the speaker to be well up in his Zulu. King Chaka, who made all the conquests, was murdered by his brother Dingaan[16] who then reigned in his stead. Dingaan did not add much territory to the territories of his tribe as Chaka had done, but he made himself known and probably respected among his Zulu subjects by those horrible butcheries of the Dutch pioneers of which I have spoken in my chapter on the early history of the Colony. The name of Dingaan then became dreadful through the land. It was not only that he butchered the Dutch, but that he maintained his authority and the dread of his name by the indiscriminate slaughter of his own people. If the stories told be true, he was of all South African Savages the most powerful and the most savage. But as far as I can learn English missionaries were safe in Zulu-land even in Dingaan’s time.
Then Dingaan was murdered and his brother Panda became Chief. Neither Chaka or Dingaan left sons, and there is extant a horrible story to the effect that they had their children killed as soon as born, thinking that a living son would be the most natural enemy to a reigning father. Panda was allowed to live and reign, and seems to have been a fat do-nothing good-natured sort of King,—for a Zulu. He died some years since,—in his bed if he had one,—and now his son Cetywayo reigns in his stead.
Cetywayo has certainly a bad reputation generally, though he was till quite lately supposed to be favourable to the English as opposed to the Dutch. When dealing with the troubles of the Transvaal I shall have to say something of him in that respect. He has probably been the indirect cause of the annexation of that country. In Natal there are two opinions about the Zulu monarch. As the white man generally dislikes the black races by whom he is surrounded and troubled in South Africa,—not averse by any means to the individual with whom he comes in immediate contact, but despising and almost hating the people,—Cetywayo and his subjects are as a rule evil spoken of among the Europeans of the adjacent Colony. He is accused of murdering his people right and left according to his caprices. That is the charge brought against him. But it is acknowledged that he does not murder white people, and I am not at all sure that there is any conclusive evidence of his cruelty to the blacks. He has his white friends as I have said, and although they probably go a little too far in whitewashing him, I am inclined to believe them when they assert that the spirit of European clemency and abhorrence from bloodshed has worked its way even into the Zulu Court and produced a respect for life which was unknown in the days of Chaka and Dingaan. It is no doubt the case that some of the missionaries who had been settled in Zulu-land have in the year that is last past,—1877,—left the country as though in a panic. I presume that the missionaries have gone because two or three of their converts were murdered. Two or three certainly have been murdered, but I doubt whether it was done by order of the Chief. The converts have as a rule been safe,—as have the missionaries,—not from any love borne to them by Cetywayo, but because Cetywayo has thought them to be protected by English influence. Cetywayo has hitherto been quite alive to the expediency of maintaining peace with his white neighbours in Natal, though he could afford to despise his Dutch neighbours in the Transvaal. It has yet to be seen whether we shall be able to settle questions as to a line of demarcation between himself and us in the Transvaal without an appeal to force.
When I was at Pieter Maritzburg a young lady who was much interested in the welfare of the Zulus and who had perhaps a stronger belief in the virtues of the black people than in the justice of the white, read to me a diary which had just been made by a Zulu who had travelled from Natal into Zulu-land to see Cetywayo, and had returned not only in safety but with glowing accounts of the King’s good conduct to him. The diary was in the Zulu language and my young friend, if I may call her so, shewed her perfect mastery over that and her mother tongue by the way in which she translated it for me. That the diary was an excellent literary production, and that it was written by the Zulu in an extremely good running hand, containing the narrative of his journey from day to day in a manner quite as interesting as many published English journals, are certainly facts. How far it was true may be a matter of doubt. The lady and her family believed it entirely,—and they knew the man well. The bulk of the white inhabitants of Pieter Maritzburg would probably not have believed a word of it. I believed most of it, every now and then arousing the gentle wrath of the fair reader by casting a doubt upon certain details. The writer of the journal was present, however, answering questions as they were asked; and, as he understood and spoke English, my doubts could only be expressed when he was out of the room. “There is a touch of romance there,” I would say when he had left us alone. “Wasn’t that put in specially for you and your father?” I asked as to another passage. But she was strong in support of her Zulu, and made me feel that I should like to have such an advocate if ever suspected myself.
