admitted that when a people have to be governed by such laws mistakes are to be expected,—and that the best possible intentions, I may almost say the best possible practice, may be made matter of most indignant reproach from outraged philanthropists.

The white man who has to rule natives soon teaches himself that he can do no good if he is overscrupulous. They must be taught to think him powerful or they will not obey him in anything. He soon feels that his own authority, and with his authority the security of all those around him, is a matter of "prestige." Prestige in a highly civilized community may be created by virtue,— and is often created by virtue and rank combined. The Archbishop of Canterbury is a very great man to an ordinary clergyman. But, with the native races of South Africa, prestige has to be created by power though it may no doubt be supported and confirmed by justice. Thus the white ruler of the black man knows that he must sometimes be rough. There must be a sharp word, possibly a blow. There must be a clear indication that his will, whatsoever it may be, has to be done,—that the doing of his will has to be the great result let the opposition to it be what it may. He cannot strain at a gnat in the shape of a little legal point. If he did so the Zulus would cease to respect him, and would never imagine that their ruler had been turned from his way by a pang of conscience. The Savage, till he has quite ceased to be savage, expects to be coerced, and will no more go straight along the road without coercion, than will the horse if you ride him without reins. And with a horse a whip and spurs are necessary,-till he has become altogether tamed.

The white ruler of the black man feels all this, and knows that without some spur or whip he cannot do his work at all. His is a service, probably, of much danger,

and he has to work with a frown on his brow in order that his life may be fairly safe in his hand. In this way he is driven to the daily practice of little deeds of tyranny which abstract justice would condemn. Then, on occasion, arises some petty mutiny, some petty mutiny almost justified by injustice but which must be put down with a strong hand or the white man's position will become untenable. In nineteen cases the strong hand is successful and the matter goes by without any feeling of wrong on either side. The white man expects to be obeyed, and the black man expects to be coerced, and the general work goes on prosperously in spite of a small flaw. Then comes the twentieth case in which the one little speck of original injustice is aggravated till a great flame is burning. The outraged philanthropist has seen the oppression of his black brother, and evokes Downing Street, Exeter Hall, Printing House Square, and all the Gospels. The savage races from the East to the West of the Continent, from the mouth of the Zambesi to the Gold Coast, all receive something of assured protection from the effort;but, probably, a great injustice is done to the one white ruler who began it all, and who, perhaps, was but a little ruler doing his best in a small way. I am inclined to think that the philanthropist at home when he rises in his wrath against some white ruler of whose harshness to the blacks he has heard the story forgets that the very civilization which he is anxious to carry among the savage races cannot be promulgated without something of tyranny, some touch of apparent injustice. Nothing will sanctify tyranny or justify injustice, says the philanthropist in his wrath. Let us so decide and so act;-but let us understand the result. In that case we must leave the Zulus and other races to their barbarities and native savagery.

In what I have now said I have not described the

origin of the Langalibalele misfortune, having avoided all direct allusion to any of its incidents, except that of the firing of a pistol twenty years ago. But I have endeavoured to make intelligible the way in which untoward circumstances may too probably rise in the performance of such a work as the gradual civilization of black men without much fault on either side. And my readers may probably understand how, in such a matter as that of Langalibalele, it would be impossible for me as a traveller to unravel all its mysteries, and how unjust I might be were I to attempt to prove that either on this side or on that side wrong had been done. The doers of the wrong, if wrong there was, are still alive; and the avengers of the wrong,-whether a real or a fancied wrong,—are still keen. In what I say about Langalibalele I will avoid the name of any white man,-and as far as possible I will impute no blame. That the intentions on both sides have been good and altogether friendly to the black man I have no doubt whatsoever.

Langalibalele was sent for and did not come.

That

was the beginning of the whole. Now it is undoubted good Kafir law in Natal, very well established though unwritten,—that any Kafir or Zulu is to come when sent for by a white man in authority. The white man who holds chief authority in such matters is the Minister for Native Affairs, who is one of the Executive Council under the Governor, and probably the man of greatest weight in the whole Colony. He speaks the Zulu language, which the Governor probably has not time to learn during his period of governorship. He is a permanent officer, as the Ministry does not go in and out in Natal. And he is in a great measure irresponsible because the other white men in office do not understand as he does that mixture of law and custom by which he rules the

subject race, and there is therefore no one to judge him or control him. In Natal the Minister for Native Affairs is much more of a Governor than his Excellency himself, for he has over three hundred thousand natives altogether under his hand, while his Excellency has under him twenty thousand white men who are by no means tacitly obedient. Such is the authority of the Minister for Native Affairs in Natal, and among other undoubted powers and privileges is that of sending for any Chief among the Zulu races inhabiting the Colony, and communicating his orders personally. Naturally, probably necessarily, this power is frequently delegated to others as the Minister cannot himself see every little Chief to whom instructions are to be given. As the Secretary of State at home has Under Secretaries, so has the Minister for Native Affairs under Ministers. In 1873 Langalibalele was sent for but Langalibalele would not come.

He had in years long previous been a mutinous Chief in Zulu-land,-where he was known as a "rain-maker," and much valued for his efficacy in that profession;—but he had quarrelled with Panda who was then King of Zulu-land and had run away from Panda into Natal. There he had since lived as the Chief of the Hlubi tribe, a clan numbering about 10,000 people, a proportion of whom had come with him across the borders from Zululand. For it appears that these tribes dissolve themselves and reunite with other tribes, a tribe frequently not lasting as a tribe under one great name for many years. Even the great tribe of the Zulu was not powerful till the time of their Chief Chaka, who was uncle of the present King or Chief Cetywayo. Thus Langalibalele who had been rain-maker to King Panda, Cetywayo's father, became head of the Hlubi tribe in Natal, and lived under the mixture of British law of which I have

spoken. But he became mutinous and would not come when he was sent for.

When a Savage,-the only word I know by which to speak of such a man as a Zulu Chief so that my reader shall understand me; but in using it of Langalibalele I do not wish to ascribe to him any specially savage qualities; when a Savage has become subject to British rule and will not obey the authority which he understands, it is necessary to reduce him to obedience at almost any cost. There are three hundred and twenty thousand Natives in Natal, with hundreds of thousands over the borders on each side of the little Colony, and it is essential that all these should believe Great Britain to be indomitable. If Langalibalele had been allowed to be successful in his controversy every Native in and around Natal would have known it;—and in knowing it every Native would have believed that Great Britain had been so far conquered. It was therefore quite essential 'that Langalibalele should be made to come. And he did more than refuse to obey the order. A messenger who was sent for him, a native messenger,—was insulted by him. The man's clothes were stripped from him,—or at any rate the official great coat with which he had been invested and which probably formed the substantial -part of his raiment. It has been the peculiarity of this case that whole books have been written about its smallest incidents. The Langalibalele literature hitherto written, -which is not I fear as yet completed,-would form a small library. This stripping of the great coat, or jazy* as it is called, the word ijazi having been established as good Zulu for such an article,—has become a cele

* I have seen it asserted that this word comes from "jersey"-a flannel under shirt; but I seem to remember the very sound as signifiying an old great coat in Ireland, and think that it was so used long before the word "jersey" was 'introduced into our language.