ime the paint had been
washed off, and the blankets laid aside. They were quite naked, fresh
from the lands of their nativity, and apparently fit for anything.

Shade of Othello!--to say nothing of Apollo--what magnificent forms the
fellows had, and what indescribably hideous faces! They were tall,
muscular, broad-shouldered, small waisted and ankled, round-muscled,
black-polished--in a word, elegantly powerful. Many of them might have
stood as models for Hercules. Like superfine cloth, they were of
various shades; some were brown-black, some almost blue-black, and many
coal-black.

They were coming down to unload the surf-boat, and seemed full of fun,
and sly childlike humour, as they walked, tripped, skipped and sidled
into the water. At first I was greatly puzzled to account for the fact
that all their heads and throats were wrapped up, or swathed, in dirty
cloth. It seemed as if every man of them was under treatment for a bad
cold. This I soon found was meant to serve as a protection to their
naked skins from the sharp and rugged edges and corners of the casks and
cases they had to carry.

The labour is rather severe, but is well paid, so that hundreds of
Kafirs annually come down from their homes in the wilderness to work for
a short time. They do not, I believe, make a profession of it. Fresh
relays come every year. Each young fellow's object is to make enough
money to purchase a gun and cattle, and a wife--or wives. As these
articles cost little in Africa, a comparatively short attention to
business, during one season, enables a man who left home a beggar to
return with his fortune made! He marries, sets his wives to hoe the
mealies and milk the cows, and thereafter takes life easy, except when
he takes a fancy to hunt elephants, or to go to war for pastime. Ever
after he is a drone in the world's beehive. Having no necessity he need
not work, and possessing no principle he will not.

As the boat came surging in on the foam, these manly children waded out
to meet her, throwing water at each other, and skylarking as they went.
They treated the whole business in fact as a rather good jest, and
although they toiled like heroes, they accompanied their work with such
jovial looks, and hummed such lilting, free-and-easy airs the while,
that it was difficult to associate their doings with anything like
_labour_.

Soon the boat grounded, and the Kafirs crowded round her, up to their
waists sometimes i