The personal adventures of the narrator and the literary skill displayed were perhaps the most interesting features of the narrative;—but the purport was to defend the character of Cetywayo. The man had been told that being a Christian and an emissary from Natal he would probably be murdered if he went on to the Chief’s Kraal; but he had persevered and had been brought face to face with the King. Then he had made his speech. “I have come, O King, to tell you that your friend Langalibalele is safe.” For it was supposed in Zulu-land that Langalibalele, who shall have the next chapter of this volume devoted to him, had been made away with by the English. At this the King expressed his joy and declared his readiness to receive his friend into his kingdom, if the Queen of England would so permit. “But, O King,” continued the audacious herald, “why have you sent away the missionaries, and why have you murdered the converts? Tell me this, O King, because we in Natal are very unhappy at the evil things which are said of you.” Then the King, with great forbearance and a more than British absence of personal tyranny, explained his whole conduct. He had not sent the missionaries away. They were stupid people, not of much use to any one as he thought, who had got into a fright and had gone. He had always been good to them;—but they had now run away without even the common civility of saying good-bye. He seemed to be very bitter because they had “trekked” without even the ceremony of leaving a P.P.C. card. He had certainly not sent them away; but as they had left his dominions after that fashion they had better not come back again. As for the murders he had had nothing to do with them. There was a certain difficulty in ruling his subjects, and there would be bad men and violent men in his kingdom,—as in others. Two converts and two only had been murdered and he was very sorry for it. As for making his people Christians he thought it would be just as well that the missionaries should make the soldiers in Pieter Maritzburg Christians before they came to try their hand upon the Zulus.
I own I thought that the highly polished black traveller who was sitting before me must have heard the last little sarcasm among his white friends in Natal and had put the sharp words into the King’s mouth for effect. “I think,” said my fair friend, “that Cetywayo had us there,” intending in her turn to express an opinion that the poor British soldier who makes his way out to the Colony is not always all that he should be. I would not stop to explain that the civilization of the white and black men may go on together, and that Cetywayo need not remain a Savage because a soldier is fond of his beer.
Such was the gist of the diary,—which might probably be worth publishing as shewing something of the manners of the Zulus, and something also of the feeling of these people towards the English. Zulu-land is one of the problems which have next to be answered. Let my reader look at his map. Natal is a British Colony;—so is now the Transvaal. The territory which he will see marked as Basuto Land has been annexed to the Cape Colony. Kafraria, which still nominally belongs to the natives, is almost annexed. The Kafrarian problem will soon be solved in spite of Kreli. But Zulu-land, surrounded as it is by British Colonies and the Portuguese settlement at Delagoa Bay, is still a native country,—in which the king or chief can live by his own laws and do as his soul lusts. I am very far from recommending an extension of British interference; but if I know anything of British manners and British ways, there will be British interference in Zulu-land before long.
In the meantime our own Colony of Natal is peopled with Zulus whom we rule, not very regularly, but on the whole with success. They are, to my thinking, singularly amenable; and though I imagine they would vote us out of the country if a plebiscite were possible, they are individually docile and well-mannered, and as Savages are not uncomfortable neighbours. That their condition as a people has been improved by the coming of the white man there can be no doubt. I will put out of consideration for a moment the peculiar benefits of Christianity which have not probably reached very many of them, and will speak only of the material advantages belonging to this world. The Zulu himself says of himself that he can now sleep with both eyes shut and both ears, whereas, under tribal rule, it was necessary that he should ever have one eye open and one ear, ready for escape. He can earn wages if he pleases. He is fed regularly, whereas it was his former fate,—as it is of all Savages and wild beasts,—to vacillate between famine and a gorge. He can occupy land and know it for his own, so that no Chief shall take away his produce. If he have cattle he can own them in safety. He cannot be “smelt out” by the witchfinder and condemned, so that his wealth be confiscated. He is subjected no doubt to thraldom, but not to tyranny. To the savage subject there is nothing so terrible as the irresponsible power of a savage ruler. A Dingaan is the same as a Nero,—a ruler whose heart becomes impregnated by power with a lust for blood. “No emperor before me,” said Nero, “has known what an emperor could do.” And so said Dingaan. Cetywayo would probably have said the same and done the same had he not been checked by English influences. The Zulu of Natal knows well what it is to have escaped from such tyranny.
