THE PORTUGUESE IN SOUTH AFRICA FROM 1505 TO 1700.

CHAPTER III.

THE DARK-SKINNED PEOPLE TERMED BY EUROPEANS BANTU.

At a period that may or may not be later than the advent of the Hottentots, offshoots of the dark-skinned race now known to Europeans as the Bantu began to make their way into Africa south of the Zambesi. It is quite impossible to affix a date to any of the early migrations, and it is by no. means certain that the most degraded of the dark-skinned people now occupying the Kalahari desert and parts of the territory some distance to the eastward did not come down from the north before the Hottentots reached Table Bay. The large tribes of our time, however, to a certainty migrated to South Africa at a more recent date, when the Hottentots were in possession of at least the south-western and the greater part of the southern coast.

After the first pioneers found their way across the Zambesi and Kunene rivers, bands were constantly coming down until the middle of the eighteenth century of our era, but even now, though they have multiplied at an amazing rate since they have been under the protection of Europeans, the whole number in Africa south of those rivers does not exceed six or seven millions, who represent all the offshoots from the great mass of the race in the central zone of the continent.

The original home or birthplace of this section of the human family is unknown: some inquirers believe it to have been in the continent which its widespread branches now so largely occupy, others that it was in some distant eastern land. The first assert that the Bantu probably had their origin in a mixture of Hamitic and negro blood at no very remote time, — possibly not three thousand years ago, — the last point out, with Dr. Bleek, that their language has close affinity with the Malayan, Papuan, and Polynesian tongues, though in physical characteristics they vary considerably from those people. It has been observed also that many of their implements — the peculiar double bellows, for instance, — are identical with those used by the eastern families referred to, though this may have been accidental. If this theory be correct, the origin of the Bantu must be carried much further back than three thousand years. The question has not jet advanced beyond speculation, for no research connected with the present inhabitants of South Africa has brought us with absolute certainty nearer to the cradle of the various families, or given any clue to the origin of man himself.

The legends of all the tribes of importance now living south of the Zambesi river, none of which can be more than a few centuries old, point to a distant northern occupation, and in some instances particulars are given which prove the traditions to be in that respect correct. For instance, the Barolong antiquaries assert that their ancestors, in the time of a chief whose name and lineage from father to son to the present day are preserved, migrated from a country where there were great lakes and where at one time of the year shadows were cast towards the north. The Bakwena, whose branches at the beginning of the nineteenth century occupied the greater part of the territory between the Limpopo and the Vaal and also tracts of land south of the last-named river, have similar traditions, and arrived there at a date even more recent than the advent of the Barolong.

Those along the south-eastern coast are so closely related to each other in language and customs that they must have formed a community by themselves, or perhaps a single tribe, at no distant time, and as some of them are known to have crossed the Zambesi only a little more than three centuries ago, the others cannot have long preceded them. This section of the Bantu came from some locality near the western coast, so that its route of migration crossed that of the Betshuana like the lines of the letter X.

Whether the Betshuana, as now termed, were the people who drove the Hottentots from their northern home, as Mr. Stow believed, is not quite certain ; but apparently they came from the same locality. The neverending strife in those distant regions caused first one clan and then another to flee ; some made their way southward into the Rhodesia of our day, others in successive bands migrated in a south-westerly direction, crossed the Zambesi in the centre of the continent, and then, with no opponents in front except Bushmen, continued their journey along the eastern border of the Kalahari until they reached the Molopo. They were agriculturists as well as breeders of oxen, sheep, goats, and poultry, and therefore were only able to migrate slowly. So horde after horde came down, pausing perhaps for a couple of generations at stations on the route, and then resuming a southward march.

It is uncertain what tribes first settled in the territory now termed Rhodesia and in the belt of land between it and the Indian sea. The Makalanga found there at the beginning of the sixteenth century were almost certainly recent immigrants, as their dialect did not differ much from that of a horde which came down from the north about the close of the eighteenth century, but they must have been preceded by others, because the Arabs would not have formed trading settlements along the coast at a much earlier date if the country inland had been occupied only by Bushmen. Their predecessors may have been entirely exterminated, or, what is more likely, the young females may have been incorporated with the invading conquerors.

This part of South Africa was therefore in all probability the first occupied by Bantu, and it is even possible that the Bakalahari or the Leghoyas, presently to be mentioned, may have been driven out of it by' the Makalanga. All this is uncertain, and as our present knowledge may one day be vastly increased by the discovery and publication of Arabic records, it would be useless now to speculate further upon the subject.

