men and women
are very fond. A mantle of skin, variously bedecked with these and other
showy trinkets, is worn; and the only distinction between the dress of
the chieftains' wives and those of a lower rank consists in a greater
profusion of ornaments possessed by the former, but of which all are
alike vain. There is no change of dress, the whole wardrobe of the
female being that which she carries about with her and sleeps in, for
bed-clothes they have none.

The grain which they chiefly cultivate is a kind of millet: a small
quantity of Indian corn and some pumpkins are likewise grown; but a
species of sugar-cane is produced in great abundance, and of this they
are extremely fond. Their diet, however, is chiefly milk in a sour
curdled state. They dislike swine's flesh, keep no poultry, are averse
to fish, but indulge in eating the flesh of their cattle, which they do
in a very disgusting way. Although naturally brave and warlike, they
prefer an indolent pastoral life, hunting being an occasional pastime.

Much light was thrown on the condition and future prospects of this
people in 1835, by some papers relative to the Cape of Good Hope, which
were laid before the English Government. From these it appeared that a
system of oppression and unjustifiable appropriation on the part of the
whites, have from time to time roused the savage energies of the
Kaffirs, and impelled them to make severe reprisals upon their European
spoilers. The longing of the Cape colonists for the well-watered valleys
of the Kaffirs, and of the latter for the colonial cattle, which are
much superior to their own, still are, as they have always been, the
sources of irritation. Constant skirmishes took place, until, at length,
in 1834, the savages poured into the colony in vast numbers, wasted the
farms, drove off the cattle, and murdered not a few of the inhabitants.
An army of 4000 men was marched against the invaders, who were driven
far beyond the boundary-line which formerly separated Kaffirland from
Cape Colony, and not only forced to confine themselves within the new
limits prescribed, but to pay a heavy fine. Treaties have been entered
into, and tracts of country assigned to the Kaffir chiefs of several
families, who acknowledge themselves to be subjects of Great Britain,
and who are to pay a fat ox annually as a quit-rent for the lands which
they occupy.

Macomo, one of the Kaffir Chiefs, is a man of most remarkable character
and talent,