NATIVE FEMALES. 45 



your land." Whether this plea obtained belief or 

 not among the majority of the Caffers, Mr. Shaw 

 could not decide ; but this he knew, that Pato had 

 never made the Igiaka any more presents for rain. 



It is universally admitted that in all heathen and 

 uncivilized countries the condition of the female sex 

 is wretchedly debased ; but in none can it be sunk 

 to a more pitiable state of social degradation than in 

 this land of superstition. In nothing is it more fully 

 manifest that Paganism reverses the very order of 

 nature, and the natural order of society, than in 

 the fact, that in all heathen countries the weaker 

 vessel is uniformly made to bear the heaviest bur- 

 dens, and that woman is regarded and treated as 

 an inferior being, more nearly allied to the brute 

 than to the human species. In conversation the 

 Caffer commonly classes his umfaz (or wife) and 

 ingegu (or pack-horse) together ; and circumstances 

 of daily occurrence lamentably prove that he looks 

 upon the former as scarcely more valuable than the 

 latter. Indeed, in his conduct towards his cattle he 

 generally displays much more feeling than towards 

 the partner of his bosom. Whilst he idly lounges 

 about, reposing in the shade, basking in the sun, or 

 going from hamlet to hamlet in quest of news, she 

 must be busily employed, not indeed like the women 

 of ancient Greece, or the wives of the Bedouins, in 

 weaving and grinding at the mill, but in a manner 

 far more laborious. Building, digging, sowing, 



