The Kaffir races are a tall, well-made, and generally handsome people, of a dark brown or bronze color, and hair in short woolly tufts. As we proceed to the n. they gradually beeotte more assimilated to the negro type, until at last the two races seem to blend together. They are brave, and in times of peace kind and hospitable to strangers. affectionate husbands and fathers; and their minds have a peculiarly acute and logical turn, Nvhich in many of our "palavers" with them often gave them the best of the argu ment. They are an honest people, except, perhaps, in the article of cattle. Although their idea of God appears very indistinct, and their feelings of veneration but small, yet they are very superstitious, and dread the influence of wizards and sorcerers. Their huts, which are built by the women, are of a bee-hive shape, composed of Wattles stretched with grass, and a collection of them is called a "kraal," a word•of Portuguese origin signifying an inclosure. The general rule of the chiefs is patriarchal, they being assisted, however, by a number of "pakati," or councilors, whose advice is generally followed by the chief, Polygamy is allowed, and wives are- generally purchased for cattle. The chief has absolute power over the property of his whole tribe, although he seldom exercises it, If any individual accumulates great wealth, an accusation of witchcraft is sure to make him disgorge it. They practice, in common with all other African nations, circumcision and many peculiar rites of purification, many of them analogous to those prescribed in the Mosaic law; hut thes'e rites appear, both in Africa and Asia, to have been generally practiced at an earlier period even than the Jews adopted them. The Kaffir criminal. code is very simple: a tine, great or small, of cattle pays for almost any offense, and the lex taliunts is strictly forbidden even in case of murder. Many of their ceremonies and dances are of a very gross and obscene nature. although the Kaffir women, especially after marriage, are very chaste and modest in their deportment, and present in this respect a striking contrast to the Hottentot race. The Kaflirs are strictly a pastoral people, and the men tend their herds exclusively, even to milking them, leaving to the women the labor of cultivating their gardens, building their huts, gathering fuel, etc. They generally wear a blanket; the former
robe of softened oxhide is now very seldom seen. In time of war the Kaffir appears in the field naked and painted with a fiery-red clay. The native arms are assagais and clubs, but the use of fire-arms is now prevalent amongst all the south African tribes; and in the late war the Kaffir warriors, in skirmishing, excited the admiration of the light companies of some of our most distinguished regiments. The Kaffir language is con. sidered as a dialect of the Sichuana, which is the original stock of the different tribes of the Kaffir race. It is fine, sonorous, and expressive, with a most ingenious and coin. plicated system of grammar. On the Cape frontier many Hottentot and Dutch words have been introduced; and in the Zulu dialect the Wesleyan missionaries and bishop Colenso of Natal have published many excellent works tending to elucidate the philology of south-African languages.
The Amafengu, or Fingoes, are the remains of various Zulu tribes, refugees from the wars of Chaka, reduced to slavery by the Amaxosa Katfirs, and rescued by sir B. Durban in 1835, and settled by him along the e. frontier of the Cape Colony. They are a saving, careful people, and many of them are converted to Christianity. They have always been our firm allies against their hereditary enemies, the Kaffirs, although of the same race and language. The Fingoes are often, from their mohey-making propensities, called the Jews of the Kaffir race. The Amampondo. Amabaxa, and other tribes living near the Natal frontier, have never been at war with us, although often quarreling amongst themselves; they are gradually declining in numbers, and are not near so fine a race as the frontier Kaflirs.
The number of the Kaffir races has been estimated at three millions, scattered over an area of about a million sq. miles. Of these there may be about 300,000 in Kaffraria proper, 150,000 in British Kaffraria and Cape Colony, and 200,000 in Natal.