He is a thrall, and must remain so probably for many a year to come. I call a man a thrall when he has to be bound by laws in the making of which he has no voice and is subject to legislators whom he does not himself choose. But the thraldom though often irrational and sometimes fantastic is hardly ever cruel. The white British ruler who is always imperious,—and who is often irrational and sometimes fantastic,—has almost always at his heart an intention to do good. He has a conscience in the matter—with rare exceptions, and though he may be imperious and fantastic, is not tyrannical. He rules the Zulu after a fashion which to a philanthropist or to a stickler for the rights of man, is abominable. He means to be master, and knowing the nature of the Zulu, he stretches his power. He cannot stand upon scruples or strain at gnats. If a blow will do when a word has not served he gives the blow,—though the blow probably be illegal. There are certain things which he is entitled to demand, certain privileges which he is entitled to exact; but he cannot stop himself for a small trifle. There are twenty thousand whites to be protected amidst three hundred thousand blacks, with other hundreds of thousands crowding around without number, and he has to make the Zulu know that he is master. And he quite understands that he has to keep the philanthropist and Exeter Hall,—perhaps even Downing Street and Printing House Square,—a little in the dark as to the way he does it. But he is not wilfully cruel to the Zulu, and not often really unkind.
I was riding, when in Natal, over a mountain with a gentleman high in authority when we met a Zulu with his assegai and knobkirrie.[17] It is still the custom of a Zulu to carry with him his assegai and knobkirrie, though the assegai is unlawful wherever he may be, and the knobkirrie is forbidden in the towns. My companion did not know the Zulu, but found it necessary, for some official reason, to require the man’s presence on the following morning at the place from which we had ridden, which was then about ten miles distant. The purport of the required attendance I now forget,—if I ever knew it,—but it had some reference to the convenience of the party of which I made one. The order was given and the Zulu, assenting, was passing on. But a sudden thought struck my companion. He spoke a word in the native tongue desiring that the assegai and knobkirrie might be given up to him. With a rueful look the weapons were at once surrendered and the unarmed Zulu passed on. “He knows that I do not know him,” said my companion, “and would not come unless I had a hold upon him;”—meaning that the Zulu would surely come to redeem his assegai and knobkirrie.
Then I enquired into this practice, and perhaps expostulated a little. “What would you have done,” I asked, “if the man had refused to give up his property?” “Such a thing has never yet occurred to me,” said the gentleman in authority. “When it does I will tell you.” But again I remonstrated. “The things were his own, and why should they have been taken away from him?” The gentleman in authority smiled, but another of our party remarked that the weapons were illegal, and that the confiscation of them was decidedly proper. But the knobkirrie on the mountain side was not illegal, and even the assegai was to be restored when the man shewed himself at the appointed place. They were not taken because they were illegal, but as surety for the man’s return. I did not press the question, but I fear that I was held to have enquired too curiously on a matter which did not concern me. I thought that it concerned me much, for it told me plainer than could any spoken description how a savage race is ruled by white men.
