never see a Kafir without something of the sort in his hand:  if he is not twirling a light stick, then he has a sort of rude reed pipe from which he extracts sharp and tuneless sounds.  As a race, the Kafirs make the effect of possessing a fine physique:  they walk with an erect bearing and a light step, but in true leisurely savage fashion.  I have seen the black race in four different quarters of the globe, and I never saw one single individual move quickly of his own free will.  We must bear in mind, however, that it is a new and altogether revolutionary idea to a Kafir that he should do any work at all.  Work is for women—­war or idleness for men; consequently, their fixed idea is to do as little as they can; and no Kafir will work after he has earned money enough to buy a sufficient number of wives who will work for him.  “Charlie,” our groom—­who is, by the way, a very fine gentleman and speaks “Ingeliss” after a strange fashion of his own—­only condescends to work until he can purchase a wife.  Unfortunately, the damsel whom he prefers is a costly article, and her parents demand a cow, a kettle and a native hut as the price of her hand—­or hands, rather—­so Charlie grunts and groans through about as much daily work as an English boy of twelve years old could manage easily.  He is a very amusing character, being exceedingly proud, and will only obey his own master, whom he calls his great inkosi or chief.  He is always lamenting the advent of the inkosi-casa, or chieftainess, and the piccaninnies and their following, especially the “vaiter,” whom he detests.  In his way, Charlie is a wag, and it is as good as a play to see his pretence of stupidity when the “vaiter” or French butler desires him to go and eat “sa paniche.”  Charlie understands perfectly that he is told to go and get his breakfast of mealy porridge, but he won’t admit that it is to be called “paniche,” preferring his own word “scoff;” so he shakes his head violently and says, “Nay, nay, paniche.”  Then, with many nods, “Scoff, ja;” and so in this strange gibberish of three languages he and the Frenchman carry on quite a pretty quarrel.  Charlie also “mocks himself” of the other servants, I am informed, and asserts that he is the “indema” or headman.  He freely boxes the ears of Jack, the Zulu refugee—­poor Jack, who fled from his own country, next door, the other day, and arrived here clad in only a short flap made of three bucks’ tails.  That is only a month ago, and “Jack” is already quite a petit maitre about his clothes.  He ordinarily wears a suit of knickerbockers and a shirt of blue check bound with red, and a string of beads round his neck, but he cries like a baby if he tears his clothes, or still worse if the color of the red braid washes out.  At first he hated civilized garments, even when they were only two in number, and begged to be allowed to assume a sack with holes for the arms, which is the Kafir compromise when near a town between clothes and flaps made of the tails of wild beasts or strips of hide.  But he soon came to delight in them, and is now always begging for “something to wear.”