The first immigrants or pioneers of the Bantu now living in South Africa were the ancestors of the people termed the Bakalahari and the Balala, who, if tradition can be relied upon, were once in possession of large herds of cattle. They formed a number of little bands independent of each other, who came down in succession. These pioneer parties, being small and weak, tried to fraternise with the Bushmen, and were not molested to any serious extent by those savages. Their quarrels were principally with each other. They built villages at distances far apart, and cultivated the ground about them, leaving the earlier inhabitants in undis- turbed possession of the open spaces between. With these they to some extent mixed their blood, and numbers of Masarwa or Betshuana-Bushmen came into existence.

After they had settled somewhere east of the desert, — how long after there are no means of determining, even the language test failing to supply any information, so that it may have been only a few years or it may have been a few centuries, — another horde came down from the north. These were the ancestors of the people known to the first European visitors, from the name of one of their chiefs, as the Leghoyas, of whom the Bataung living in the Lesuto are the present representatives. They were better armed than the pipneer bands, upon whom they had no scruple in falling, with the object of seizing their cattle and garden produce. Many of the little communities were broken up and dispersed, some seeking refuge in the desert, where they have since been known as Bakalahari, others remaining as slaves, who were termed Balala or the paupers. The Leghoyas then settled in the country, built villages, and made gardens, just as the pioneers had done.

Some time now elapsed, which cannot be ascertained in years, but probably did not exceed a century, when another invasion took place. On this occasion the Batlapin led the way, followed closely by the much more powerful Barolong. Shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century the last-named tribe crossed the Molopo and dispersed the Leghoyas, who, however, were able to retreat to the eastward with their cattle, and then the newcomers settled in the country, where some of their descendants are still found. This was the commencement of a feud between the Bataung — a branch of the Leghoyas — and the Barolong, which was carried on without intermission until after the middle of the nineteenth century, and which was one of the leading diffi- culties of the government of the Orange River Sovereignty, when Molitsane on the one side and Moroko on the other could not be brought to observe peace.

These Batlapin and Barolong completed the destruction of the pioneer bands, those who had escaped the attacks of the Leghoyas being now compelled to become Bakalahari or Balala, and to live after the manner of Bushmen, except that they were obliged to give the skins of any wild animals they killed to their masters, which the Bushmen would not do. They were in the most miserable condition to which human beings can be reduced, they could not even own a jackal's skin, and their lives were regarded by their tyrants as of no more value than the lives of dogs. Whether they were originally less intelligent than other Betshuana, or whether they became stupid and spiritless from oppression and degradation, is uncertain ; but when Europeans first visited these wretched people they were found to be the most abject of all the dwellers in South Africa.

There was now no attempt to conciliate the Bushmen, for the newcomers were too strong to fear their hostility. Girls of that race were taken by the Batlapin in the same manner as by the Hottentots, but against all others relentless warfare was waged. The Betshuana were armed with strong bows, and soon learned to poison their arrows ; they used also the assagai and battle-axe, and protected their bodies with a diminutive shield. In a fight on the open plain the aboriginal savages had no chance whatever, though when attacked on a mountain or among rocks they often managed to beat off their assailants. Still the country was so large, the Bantu invaders were as yet so few in number, and their settlements were so far apart, that the Bushmen could not be entirely exterminated. At the beginning of the nineteenth century they were still numerous in the territory that then began to be known as Betshuanaland, and there are still a few to be found in the desert.

In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, when these events were taking place, the climate of the country north of the Orange and east of the Kalahari was moister than it is at present. For some unknown reason it has gradually become drier since Europeans became acquainted with it, and the process must have been going on long before the first white man made his appearance there. The traditions of the Betshuana are not needed to confirm this fact : the dry beds of ancient rivers and the remains of a luxuriant vegetation are ample evidence. It is very possible indeed that the Betshuana, by frequently burning the grass and destroying the great forests of camelthorn trees they found in the territory, hastened the process of desiccation.

After the Barolong other tribes of the same family came down, notably the Bakwena, whose branches in course of time spread over the whole country south of the Waterberg and Olifants' river eastward to the Kathlamba. They were constantly at war, plundering one another of cattle, yet they increased in number at a marvellous rate. Their battles were not attended with much loss of life, and every female on arriving at the age of womanhood began to bear children. Each tribe lived by itself in a town of from five to fifteen thousand inhabitants, around which extended to a great distance gardens of millet, beans, water-melons, and sweet cane. Beyond these their horned cattle, sheep, and goats were herded, many of which were also kept at distant stations and brought in as needed. The towns required to be removed frequently. The garden ground would become less productive after three or four crops had been taken from it, and owing to the want of even the simplest sanitary arrangements the town itself would become offensive. Then another site would be selected, and on a fixed day the whole population would march to it and begin to erect huts and enclosures, each family taking its position in the new village exactly as in the place abandoned.

