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On went the train, and the monotonous melody of the rolling wheels gradually lulled the weary thoughts to sleep. Captain Lange thought of Elandslaagte again and of Colonel Schiel and Dinizulu, the Kafir chief, and of the story the colonel had told, as they bivouacked round the fire, of the latter's royal anointment with castor-oil.
In an instant the room was filled with smoke. Hans Coetzee clapped his hand to his head, uttering yells of pain and terror, and in the confusion that ensued three or four men, headed by the Kafir Hendrik, rushed into the room and sprang upon Silas Croft, who had retreated to the wall and was standing with his back against it, his rifle, which he had clubbed in both his hands, raised above his head.
One family with which I dined gave me to understand that this was the result of their own experience. At that very time they had a Kafir girl in training as a housemaid. Servants, let me remark in passing, are a Cape difficulty. The demand is in excess of the supply, and the supply is not altogether what it should be, besides being dear and uncomfortably independent.
The case was this: A young man, a Kafir, of considerable affluence, who had recently married a young and handsome wife, applied to a very devout Bushreen, or Mussulman priest of his acquaintance, to procure him saphies for his protection during the approaching war.
The gods are tribal gods, warfare is tribal warfare, hunting, sowing, harvesting, are carried on by the community as a whole. The sense of solidarity of the family in Europe is thin and feeble compared to the full-blooded sense of corporate union of the Kafir clan. The claims of the clan entirely swamp the rights of the individual."
At one of the open spaces they caught a glimpse of a mounted Kafir making towards a part of the pass in advance of them. Hans pulled up at once, and looked eagerly, anxiously round, while he pressed the light form of Gertie tighter to his breast. "We must fight here, Charlie," he said, as he made for a little mound which was crowned with a few bushes.
Accordingly, while the Hottentot Jantje, and 'Nkuku, the Kafir voorlouper, remained in charge of the wagon and oxen, Ramoo Samee, the groom, accompanied his masters to the native village, to look after the horses and attend to the cooking while his employers shot hippopotami and crocodiles from the two canoes which they chartered; Mafuta, meanwhile, taking four days' rations, and going off upon a prospecting expedition in search of elephant and buffalo.
Meyer, a grand-looking man, formerly possessed much influence, being at one time President of the New Republic, a State founded by himself in a tract of country granted him and his followers by a Kafir chief for assistance rendered during an intertribal war.
At first, Silas Croft would not believe it. "No general could have been so mad," he said; but soon the report was amply confirmed from native sources. Another week passed, and with it came the news of the British defeat at Ingogo. The first they heard of it was on the morning of February 8, when Jantje brought a Kafir up to the verandah at breakfast-time.
Over the low bush about him he could see his hills yet a couple of hours off, and he sighed for thirst and extreme discomfort. No one, he knew, lived thereabouts no one, at least, who was likely to have whisky at hand, though, for the matter of that, he would have welcomed a hut and a draught of Kafir itywala.
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