A Breath from the Veldt 



155 



come in any case ; for ever since the entrance of the British South Africa 

 Company, the Matabele had been as a thorn in their side that must be got rid 

 of before any advance could be made in Mashonaland and the countries to the 

 north. The rights and wrongs of that war have been freely discussed, deprecated 

 by extreme sentimentalists who never had to deal with a black man, and boomed 

 by those whose business it was to try and make a sort of hybrid Golconda and 

 Arcadia of lands which, with the 

 exception of certain tracts, are at 

 present about as useless to the white 

 man as the Desert of Sahara. On 

 the whole, however, it was only one 

 step more towards the civilisation of 

 Africa, and the putting an end for 

 ever to the last remaining savage 

 Power in South Africa, whose doings 

 have long been a byword for whole- 

 sale bloodshed and murder. 



Of the six most characteristic 

 types of the native races of South 

 Africa my readers may perhaps gain 

 some superficial idea from the ac- 

 companying sketches, taken direct 

 from nature. Both physically and 

 mentally the pure Zulu is far ahead 

 of all the other tribes either here or 

 elsewhere, the higher type of the 

 Matabele only excepted. Though 

 still the true savage in barbaric cruelty 

 and love of shedding blood, there is 

 much in his nature that savours of 

 the old days of chivalry. There is also a certain amount of poetry in his 

 composition, enabling him to follow, however imperfectly, the higher flights 

 of the white man's imagination, which the low type of humanity presented 

 by nearly all other African natives can never reach. His good qualities are 

 numerous — such as great bravery, incessant cheerfulness, personal cleanliness, 

 and honesty and faithfulness to a master whom he respects and loves. 



With him may be classed a few Matabele such as I have referred to above 



" UMSHETI " 