After the Bakwena the next to come down were the Bavenda group of tribes, who arrived on the southern bank of the Limpopo about the close of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century. According to their own traditions they migrated from the lower basin of the Congo, but there is sufficient evidence in their language and their customs to prove that they do not belong to the western branch of the Bantu race. Their affinities with the Bakwena group are in many respects so close that they must have separated from them at no very remote time, and it is impossible to doubt that they were first driven to the lower Congo basin from some region far to the east. The scattering of the remnants of tribes in the destructive wars towards the close of the sixteenth century, as related in the records of the Portuguese on the Zambesi, must have been in every direction, east, west, north, and south, just as in the dispersions caused by Tshaka.

It is not improbable that these people were the same as those termed by the Portuguese Cabires, who laid waste the territory between the Zambesi and the Limpopo soon after the Abambo and some of the Amazimba passed southward through it. This is mere conjecture, however, for there are no means of tracing either the origin or the fate of those Cabires who were so destructive to the Makalanga. If they and the Bavenda were the same, they must have roamed about the southern portion of what is now Mashonaland for many years before crossing the Limpopo. According to their traditions, the Makalanga were subject to the greatest of their chiefs, which seems to point in that direction.

Before the wars of Tshaka the Bavenda occupied the whole of what is now the district of Zoutpansberg. In those wars they were dispersed, but after the emigrant farmers from the Cape Colony drove Moselekatse to the north, the fugitives who survived began to collect together again under the chief Mpofu and others, and settled once more in parts of the district from which they had fled. On the death of Mpofu, his sons Kamovana and Ramapulana fought for the chieftainship. The emigrant farmers under Commandant-General Hendrik Potgieter assisted Ramapulana, and secured the position for him, but as a vassal of their government. From that time that section of the Bavenda has been commonly known as the Baramapulana, but it was of hardly any importance until the accession in 1864 of Magadu, son of Ramapulana, to the chieftainship, which he held until his death in 1895.

Among many other sections of less note of this branch of the Bantu race are the tribes which have as their chiefs men with the dynastic titles of Pafuri and Tshivasa, and which also occupy land in the Zoutpansberg district.

The reverend Mr. Hofmeyr, a missionary for twenty years among these people, states in his volume issued in 1890 that they are able to make out the meaning of an address in Sesuto,. and that he has seen among them wooden images, such as are found in use by some of the Betshuana. This establishes their affinity with the Bakwena, and proves them to be of East African origin. But he has also ascertained that they venerate sticks stuck in the ground, such as those used by the Ovaherero to represent their ancestors, which seems to prove that their traditions of having migrated from the lower basin of the Congo are correct. Their religion is ancestor worship, like that of all other Bantu, but sacrifices to the spirits of the dead are more frequent, and food is commonly placed upon graves. Some other differences exist between these people and the Bakwena, but none of much importance.

The last to move down from the distant north to the territory below the Limpopo was the little tribe termed the Bakwebo, which arrived, it is supposed from the lower Congo basin, shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century. This is the tribe governed in our time by the chieftainess Madjadji, about whom there was supposed to be much mystery, as she was kept carefully concealed from strangers. There is no special difference, however, between these people and their neighbours, and their language is merely a link between Tshevenda and Sesuto.

The eighteenth century was far advanced before the Betshuana crossed the Vaal river. The Bataung branch of the Leghoyas were the first to take up their residence on the left bank of that stream, not far from its source. In their new settlement they were attacked by some off- shoots of the Bakwena, by whom they were robbed of many of their cattle. These enemies passed onward, how- ever, without completely destroying them, and settled along the upper banks of the Caledon, where they were joined at a later date by many others.

In 1505, when the Portuguese formed their first settlement on the south-eastern coast, the Makalanga tribe occupied the territory now termed Rhodesia and the seaboard between the Zambesi and Sabi rivers. Before the commencement of the eighteenth century that tribe was broken up by wars, of which an account will be given in another chapter, and about that time a considerable immigration began to set in from the north. The newcomers were not very distantly related to the former occupants, as they spoke a dialect of a common language, which shows that the Makalanga themselves must have migrated from the north very recently. These immigrants, who were the ancestors of most of the people now called by Europeans Mashona, came down from some locality west of Lake Tanganyika in little parties, not in one great horde. The first to arrive was a clan under a chief named Sakavunza, who settled at a place near the present town of Salisbury.