The reader is not to suppose that I think that the assegai and knobkirrie should not have been taken from the man. On the other hand I think that my companion knew very well what he was about, and that the Zulu generally is lucky to have such men in the land. I say again that we must have resort to such practices, or that we must leave the country. But I have told the tale because it exemplifies what I say as to the manner in which savage races are ruled by us. We were all shocked the other day because an Indian servant was struck by a white master, and died from the effects of the blow. The man’s death was an unfortunate accident which probably caused extreme anguish to the striker, but cannot be said to have increased at all the criminality of his act. The question is how far a white master is justified in striking a native servant. The idea of so doing is to us at home abominable;—but I fear that we must believe that it is too common in India to create disgust. It is much the same in Zulu-land. Something is done occasionally which should not be done, but the rule generally is beneficent.
Of all the towns in South Africa Pieter Maritzburg is the one in which the native element is the most predominant. It is not only that the stranger there sees more black men and women in the streets than elsewhere, but that the black men and women whom he sees are more noticeable. While I was writing of “The Colony,” as the Cape Colony is usually called in South Africa, I spoke of Kafirs. Now I am speaking of Zulus,—a comparatively modern race of savages as I have already said. I have seen a pedigree of Chaka their king, but his acknowledged ancestors do not go back far. Chaka became a great man, and the Zulus swallowed all the remainder of the conquered tribes, and became so dominant that they have given their name to the natives of this part of the continent.
The Zulus as seen in Maritzburg are certainly a peculiar people, and very picturesque. I have said of the Kafir that he is always dressed when seen in town, but that he is dressed like an Irish beggar. I should have added, however, that he always wears his rags with a grace. The Zulu rags are perhaps about equal to the Kafir rags in raggedness, but the Zulu grace is much more excellent than the Kafir grace. Whatever it be that the Zulu wears he always looks as though he had chosen that peculiar costume, quite regardless of expense, as being the one mode of dress most suitable to his own figure and complexion. The rags are there, but it seems as though the rags have been chosen with as much solicitude as any dandy in Europe gives to the fit and colour of his raiment. When you see him you are inclined to think, not that his clothes are tattered, but “curiously cut,”—like Catherine’s gown. One fellow will walk erect with an old soldier’s red coat on him and nothing else, another will have a pair of knee breeches and a flannel shirt hanging over it. A very popular costume is an ordinary sack, inverted, with a big hole for the head, and smaller holes for the arms, and which comes down below the wearer’s knees. This is serviceable and decent, and has an air of fashion about it too as long as it is fairly clean. Old grey great coats with brass buttons, wherever they may come from, are in request, and though common always seem to confer dignity. A shirt and trowsers worn threadbare, so ragged as to seem to defy any wearer to find his way into them, will assume a peculiar look of easy comfort on the back and legs of a Zulu. An ordinary flannel shirt, with nothing else, is quite sufficient to make you feel that the black boy who is attending you, is as fit to be brought into any company as a powdered footman. And then it is so cheap a livery! and over and above their dress they always wear ornaments. The ornaments are peculiar, and might be called poor, but they never seem amiss. We all know at home the detestable appearance of the vulgar cad who makes himself odious with chains and pins,—the Tittlebat Titmouse from the counter. But when you see a Zulu with his ornaments you confess to yourself that he has a right to them. As with a pretty woman at home, whose attire might be called fantastic were it not fashionable, of whom we feel that as she was born to be beautiful, graceful, and idle, she has a right to be a butterfly,—and that she becomes and justifies the quaint trappings which she selects, so of the Zulu do we acknowledge that he is warranted by the condition of his existence in adorning his person as he pleases. Load him with bangle, armlet, ear-ring and head-dress to any extent, and he never looks like a hog in armour. He inserts into the lobes of his ears trinkets of all sorts,—boxes for the conveyance of his snuff and little delights, and other pendants as though his ears had been given to him for purposes of carriage. Round his limbs he wears round shining ornaments of various material, brass, ivory, wood and beads. I once took from off a man’s arm a section of an elephant’s tooth which he had hollowed, and the remaining rim of which was an inch and a half thick. This he wore, loosely slipping up and down and was apparently in no way inconvenienced by it. Round their heads they tie ribbons and bandelets. They curl their crisp hair into wonderful shapes. I have seen many as to whom I would at first have sworn that they had supplied themselves with miraculous wigs made by miraculous barbers. They stick quills and bones and bits of wood into their hair, always having an eye to some peculiar effect. They will fasten feathers to their back hair which go waving in the wind. I have seen a man trundling a barrow with a beautiful green wreath on his brow, and have been convinced at once that for the proper trundling of a barrow a man ought to wear a green wreath. A Zulu will get an old hat,—what at home we call a slouch hat,—some hat probably which came from the corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly three or four years ago, and will knead it into such shapes that all the establishments of all the Christys could not have done the like. The Zulu is often slow, often idle, sometimes perhaps hopelessly useless, but he is never awkward. The wonderfully pummelled hat sits upon him like a helmet upon Minerva or a furred pork pie upon a darling in Hyde Park in January. But the Zulu at home in his own country always wears on his head the “isicoco,” or head ring, a shining black coronet made hard with beaten earth and pigments,—earth taken from the singular ant hills of the country,—which is the mark of his rank and virility and to remove which would be a stain.
