Chap. XXIX. HIS APTITUDE FOE SERVICE. ' 597 



the European, and, as a race, is wonderfully persistent among 

 the nations of the earth. Neither the diseases nor the ardent 

 spirits which proved so fatal to North American Indians, 

 South Sea Islanders, and Australians, seem capable of anni- 

 hilating the negroes. Even when subjected to that system so 

 destructive to human life, by which they are torn from their 

 native soil, they spring up irrepressibly and darken half the 

 new continent. They are gifted by nature with physical 

 strength capable of withstanding the sorest privations, and a 

 lightheadedness which, as a sort of compensation, enables 

 them to make the best of the worst situations. It is like that 

 power which the human frame possesses of withstanding heat, 

 and to an extent which we should never have known, had not 

 an adventurous surgeon gone into an oven and burnt his 

 fingers with his own watch. The Africans have wonderfully 

 borne up under unnatural conditions, that would have proved 

 fatal to most races. 



It is remarkable that the power of resistance under calamity, 

 or, as some would say, adaptation for a life of servitude, is pecu- 

 liar only to certain tribes on the Continent of Africa. Climate 

 cannot be made to account for the fact that many would pine 

 in a state of slavery, or voluntarily perish. No Krooman can 

 be converted into a slave, and yet he is an inhabitant of the 

 low, unhealthy West Coast. Nor can any of the Zulu or 

 Kaffir tribes be reduced to bondage, though all these live 

 on comparatively elevated regions. We have, heard it 

 stated by men familiar with some of the Kaffirs, that a blow, 

 given even in play by a European, must be returned. A love 

 of liberty is observable in all who have the Zulu blood, as the 

 Makololo, the Watuta, and probably the Masai. But blood 

 does not explain the fact. t A beautiful Barotse woman at 

 Naliele, on refusing to marry a man whom she did not 

 like, was in a pet given by the headman to some Mambari 

 slave-traders from Benguela. Seeing her fate, she seized one 

 of their spears, and, stabbing herself, fell down dead. 