The details of this immigration were not placed on record by any of the Portuguese in the country, who merely noticed that there was a constant swirl of barbarians, plundering, destroying, and replacing one another ; and when recent investigators, like Mr. R. N. Hall, of Zimbabwe, and Mr. W. S. Taberer, the government commissioner, endeavoured to gather the particulars from the descendants of the immigrants, it was found impossible to obtain more accurate information from them concerning the events of distant times than the general fact that their ancestors came down from the north about two centuries ago. Messrs. Hall, Taberer, and other inquirers state that their proper designation is Baroswi, or Barotsi, and that they constitute a very large proportion of the population of what is termed Mashonaland at the present day.

The larger number of them settled in the territory now termed Matabeleland, where they remained until 1834, when Moselekatse began to send raiding parties in their direction. Then all those nearest the Matabele kraals, without waiting to be attacked, fled eastward, those farther north, that is the section now under Lewanika, having already been conquered by the Makololo under Sebetoane, who had taken part in the murderous career of the Mantati horde, and subsequently forced their way up from the Bakwena country. The unfortunate Makalanga, who had suffered terribly under the iron rod of the Angoni and the Matshangana, were then still further crushed until they and the Baroswi alike were brought under subjection by the Matabele.

After their arrival in the territory south of the Zambesi the Baroswi not only carried on war against the earlier inhabitants, but among themselves one clan was constantly pillaging another, so that discord and strife were perpetual. There was no paramount power over all, every chief who was strong enough to hold his own being absolutely independent of every other. In this turmoil the aborigines almost completely disappeared, for the Bantu, at variance with each other concerning other matters, were united in endeavouring to exterminate them.

Clans of the Baroswi family continued to migrate from the distant north into the territory that is now Rhodesia until the close of the eighteenth century. In some respects, though not in any matters of importance, they differed from the earlier Bantu immigrants. Thus their custom was to dry the dead bodies of men of note before enclosing them in hides for burial, which made the corpses appear like mummies. When a man died leaving no brothers to take his widows, his principal son inherited all of them except the one who bore him. Girls, when mere infants, were contracted in marriage, though the husband could not claim them until they were capable of bearing children.

Some other customs which are commonly considered as peculiar to them are observed by many other Bantu in South Africa. Such, for instance, is the putting to death of twin children, through fear that if they were allowed to live they would try to displace the chief, and of girls who cut their upper teeth first, under the belief that if they were permitted to grow up any man marrying them would immediately die. Their skill in weaving loin cloths of wild cotton and bark fibre, and in wood carving, is likewise common to some other of the interior tribes. So also is their knowledge of building walls of unhewn stone.

They differ from the Makalanga in personal appearance, having coarser features and being blacker in colour and somewhat stouter in build. There is no other tribe in South Africa which has so many individuals bearing traces of Asiatic blood as the Makalanga, which is due to the long continuance of Arab intercourse with them in past times. All who have dealings with them state that, though now spiritless and degraded from constant strife and oppression during more than two centuries, they possess greater latent power of advancement, especially in mechanical arts, than any other Bantu in the country.

The emigrants from the northwest who crossed the continent and then came down the eastern coast were the sturdiest and most warlike of all the barbarians. The exact time of their first appearance on the shore of the Indian ocean cannot be ascertained, but it can hardly have been earlier than the beginning of the fifteenth century. The whole number there before 1575 was very small indeed, and their language differed but slightly from those who arrived after that date. They practised agriculture, though not so extensively as the Betshuana, depending for sustenance more upon their cows and goats than upon vegetable food, and they smelted iron, which they wrought into implements coarser and clumsier than those made by the interior tribes.

They migrated slowly down as far as the Umzimvubu, when, towards the close of the sixteenth century their numbers were greatly increased, and an impetus was given to the movement southward by the irruption from the northwest into the lower valley of the Zambesi of a devastating host that pillaged and destroyed all the weaker clans in its line of march. When other food could not be procured, these invaders resorted to cannibalism, and at length became so accustomed to eat human flesh that they consumed it as an ordinary article of diet. One large section of this host was termed the Amazimba, and to this day the word zim with the southern Bantu denotes a cannibal. It enters largely into folklore tales, and is commonly used to frighten disobedient children.

