A Thousand Miles in a Machilk 



male sex in the old days were war, hunting, and the 

 herding of cattle. His excitements, the visits of 

 slave raiders, executions, tortures, and an occasional 

 epidemic. The rest of his days he spent placidly 

 sunning himself outside his kraal; his womenkind 

 doing such little agricultural labour as was necessary 

 to supply his food, so that actual work was to him 

 unknown. The white man's advent altered all this, 

 put an end to the inter-tribal wars, and assured the 

 natives of reasonable security for their persons and 

 property. In return for these benefits the Govern- 

 ment insisted, and rightly, on the annual payment 

 of a hut-tax. Every adult native has to pay a few 

 shillings annually for the hut in which he lives ; and 

 though in some cases the tax is paid in kind, it 

 is more generally paid in cash, and this cash, unless 

 he is a cattle owner or agriculturist, he has to earn 

 by some form of labour. 



The payment of this hut-tax is therefore the 

 African natives primary incentive to labour, and 

 so soon as it is paid he is at liberty to return to his 

 village and spend the rest of the year in peaceful 

 contemplation as heretofore. He has, however, 

 other inducements, such, for instance, as the pur- 

 chase of a wife from her parents or of cattle in 

 cattle countries. 



In the black man's land there is no equivalent 

 to the system of courtship which precedes marriage 

 in most white communities; the matter is merely 

 one of sale and purchase. The would-be husband 

 goes to the father of the girl, the father names his 

 price, and the young man has to produce the cash 



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