I liked the Zulu of the Natal capital very thoroughly. You have no cabs there,—and once when in green ignorance I had myself carried from one end of the town to another in a vehicle, I had to pay 10s. 6d. for the accommodation. But the Zulu, ornamented and graceful as he is, will carry your portmanteau on his head all the way for sixpence. Hitherto money has not become common in Natal as in British Kafraria, and the Zulu is cheap. He will hold your horse for you for an hour, and not express a sense of injury if he gets nothing;—but for a silver threepence he will grin at you with heartfelt gratitude. Copper I believe he will not take,—but copper is so thoroughly despised in the Colony that no one dares to shew it. At Maritzburg I found that I could always catch a Zulu at a moment’s notice to do anything. At the hotel or the club, or your friend’s house you signify to some one that you want a boy, and the boy is there at once. If you desired him to go a journey of 200 miles to the very boundary of the Colony, he would go instantly, and be not a whit surprised. He will travel 30 or 40 miles in the twenty-four hours for a shilling a day, and will assuredly do the business confided to him. Maritzburg is 55 miles from Durban and an acquaintance told me that he had sent down a very large wedding cake by a boy in 24 hours. “But if he had eaten it?” I asked. “His Chief would very soon have eaten him,” was the reply.
But there is a drawback to all these virtues. A Zulu will sometimes cross your path with so strong an injury to your nose as almost to make you ill. I have been made absolutely sick by the entrance of a good-natured Zulu into my bedroom of a morning, when he has come near me in his anxiety about my boots or my hot water. In this respect he is more potent than any of his brethren of the negro race who have come in my way. Why it is or whence I am unable to say, or how it comes to pass that now and again there is one who will almost knock you down, while a dozen others shall cross you leaving no more than a mere flavour of Zuluism on your nasal organs. I do not think that dirt has anything to do with it. They are a specially clean people, washing themselves often and using soap with a bountiful liberality unknown among many white men. As the fox who leaves to the hounds the best scent is always the fox in the strongest health, so I fancy is it with the Zulu,—whereas dirt is always unhealthy. But there is the fact; and any coming visitor to Natal had better remember it, and be on his guard.