Just as with the Mantati horde two centuries and a quarter later, this ferocious swarm was partly destroyed by starvation and war, and the remnants then forced their way in murderous marches through the earlier settlements to distant localities, where they remained as conquerors. Many of the ancestors of the men who fought under Tshaka and Moselekatse thus found their way to the south and settled in the territory now termed Zululand, while the clans in advance became the separate tribes of our day — the Amaxosa, Abatembu, Amampondomsi, Amampondo, etc. — and moved rapidly onward until their advance parties reached the Kei.

The great Abambo tribe, which afterwards distributed its sections more widely than any other except the Bakwena in South Africa, migrated to the valley of the Tugela at this time. It was first seen by white men on the banks of the Zambesi above Tete, coming down from the northwest, and working terrible havoc with the weaker tribes in its way.

The Abatetwa, made famous soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century by their adventurous chief Dingiswayo, arrived at a later date. An account of this tribe was written in 1883 by a grandson of Dingiswayo and one of his inferior wives, who had received some education at a mission school, and the document was forwarded by a friend to the author of these volumes. It assigns to the Abatetwa a position of greater importance than they really filled, inasmuch as the writer claims paramountcy for them from the time of their arrival in Zululand over every other tribe in South-Eastern Africa, including even the Abambo. But this is in perfect keeping with all narratives of the kind from Bantu antiquaries, who invariably represent their own rulers as more glorious than any others, and it need not be taken into account.

He says the Abatetwa were driven across the Zambesi from some place far away in the north by their neighbours the Komanti and the Ashongwa. This was in the time of the father of Punga, the grandfather of Dingiswayo. Of the earlier history of the tribe, or even the names of its chiefs, his own ancestors, he had been unable to obtain any information that he could depend upon. Of its career on the march he says nothing, but pictures it as conquering all around it upon its arrival in Zululand, which country he is therefore of opinion ought to be regarded as rightly belonging to it. Punga, whom he terms king, was, he says, the greatest ruler in Africa, and Mageba, one of his relatives, was a man of extraordinary ability, who did much to raise the importance of the tribe.

When the pioneers of the Bantu crossed the Umtamvuna they encountered the earlier Hottentot occupants, who were themselves recent immigrants, and who had largely mixed their blood with that of the aboriginal Bushmen. These were too feeble to resist the advancing wave from the north, and therefore met with the fate of the weaker everywhere in Africa. The males were exterminated, and the females were incorporated with the conquerors. Through this amalgamation the language of the tribes in advance was greatly affected, three of the Hottentot clicks being introduced — chiefly in words pertaining to the occupations of women, — and even the character and appearance of the people underwent a change. It is this mixture of Hottentot and Bushman blood that makes the difference between the Xosa or Tembu and the Hlubi of our day. Originally they were in every respect identical.

Along the coast the Bantu settlements were denser than in the interior, but south of the Tugela river in general only the terrace adjoining the sea and the one next above it were occupied. From these the Bushmen were entirely driven, but in advance of the migrating Bantu they massed in as great numbers as could obtain food, and held their own until the beginning of the eighteenth century, some indeed until nearly a hundred years later. They were numerous in the territory between the Kei and the Keiskama when Rarabe (pron. Khakhabay) a chief who was well known to the Europeans on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony, entered that district. They stole and killed his favourite racing ox, which so incensed him that he gave orders for their complete destruction, and was not appeased until none were left. On the plateau adjoining the Kathlamba from the Tugela to the Fish river they were not disturbed, except by occasional parties of men sent to punish them for committing robberies in the lowlands, and there they remained until long after the British conquest of the Cape Colony.

On the western coast the Bantu occupation is still more recent than on the south-eastern. The first small horde that appeared there was subdued by the Hottentots, and forced to adopt the language and customs of its conquerors. These are the people now called Berg Damaras by Europeans and Ghou Damup by the Namaquas — Haukoin they term themselves,— who are Bantu or possibly negro by blood, but Hottentot by speech, religion, and many customs, and live like Bushmen almost entirely on game, insects, reptiles, and wild plants. They hardly ever attempt to cultivate the ground, and when they do, it is only to plant watermelons of the wild variety and dacha for smoking, which they use to great excess. Their habitations are made of a few branches of trees or shrubs, not always covered with mats, and their weapons and implements are of the crudest kind.

