It may be thought that, as a sequel to this somewhat remarkable scene in
which I was absolutely bowled over--perhaps bowled out would be a better
term--by a Kafir girl who, after bending me to her will, had the genius
to drop me before I repented, as she knew I would do so soon as her back
was turned, thereby making me look the worst of fools, that my relations
with that young lady would have been strained. But not a bit of it. When
next we met, which was on the following morning, she was just her easy,
natural self, attending to my hurts, which by now were almost well,
joking about this and that, inquiring as to the contents of certain
letters which I had received from Natal, and of some newspapers that
came with them--for on all such matters she was very curious--and so
forth.
Impossible, the clever critic will say--impossible that a savage could
act with such finish. Well, friend critic, that is just where you are
wrong. When you come to add it up there's very little difference in all
main and essential matters between the savage and yourself.
To begin with, by what exact right do we call people like the Zulus
savages? Setting aside the habit of polygamy, which, after all, is
common among very highly civilised peoples in the East, they have a
social system not unlike our own. They have, or had, their king, their
nobles, and their commons. They have an ancient and elaborate law, and
a system of morality in some ways as high as our own, and certainly more
generally obeyed. They have their priests and their doctors; they are
strictly upright, and observe the rites of hospitality.
Where they differ from us mainly is that they do not get drunk until the
white man teaches them so to do, they wear less clothing, the climate
being more genial, their towns at night are not disgraced by the
sights that distinguish ours, they cherish and are never cruel to their
children, although they may occasionally put a deformed infant or a twin
out of the way, and when they go to war, which is often, they carry out
the business with a terrible thoroughness, almost as terrible as that
which prevailed in every nation in Europe a few generations ago.
Of course, there remain their witchcraft and the cruelties which result
from their almost universal belief in the power and efficiency of magic.
Well, since I lived in England I have been reading up this subject, and
I find that quite recently similar cruelties were practised throughout
Europe--that is in a part of the world which for over a thousand years
has enjoyed the advantages of the knowledge and profession of the
Christian faith.
Now, let him who is highly cultured take up a stone to throw at the
poor, untaught Zulu, which I notice the most dissolute and drunken
wretch of a white man is often ready to do, generally because he covets
his land, his labour, or whatever else may be his.