Almost all domestic service is done by the Zulu or Kafir race in Natal. Here and there may be found a European servant,—a head waiter at an hotel, or a nurse in a lady’s family, or a butler in the establishment of some great man. But all menial work is as a rule done by the natives and is done with fidelity. I cannot say that they are good servants at all points. They are slow, often forgetful, and not often impressed with any sense of awe as to their master, who cannot eat them up or kill them as a black master might do. But they are good-humoured, anxious to oblige, offended at nothing, and extremely honest. Their honesty is so remarkable that the white man falls unconsciously into the habit of regarding them in reference to theft as he would a dog. A dog, unless very well mannered, would take a bit of meat, and a Zulu boy might help himself to your brandy if it was left open within his reach. But your money, your rings, your silver forks, and your wife’s jewels,—if you have a wife and she have jewels,—are as safe with a Zulu servant as with a dog. The feeling that it is so comes even to the stranger after a short sojourn in the land. I was travelling through the country by a mail cart, and had to stay at a miserable wayside hut which called itself an hotel, with eight or ten other passengers. Close at hand, not a hundred yards from the door, were pitched the tents of a detachment of soldiers, who were being marched up to the border between Natal and the Transvaal. Everybody immediately began to warn his neighbour as to his property because of the contiguity of the British soldier. But no one ever warns you to beware of a Zulu thief though the Zulus swarm round the places at which you stop. I found myself getting into a habit of trusting a Zulu just as I would trust a dog.
I have already said something of Zulu labour when speaking of the sugar districts round Durban. It is the question upon which the prosperity of South Africa and the civilization of the black races much depend. If a man can be taught to want, really to desire and to covet the good things of the world, then he will work for them and by working he will be civilized. If, when they are presented to his notice, he still despises them,—if when clothes and houses and regular meals and education come in his way, he will still go naked, and sleep beneath the sky, and eat grass or garbage and then starve, and remain in his ignorance though the schoolmaster be abroad, then he will be a Savage to the end of the chapter. It is often very hard to find out whether the good things have been properly proffered to the Savage, and whether the man’s neglect of them has come from his own intellectual inability to appreciate them or from the ill manner in which they have been tendered to him. The aboriginal of Australia has utterly rejected them, as I fear we must say the North American Indian has done also,—either from his own fault or from ours. The Maori of New Zealand seemed to be in the way of accepting them when it was found out that the reception of them was killing him. He is certainly dying whether from that or other causes. The Chinaman and the Indian Coolie are fully alive to the advantages of earning money, and are consequently not to be classed among Savages. The South Sea Islander has as yet had but few chances of working; but when he is employed he works well and saves his wages. With the Negro as imported into the West Indies the good things of the world have, I fear, made but little way. He despises work and has not even yet learned to value the advantages which work will procure for him. The Negro in the United States, who in spite of his prolonged slavery has been brought up in a better school, gives more promise; but even with him the result to be desired,—the consciousness that by work only can he raise himself to an equality with the white man,—seems to be far distant. I cannot say that it is near with the Kafir or the Zulu;—but to the Kafir and the Zulu the money market has been opened comparatively but for a short time. They certainly do not die out under the yoke, and they are not indifferent to the material comforts of life. Therefore I think there is a fair hope that they will become a laborious and an educated people.
At present no doubt throughout Natal there is a cry from the farmer that the Zulu will not work. The farmer cannot plough his land and reap it because the Zulu will not come to him just when work is required. It seems hard to the farmer that, with 300,000 of a labouring class around, the 20,000 white capitalists,—capitalists in a small way,—should be short of labour. That is the way in which the Natal farmer looks at it, when he swears that the Zulu is trash, and that it would be well if he were swept from the face of the earth. It seems never to occur to a Natal farmer that if a Zulu has enough to live on without working he should be as free to enjoy himself in idleness as an English lord. The business of the Natal farmer is to teach the Zulu that he has not enough to live on, and that there are enjoyments to be obtained by working of which the idle man knows nothing.
But the Zulu does work, though not so regularly as might be desirable. I was astonished to find at how much cheaper a rate he works than does the Kafir in British Kafraria or in the Cape Colony generally. The wages paid by the Natal farmer run from 10s. down to 5s. a month, and about 3 lbs. of mealies or Indian corn a day for diet. I found that on road parties,—where the labour is I am sorry to say compulsory, the men working under constraint from their Chiefs,—the rate is 5s. a month, or 4d. a day for single days. The farmer who complains of course expects to get his work cheap, and thinks that he is injuring not only himself but the community at large if he offers more than the price which has been fixed in his