At length the Hottentots moved farther southward, and left them behind. They were then attacked by the Ovaherero, a purely pastoral and nomadic tribe, who came down from the north, drove them into the mountains of what is now Southern Damaraland, and occupied the plains themselves. The reverend C. Hugo Hahn, of the Rhenish missionary society, who was for many years a resident with the Ovaherero and collected their traditions, states that they can only with certainty be traced back to a locality somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Zambesi below the Victoria falls. From that locality they migrated westward with great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and then turned to the south, crossing the Kunene a little before the middle of the eighteenth century. After passing the Kaoko, they met the Haukoin or Ghou Damup, who fled from them to the mountains. They next encountered clans of the Namaqua Hottentots, whom they fought with and gradually drove far to the southward.

This war with the Hottentots lasted many years, and occasionally the Ovaherero would be beaten and driven back for a time, as was found to be the case in 1792 by the expedi- tion from the Cape Colony which penetrated the country in that year. But occasional reverses were followed by successes until Oasib, chief of the Hottentot tribe called the red nation, applied to Jonker Afrikaner for assistance. Jonker was the son of that Jager Afrikaner who was a widely dreaded free-booter at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and who was more widely known at a later date as having in his old age become a convert to Christianity. Jonker followed the career of his father very closely. At this time he was living on the bank of the Orange river, but as soon as the request of Oasib reached him, he and his followers set out to join in the fray. The tide of fortune then turned, and the Ovaherero were speedily driven back to the Zwakop, which was afterwards regarded as the boundary between the two races. This was the condition of things when in 1814 the reverend H. Schmelen arrived in the country and commenced work there as a missionary among the Namaquas.

After they crossed the Kunene the Ovaherero threw off a section, which took the name Ovambanderu and became quite independent, and from both of the tribes numbers of individuals who were without property of any kind moved away to seek food like Bushmen. These destitute persons are called Ovatyimba, and form distinct communities. Of all the inhabitants of South Africa, the Ovaherero and their offshoots have the reputation of being the most heartless and unfeeling towards each other, hence the condition of the Ovatyimba. These people differ in many respects from the Bantu of the interior and the eastern coast, though they are of the same stock and speak a dialect of the same language. They do not practise agriculture, but depend for sustenance upon wild plants and their horned cattle and sheep. Some of their peculiar customs will be described farther on, which will show them to be less advanced than the other members of their race.

The Ovaherero were preceded by the Avare group, of which the Ovambo tribe is the best known. This group consists of eleven distinct tribes, who occupy a small tract of land south of the Kunene river some distance from the coast. These people are industrious agriculturists, breeders of cattle, and workers in iron. They sink wells, sometimes thirty metres in depth, manufacture many useful articles, and are altogether far in advance of their southern neighbours. They are believed to have migrated from the valley of the Congo river, but the exact locality is unknown. Their dialect differs considerably from that of the Ovaherero, though there are strong reasons for supposing that the last-named people migrated from the same valley to the neighbourhood of the Zambesi some time before their removal to their present home. North of the Avare group the tribes need not be mentioned, as they live beyond the territory to which these pages are limited.

Along the western coast, north of the Zwakop river, the Ovaherero, like all the other invaders, attempted to exterminate or drive out the Bushmen. Pastoral communities and wild hunters could not exist side by side. But they did not entirely succeed, for the nature of the country is such that escape to barren and almost waterless parts was com- paratively easy. The Kalahari desert lay on the east, into which the weaker party could retreat when hard pressed, without danger of successful pursuit. And so it happens that Bushmen are still to be found in what is now German South-West Africa, though not in any considerable number.

The invasion of the Bantu did not at first affect the Hottentots, except at the extremities of the thin line they occupied along the coast, for nowhere else did they come in contact.

Observations made during the sixteenth century by Portuguese missionaries and travellers in South Africa throw much light upon the origin of several customs which to more recent observers of Bantu habits have always been obscure. With the Hottentots or Bushmen the Portuguese rarely came in contact, and of these people they give no information of any value. But with sections of the Bantu they lived in as close intimacy as Dutchmen or Englishmen have ever done, they learned the language of these people, studied their customs, and several of the best informed recorded what they observed. They tell of no golden age of peace and happiness disturbed by the intrusion of white men, but of almost constant strife and cruelty and misery. From them we learn that long before the time of Tshaka despots as clever and as ruthless as he spread desolation over wide tracts of land, that cannibalism as practised in the Lesuto and in Natal during the early years of the nineteenth century was no new custom with sections of the Bantu race, that the military organisation and mode of attack employed by Dingiswayo and Tshaka were not inventions of those chiefs, but were known long before their time. Much besides can be learned from their writings, so that any description of the dark-skinned tribes south of the Zambesi published in English ten years ago can now be considerably amplified.

