Wild Kaffir Life and Wild Kaffir Intelligence. 297 



present hour, the young men are nearly all turbulent, quarrel- 

 some, boastful, and aggressive ; the old men are nearly all 

 quiet, peaceful, and full of admiration and friendship for their 

 Dutch and English neighbours. There is a very simple and 

 obvious reason for this difference. The young men are all of 

 the raw material of barbarism ; the old men are all educated ! 

 The education of the Kaffir race is talk. The remark of Sir 

 S. W. Baker and others, that the negroes acquire their full 

 intellectual development at a very early period, and are incapable 

 of subsequent advance, certainly is not true in regard to the 

 Natal Kaffirs.* The wild Kaffir leads a life of indolence, and 

 puts the amount of drudgery that is requisite to provide for 

 the absolute essentials of this indolent life upon his women. 

 But he also leads a life of gossip ; he talks incessantly, and 

 much of his talk concerns the doings of his relatives and 

 neighbours, and the general relations of his social state. "When 

 he walks forth over the sunny hills to pay his visit to some neigh- 

 bouring or distant kraal, he carries with him matters that have 

 to be made there the theme of patient discussion and grave 

 deliberation. It is not possible for men to gossip through 

 long years without doing some thinking as well, and, where- 

 ever there is thinking, there is also intellect and progress. 

 But, in the case of the wild Kaffir, the progress is individual, 

 and not collective. Each man has to go through the same 

 process for himself, and the result dies when the man dies. 

 Tradition may carry on some very small shadow of the sum 

 total and gain to the next generation, but the main bulk of 

 the personal advancement and experience must disappear. 

 And can it be said that it would not be the same, even in 

 England, if there were no permanent and recorded accumula- 

 tion to be transferred on from generation to generation? if 

 there were no books and no formal teaching ? Men may say 

 that the negro races cannot be raised much, or at all, above 

 their present stand points, and they may be right ; but, at any 

 rate, an appeal necessarily lies from such judgments to events 

 and time ; and, not until it has been seen what the modifications 

 are, that a formal, a designed, and a well considered training 

 and education can introduce, can the question of Kaffir civiliza- 

 tion be held to have received a practical settlement. It yet 

 remains to state, indeed, that something has already been 

 actually achieved in Natal, which does give promise of a higher 

 capability in the native race than the theory of unprogressive 

 stagnation and ready retrogression would allow. This is 

 reserved for another opportunity. 



* There is no satisfactory ground for believing it true of the negro. The 

 balance of evidence is on the other side. — Ed. 



