ait,
bended knees, bare legs, bodies leaning forward, and keeping step and
time by means of a queer sort of barbaric hum and grunt. Policemen
are no more necessary than my best bonnet: they are only there for the
same reason--for the honor and glory of the thing. The crowd is kept
in order by somebody here and there with a ribboned wand, for it is
the most orderly and respectable crowd you ever saw. In fact, such
a crowd would be an impossibility in England or any highly-civilized
country. There are no dodging vagrants, no slatternly women, no
squalid, starving babies. In fact, our civilization has not yet
mounted to effervescence, so we have no dregs. Every white person on
the ground was well clad, well fed, and apparently well-to-do. The
"lower orders" were represented by a bright fringe of coolies and
Kafirs, sleek, grinning and as fat as ortolans, especially the babies.
Most of the Kafirs were dressed in snow-white knickerbockers and
shirts bordered by gay bands of color, with fillets of scarlet ribbon
tied round their heads, while as for the coolies, they shone out like
a shifting bed of tulips, so bright were the women's _chuddahs_ and
the men's jackets. All looked smiling, healthy and happy, and the
public enthusiasm rose to its height when to the sound of a vigorous
band (it is early yet in the day, remember, O flute and trombone!) a
perfect liliputian mob of toddling children came on the ground. These
little people were all in their cleanest white frocks and prettiest
hats: they clung to each other and to their garlands and staves of
flowers until the tangled mob reminded one of a May-Day fete. Not that
any English May Day of my acquaintance could produce such a lavish
profusion of roses and buds and blossoms of every hue and tint, to
say nothing of such a sun and sky. The children's corner was literally
like a garden, and nothing could be prettier than the effect of their
little voices shrilling up through the summer air, as, obedient to a
lifted wand, they burst into the chorus of the national anthem when
the governor and mayor drove up. Cheers from white throats; gruff,
loud shouts all together of _Bayete!_ (the royal salute) and _Inkosi!_
("chieftain") from black throats; yells, expressive of excitement and
general good-fellowship, from throats of all colors. Then a moment's
solemn pause, a hushed silence, bared heads, and the loud, clear tones
of a very old pastor in the land were heard imploring the blessi