THE COMMON SENSE OF KAFFIES. 



mile or so from my camping-ground. We had plenty of 

 conversation, and could afford mutual instruction about 

 many subjects on which we were each respectively igno- 

 rant. I believe that, if we inquire without partiality, we 

 shall find no man so ignorant but that there is some 

 one subject upon which he can instruct us. I rarely 

 found a Kaffir who could not afford me a vast amount of 

 information on many subjects ; and all the cunning and 

 art of an English lawyer would scarcely improve the 

 KaffiYs style of reasoning. I believe that common 

 sense is more admired by the savage than the civilized 

 man ; it certainly is by the savages with whom I have 

 conversed. While in civilization the most sensible and 

 sound arguments or advice are " pooh-poohed" or neg- 

 lected, because they happen to come from one who is 

 unknown in the world for wealth, position, or fashion, 

 amongst savages these same arguments or advices are 

 received at their proper valuation, irrespective of the soil 

 from whence they spring. The words of a chief or induna* 

 are generally worth hearing, and consequently receive 

 their proper respect ; but if the logic used by either 

 happens to be unsound, any common man whose capacity 

 is equal to the competition may enter the lists, and come 

 out victorious ; a Kaffir is not too bigoted to acknow- 

 ledge that he may have been wrong. The man who thus 

 gained a victory by his more sensible argument would 

 neither be much elevated nor proud in consequence, but 

 would merely consider himself as a man who had pointed 

 out a by-path that had been overlooked by the tra- 



* Councillor. 



