the north, and the
Tongas of the east coast, who remain complete savages. There are
probably six millions of Kafirs living under their chiefs south of the
Zambesi, many of them entirely unaffected by Europeans, with not even a
white magistrate or a native commissioner to collect hut-tax; and
besides these there are the Korannas (akin to the Bushmen) and Namaquas
(akin to the Hottentots) of the desert country between Bechuanaland and
the Atlantic. In many of the districts where a regular British or Boer
Government has been established, the tribal natives are now settled in
regular locations, where the land is reserved from the intrusion of
Europeans. Here they live under their chiefs in the old way (see Chapter
X), and in the remoter districts continue to practise their old
ceremonies. In Cape Colony and Natal, however, in both of which Colonies
there are hundreds of thousands of tribal Kafirs, the more offensive of
these ceremonies are now forbidden by the Government. Nowhere is
anything done for their education, except by the missionaries, who,
however, receive some little assistance from the two Colonial
Governments. The ancient rites and beliefs gradually decay wherever the
whites come, and, except beyond the Zambesi, intertribal wars and raids
have now practically ceased. Yet the tribal hatreds survive. Not long
ago the Zulus and the Kosa Kafirs employed as platelayers on the Cape
Government Railway fought fiercely with each other. One powerful
influence is telling upon them, even where they live uncontrolled by any
white government. The diamond-mines at Kimberley, the gold-mines in the
Witwatersrand and in various parts of Mashonaland and Matabililand,
offer large wages for native labour, and cannot (except at Kimberley)
obtain as much native labour as they need. Accordingly a steady though
still insufficient stream of Kafirs sets towards these mining centres,
not only from Basutoland, Natal, and Bechuanaland, but also from the
Portuguese territories, where the Shangans live, and from the banks of
the Zambesi. Most of the workmen remain for a few weeks or months only,
and return home when they have earned as much money as will purchase two
oxen, heretofore the usual price of a wife. They are paid in English
coin, and thus the English twenty-shilling gold piece has become known,
and to-day passes current in villages where no white man has yet been
seen, even beyond the Zambesi, on the shores of Lake Bangweolo. With t