ce,
and his truth by lies. Behold him inflaming all his passions with the
maddening drink of the white man, and then follow him through many
degrees of degradation until he falls into crime and ends in a jail.
Such are, in only too many instances, the consequences of this
partial civilisation, and they are not even counterbalanced, except in
individual cases, by the attempt to learn the truths of a creed which
he cannot, does not, pretend to understand. And if this be the result
in the comparatively few individuals who have been brought under these
influences, it may be fair to argue that it will differ only in degree,
not in kind, when the same influences are brought to bear on the same
material in corresponding proportions. Whatever may or may not be the
effects of our partial civilisation when imperfectly and spasmodically
applied to the vast native population of South Africa, one thing must,
in course of time, result from it. The old customs, the old forms, the
old feelings, must each in turn die away. The outer expression of these
will die first, and it will not be long before the very memory of
them will fade out of the barbaric heart. The rifle must replace, and,
indeed, actually has replaced, the assegai and the shield, and portions
of the cast-off uniforms of all the armies of Europe are to be seen
where, until lately, the bronze-like form of the Kafir warrior went
naked as on the day he was born. But so long as native customs and
ceremonies still linger in some of the more distant locations, so long
will they exercise a certain attraction for dwellers amid tamer scenes.
It is therefore from a belief in the magnetism of contrast that the
highly-civilised reader is invited to come to where he can still meet
the barbarian face to face and witness that wild ceremony, half jest,
half grim earnest--a Zulu war dance.

It was the good fortune of the writer of this sketch to find himself,
some years ago, travelling through the up-country districts of Natal,
in the company of certain high officials of the English Government. The
journey dragged slowly enough by waggon, and some monotonous weeks had
passed before we pitched our camp, one drizzling gusty night, on a high
plateau, surrounded by still loftier hills. A wild and dismal place
it looked in the growing dusk of an autumn evening, nor was it more
suggestively cheerful when we rode away from it next morning in the
sunshine, leaving the waggons to follow slowly. Our