These people, together with their kindred who possess a vast extent of Africa north of the Kunene and Zambesi rivers, are now usually termed the Bantu, in accordance with a proposal of the late Dr. Bleek. They had no word except tribal names to distinguish themselves from other races, ntu, in their language meaning a human being or person of any colour or country ; but ethnologists felt the want of a specific designation for them, and adopted this as a convenient one. In the division of mankind thus named are included all those Africans who use a language which is inflected principally by means of prefixes, and which in the construction of sentences follows certain rules depending upon harmony of sound.

Before the Bantu tribes migrated to Africa south of the Zambesi great differences existed between them, and there was a tendency for these differences to increase after their settlement where Europeans found them. Intercourse between the different sections was restricted, as in general each tribe regarded its neighbour with jealousy, and each group of tribes of recent common origin looked upon every other such group as enemies. Besides the change which takes place in all unwritten languages in the course of even a few generations, there was a habit with some of these tribes which hastened the variation, and therefore made intercourse more difficult. This was the hlonipa custom, by which women were obliged constantly to invent new words, so that each dialect changed in a different manner from all others. The structure of the dialects remained the same, but the words used by a Tembu, for instance, could not be understood by a Morolong or an Omuherero. An educated European can at once see that the great majority of the roots in all the dialects is the same, and that there is consequently but one language ; but the people who used those dialects were unable to detect this.

A change of speech was followed, though much more slowly, by change of customs and ceremonies, and even by dissimilar modifications of religious belief. Then there was an influx of Asiatics into the territory along the eastern coast. These mixed their blood with that of the Bantu living there, which resulted in a great advance in the mental condition of the eastern tribes over those of the west.

For general purposes the tribes can be classified in the three groups already mentioned as migrating to the southern portion of the continent by separate routes, though there are many trifling differences between the various branches of each of these. In the first group can be placed those along the eastern coast south of the Sabi river, and those which in recent times have made their way from that part of the country into the highlands of the interior. The best known of these are the Amaxosa, the Abatembu, the Amampondo, the Araabaca, the Abambo (now broken into numerous fragments), the Amazulu, the Amaswazi, the Amatonga, the Magwamba, the Matshangana, and the Matabele. This group can be termed the eastern coast tribes, though some members of it are now far from the sea.

The second group can include the tribes that at the beginning of the nineteeenth century occupied the greater part of the interior plain north of the Orange and came down to the ocean between the Zambesi and Sabi rivers. It will include among many others the Batlapin, the Batlaro, the Barolong, the Bahurutsi, the Bangwaketse, the Bakwena, the Bamangwato, the Bavenda, the Makalanga, the Baroswi, and the whole of the Basuto, north and south. This group can be termed the interior tribes.

The third will comprise the Bantu living between the western part of the Kalahari desert and the Atlantic ocean, who may be termed the western coast tribes. These are very recent immigrants, and before the beginning of the twentieth century had no influence upon South African history. They differ in many respects from their eastern kindred, being blacker in colour, coarser in appearance, and duller in intellect than the others, if an average be taken. The dialects spoken by them are also more primitive. It will not be necessary to describe the people of this section as fully as the others, but the principal points of difference will be given for comparison.

The individuals who composed the first and second named groups varied in colour from deep bronze to black. Some had features of the lowest negro type: thick projecting lips, broad flat noses, and narrow foreheads; while others had prominent and in rare instances even aquiline noses, well developed fore- heads, and lips but little thicker than those of Europeans. Among the eastern tribes these extremes could sometimes be noticed in the same family, but the great majority of the people were of a type higher than a mean between the two. They were of mixed blood, and the branches of the ancestral stock differed considerably, as one was African and the other Asiatic.

Those who occupied the land along the south-eastern coast were in general large without being corpulent, strong, muscular, erect in bearing, and with all their limbs in perfect symmetry. Many of them were haughty in demeanour, and possessed a large amount of vanity. The men were usually handsomer than the women, owing to the girls being often stunted in growth and hardened in limb by carrying burdens on their heads and toiling in gardens at an early age. The people of the interior were in general somewhat smaller than those of the coast, though they were far from being diminutive specimens of the human race.

Though at times the Bantu presented the appearance of a peaceable, good-natured, indolent people, they were subject to outbursts of great excitement, when the most savage passions had free play. The man who spent a great part of his life gossiping in idleness, not knowing what it was to toil for bread, was hardly recognisable when, plumed and adorned with military trappings, he had worked himself into frenzy with the war dance. The period of excitement was, however, short. In the same way their outbursts of grief were violent, but were soon succeeded by cheerfulness.

