ocent of all European education that would show a capacity for mental
analysis and clear ratiocination equal to that of the educated European,
but I have to consider the reader's patience and will therefore confine
myself to a few illustrations taken at random from a number that were
written down by me at the time of observation. I may say here that my
translation into English has been made with the most scrupulous regard
to exactness so as to avoid the possibility of importing into the words
used a fuller meaning than that which was actually present in the
speaker's own mind.

In the Northern part of Matabeleland, not far from the Zambesi river,
lives a tribe called Bashankwe who follow a custom of marriage known
locally as "ku garidzela" which is in effect a rendering of personal
service, in the doing of such primitive husbandry as there obtains by
the prospective son-in-law for the parent of the girl chosen instead of
paying for her a consideration in money or cattle as is done by most of
the Natives in South Africa. It is a practice similar to the custom
which may be supposed to have been general in Palestine when Jacob
served for Rachel in the days of the Hebrew patriarchs. Sometime ago I
discussed the nature and present incidence of this custom with a chief
named Sileya of those parts, a wholly untutored Native. A point brought
up for settlement was the validity, under the present _regime_, of the
claim for compensation that under their law might be brought by a
rejected "garidzela" lover for the value of the work done by him during
his period of service when, at the end of such service, he found the
girl unwilling to marry him. I had explained to the chief that the white
man's government would always set its face against any custom whereby it
might be possible for the parents to pledge their daughters in marriage,
and had pointed out that this particular custom was for that reason not
viewed with favour by the authorities. To this Sileya replied: "If you,
the Government, will make it plain that the man who finds himself
refused by the girl for whom he has been serving can claim compensation
for the work he has done then the fathers will become more careful than
they now are and they will refuse to accept the young man's services
save where the girl is old enough to consent for herself, for no man
likes to give up what he has won and held, and in this manner our old
custom will not go against the way of the Governm