ZOUTPANSBERG AND THE MAGWAMBAS. 99 



period not longer than three to five months. By that 

 time they have saved a few pounds, purchased blankets, 

 and other commodities, and commence their long walk 

 to their kraals or location, in the warmer and more 

 beautiful Zoutpansberg district, while some even cross 

 the Limpopo River. The distance they travel is fre- 

 quently over six hundred miles, and three or four 

 hundred miles is a common journey. When on one of 

 these long tramps they "\\ill often average eighteen 

 miles daily, but a frequent rest for a few days at other 

 kraals they may pass reduces the average of their daily 

 pedestrian record. To see them toiling along with 

 their heavy loads on head and back, frequently foot-sore 

 and weary, but encouraged and sustained with the 

 prospect of home once more, showed that these men had 

 reached the elements of civilization. The labour ques- 

 tion to them is not a matter of life-long servitude, and 

 the few months spent working in the towns or delving 

 in the mines is exchanged for an equal or far longer 

 period of rustication among their own people. Some 

 die on the road, especially in w r et and cold w r eather, and 

 we saw several who seemed to be thoroughly leg-weary 

 and worn out. The money they have earned enables 

 them to pay their yearly tax, but more particularly to 

 find the purchase or " custom " money for another wife. 

 Polygamy among these Kafirs is not necessarily a sensual 

 institution. To women is deputed the whole manual 

 work, both household and agricultural, and a wife will 

 try and induce her husband to earn the means by which 

 he can obtain another wife and thus lighten her own 

 domestic duties. As is well known, oxen or money 

 must be given to the father-in-law before his daughter 

 can be obtained ; but the heavy outlay thus incurred is 

 an investment, and will be well repaid if the husband 

 becomes the father of female children and so in turn be- 

 comes capitalist himself. In a savage or semi-savage 

 community, women derive protection from such a custom. 

 Female infanticide is unknown, the woman secures a 

 safe and valued position in the tribe, and marriage thus 

 having a financial value, any rampant immorality is 

 discouraged and becomes an offence to the community. 



ii 2 



