the sympathies of the audience once more.  Tevula saw this at a glance, and hastened to improve his position by narrating an anecdote.  No words of mine could reproduce the dramatic talent that man displayed in his narration.  I did not understand a syllable of his language, and yet I could gather from his gestures, his intonation, and above all from the expression of his hearers’ faces, the sort of story he was telling them.  After he had finished, Mr. S——­ turned to me and briefly translated the episode with which Tevula had sought to rivet the attention and sympathy of the court.  Tevula’s tale, much condensed, was this:  Years ago, when his attention had first been directed to the matter, he went with the defendant out on the veldt to look at the herd.  No sooner did the cattle see them approaching than a beautiful little dun-colored heifer, the exact counterpart of her grandmother (Mamusa’s cow), left the others and ran up to him, Tevula, lowing and rubbing her head against his shoulder, and following him all about like a dog.  In vain did her reputed owner try to drive her away:  she persisted in following Tevula all the way back to his kraal, right up to the entrance of his hut.  “I was her master, and the inkomokazi knew it,” cried Tevula triumphantly, looking round at the defendant with a knowing nod, as much as to say, “Beat that, if you can!” Not knowing what answer to make, the defendant took his snuff-box out of his left ear and solaced himself with three or four huge pinches.  I started the hypothesis that Mamusa might once have had a tendresse for the old gentleman, and might have bestowed these cows upon him as a love-gift; but this idea was scouted, even by the defendant, who said gravely, “Kafir women don’t buy lovers or husbands:  we buy the wife we want.”  A Kafir girl is exceedingly proud of being bought, and the more she costs the prouder she is.  She pities English women, whose bride-grooms expect to receive money instead of paying it, and considers a dowry as a most humiliating arrangement.

I wish I could tell you how Mamusa’s cows have finally been disposed of, but, although it has occupied three days, the case is by no means over yet.  I envy and admire Mr. S——­’s untiring patience and unfailing good-temper, but it is just these qualities which make his Kafir subjects (for they really consider him as their ruler) so certain that their affairs will not be neglected or their interests suffer in his hands.

Whilst I was listening to Tevula’s oratory my eyes and my mind sometimes wandered to the eager and silent audience, and I amused myself by studying their strange head-dresses.  In most instances the men wore their hair in the woven rings to which I have alluded, but there were several young men present who indulged in purely fancy head-dresses.  One stalwart youth had got hold of the round cardboard lid of a collar-box, to which he had affixed two bits of string, and tied it firmly but jauntily on one