4 EEV. ALFRED T. BRYANT. 



hand, and in the other he carries his long walking-staff or a 

 couple of stout sticks. 



Thus, silently followed by his menial, bearing on his head 

 his master's roll of sleeping-mats, blanket, smoke-horn and 

 head-rest, the Zulu medicine-man goes forth to conqu.er death 

 — or to administer it. 



The high dignity and diploma of medicine-man is open to 

 all who may have the wealth and inclination to seek it. 

 Lack of ambition and individual initiative is a chief charac- 

 teristic of the African nature, and accounts for the utter 

 absence of young men launching out on independent projects 

 of their own. But should one perchance be so precocious as 

 to aspire to the medicine-man's estate, he must fii-st of all 

 undergo a long period of initiation. He enters the service 

 of some doctor of repute as his imPak(itha or assistant. His 

 business is to act as the messenger, the herb-gatherer and 

 general help of his master in professional matters, accompany- 

 ing him on all his excursions as medicine-bearer, and picking 

 up by observation and instruction whatever of knowledge 

 and skill he can. In an irregular way this kind of study may 

 continue for years, until at length the tyro feels that he i-s 

 capable of dealing with a good many ailments on his own 

 account, pays his master the required fee of two or three 

 head of cattle, and betakes himself to his own home, where 

 he soon surrounds himself with a comfortable practice. He 

 constantly adds to his store of knowledge by consultation and 

 the mutual exchange of remedies with neighbouring doctors, 

 until, after perhaps twenty years or more, he has picked up 

 all there is worth knowing in the Kafir pharmacopoeia and 

 Kafir pathology. 



But all this is the rare and exceptional course. As a 

 matter of fact, the medical profession is with the Zulus 

 hereditary, one of the medicine-man's sons being compulsorily 

 introduced by him into the trade, as his assistant, during life, 

 and inheriting his legacy of bags and bundles of medicine 

 after his death. 



