interfere much with affairs outside his own particular clan, and was
a more important figure in war-time than during peace. Aided by a
council of his leading men, each chief administered justice and settled
disputes; and it was his function to allot land to those who asked for a
field to till, the land itself belonging to the tribe as a whole. The
chiefs act gave a title to the piece allotted so long as it was
cultivated, for public opinion resented any arbitrary eviction; but
pasture-land was open to all the cattle of the clansmen. It was in
cattle that the wealth of a chief or a rich man lay, and cattle, being
the common measure of value, served as currency, as they serve still
among the more remote tribes which have not learned to use British coin.
Polygamy was practised by all who could afford it, the wife being
purchased from her father with cattle, more or fewer according to her
rank. This practice, called _lobola_, still prevails universally, and
has caused much perplexity to the missionaries. Its evil effects are
obvious, but it is closely intertwined with the whole system of native
society. A chief had usually a head wife, belonging to some important
house, and her sons were preferred in succession to those of the
inferior wives. In some tribes the chief, like a Turkish sultan, had no
regular wife, but only concubines. Among the coast tribes no one, except
a chief, was suffered to marry any one of kin to him. There was great
pride of birth among the head chiefs, and their genealogies have in not
a few cases been carefully kept for seven or eight generations.

Slavery existed among some of the tribes of the interior, and the
ordinary wife was everywhere little better than a slave, being required
to do nearly all the tillage and most of the other work, except that
about the cattle, which, being more honourable, was performed by men.
The male Kafir is a lazy fellow who likes talking and sleeping better
than continuous physical exertion, and the difficulty of inducing him to
work is the chief difficulty which European mine-owners in South Africa
complain of. Like most men in his state of civilization, he is fond of
hunting, even in its lowest forms, and of fighting. Both of these
pleasures are being withdrawn from him, the former by the extinction of
the game, the latter by the British Government; but it will be long
before he acquires the habits of steady and patient industry which have
become part of the characte