IN THE ZULU COUNTRY. 261 
Kaffirs they af€ mean, overreaching, and avaricious, yet they are honest 
and temperate; the females do all the work of the kraal, except at- 
tendance on the cattle; the young ones are many of them handsome, 
but in age they become wrinkled and abominably ugly. In person 
they are clean and fond of ornaments, but in many habits they are ex- 
cessively dirty. They make extremely neat baskets, and earthen pots to 
cook in; but the latter are clumsy things. Their own Assagais and 
ornaments for the person, such as collars of beads, snuff-boxes, etc., 
are also the work of their own hands; nor must I omit a three-legged 
stool for a pillow (eut out of solid wood), and the snuff-spoon, 
generally of bone; it has three long teeth like a fork, to serve as a 
handle, and to fasten it in their woolly hair; the opposite extremity 
is furnished with a small bowl like that of a salt-spoon, and with it 
they shovel up snuff by the handful, and perform all other necessary 
operations about the olfactory organ. 
The district lying between the Umsatense and the Umgoa on the 
coast is very thickly populated; large quantities of Indian corn, sweet 
potatoes, tobacco, and Kaffir corn (a kind of millet) are grown for their 
own consumption. The Indian corn is broken in a kind of rough mor- 
tar, boiled and eaten with curdled sour milk. This is the staple food 
of the natives; to a European it is at first intolerable, but on ac- 
quaintance it becomes palatable, and indeed grateful in the overpower- 
ing heat felt in the middle of the day. Of the Kaffir corn they make a 
black bread, by grinding it between two stones and baking it on the 
ashes without leaven; and from the same corn brew a sharp, sour, and 
intoxicating beverage called **jualo;" this corn, by distillation, yields a 
spirit very like the common brandy of the Cape. A sweet Rush is also 
found on the banks of the streams, and eaten raw or boiled to sweeten 
their meals; and a small Labiate plant is cultivated to use as tobacco 
—this is probably a Plectranthus. — 
The trees here assume a majestic stature, an 
apparent. The Mimosa and Stinkwood are still prevalent ; the Fan-palms 
are more frequent than before, and often attain a height of fifty or sixty 
feet, bearing fruit in abundance; two or three species of Ficus occur at 
intervals, and are usually very grotesque in appearance ; Strelitzias are 
searce. But herbaceous plants are in great variety, and several new 
forms exist. I may mention the following genera as most prevalent : 
Commelina, Justicia, Sparazis (several new ones), Tritonia (three species) 
d many new forms are 
