ovingly.

While standing on a commanding point in the stern, a fellow-passenger
directed attention to a group of Kafirs who tried to keep apart from the
others, and looked dignified. These, he told me, were a party of native
princes, chiefs, and councillors, who had been brought fresh from their
wilderness home--with their own consent, of course--and were being taken
to Capetown for the purpose of being impressed with the wealth, power,
grandeur, and vast resources of the white man. The other Kafirs, of
whom there was a large gang, were common fellows, who chanced to be
going by the same steamer as navvies to work on the Western railways.
The difference between the navvies and their nobility was not great.
Personally there was scarcely any, and the somewhat superior cloth of
the robes worn by the latter made no great show.

The big boat was hauled off by a rope through the surf, the sail set,
and we were soon alongside the ocean steamer whose iron sides rose above
us like a city wall. There was nothing but an iron ladder, flat against
this wall, by which to ascend. The heaving of the surf-boat was great.
It approached the ladder and retreated from it in the most irregularly
spasmodic manner. Only active men, accustomed to such feats, could get
upon it. Kafirs, although active as kittens, are not accustomed to the
sea, or to the motion of ships and boats. For them to ascend was a
matter of great difficulty; for the women and children it was
impossible.

But the difficulty had been provided for. Presently we saw a great cask
like an overgrown hogs-head swing over the side and descend into the
boat. It was caught by our sailors and placed on the stern-sheets.
Several tars from the steamer descended to assist. The cask was large
enough to hold three or four women besides a child or two. Amid much
giggling and persuading it was filled, a signal given, steam applied,
and the party was whirled aloft with a scream, and lowered on the
vessel's deck in safety.

The cask was again sent down. Meanwhile some of us had scrambled up the
ladder, and a few of the Kafir navvies followed our example, but the
most of them required a good deal of encouragement, and some strong
persuasion, while others refused flatly to attempt it. All this time
the black aristocrats looked on in grave silence. If I remember rightly
there were a young prince, an old councillor, and two or three chiefs.

When those navvies that could be per