They were subject to few diseases, and were capable of undergoing without harm privations and sufferings which the hardiest Europeans would have sunk under. Occasionally there were seasons of famine caused by prolonged drought, when whole tribes were reduced to exist upon nothing else than wild roots, bulbs, mimosa gum, and whatever else unaided nature provided. At such times they became emaciated, but as long as they could procure even the most wretched food they did not actually die, as white people would have done under similar circumstances. Nor did pestilence follow want of sustenance to the same extent as with us.

One cause of their being a strong healthy people was that no weak or deformed children were allowed to live long. There was no law which required an end to be put to the existence of such infants, but it always happened that they died when very young, and public opinion was opposed to any inquiry into the mode of their death. Every one, even the parents, believed that it was better they should not live, and so they perished from neglect. But owing to the prevalence of this custom in preceding generations, the number of weaklings born was very small indeed. For some reason an exception was occasionally made in the case of albinos, who, though regarded as monstrosities, were not always destroyed in childhood. These hideous individuals, with features like others of their race, were of a pale sickly colour, and had weak pinkish eyes and hair almost white. Very few, however, were to be seen in any tribe, and in some none at all.

Under natural conditions the Bantu were a longer-lived people than Europeans. The friar Dos Santos found several women at Sofala who perfectly remembered events that had taken place eighty years before, and modern observers in other parts of the country have noticed the same circumstance. A man of this race placed beside a white colonist of the same age invariably looks the younger of the two, and in any tribe individuals can be found with personal knowledge extending over the ordinary span of life in Europe or America. They were probably the most prolific people on the face of the earth. All the females were married at an early age, very few women were childless, and in most of the tribes provision was even made by custom for widows to add to the families of their dead husbands. In some parts the brothers of the deceased took them, in others male companions were selected for them by their late husband's friends, in each case tbe children born thereafter being regarded as those of the dead man.

The language spoken by the Bantu was of a high order, subject to strict grammatical rules, and adequate for the expression of any ideas whatever. Its construction, however, was very different from that of the languages of Europe. It was broken up into many dialects, so that individuals from the western coast, from the interior, and from the eastern coast could not understand each other, though the great majority of the words used by all were formed from the same roots. In the south-eastern dialects the English sound of the letter r was wanting, while in some of the others the sound of our l was never heard. In all there were combinations of consonants which it was very difficult for strangers of mature years to master.

There were clicks in only a few dialects of the language spoken by the Bantu family. These were derived in the south from Hottentot, and elsewhere from Bushman sources. They were introduced by females who were spared when the hordes to which they belonged were conquered, as is evident not only from tradition, but from the words in which the clicks occur being chiefly those pertaining to the occupations of women. Some of the dialects spoken on the coasts of lower Guinea and the Indian ocean bear a closer resemblance to each other than to those between them, owing to a cause which has already been explained.

The form of government varied from that of a pure despotism, established by a successful military ruler, to a patriarchal system of a simple order. In the former everything centred in the person of one individual, at whose word the lives of any of his subjects were instantly sacrificed, who was the owner of all the property of the tribe, and who appointed officials at his pleasure. He was served by attendants in the most abject attitudes, could only be ap- proached by a subject unarmed and crouching, and arrogated to himself a form of address due to a deity. He was an absolute ruler in every respect, and by his will alone his subjects were guided, though to retain such power for any length of time it was necessary for him not to counteract any strong desire of the warriors of his tribe. This purely despotic form of government was rarely found among the people of the interior, who were in general more peaceably disposed than those of the coast. It ended as a rule when a man of feeble intellect succeeded the one who established it.

The more common system, the one indeed that may be termed normal except when interfered with by a chief possessing great military genius, was of a milder character. Under it a tribe was composed of a number of sections which may be termed clans, each under its own chief, but all acknowledging the supreme authority of one particular individual. Sometimes the heads of the clans were members of the family of the paramount chief, more or less distantly connected with him by blood, in which case the tribe was a compact body, every individual in it having a common interest with every other ; but it often happened that clans broken in war, though retaining their own chiefs, were adopted as vassals by a powerful ruler, and in these cases the cohesion of the different sections, owing to the object of their worship being different, to jealousy, and to rival views, was much less firm.

Among the interior tribes, owing to the misconduct or incompetency of individual chiefs, this system sometimes broke down, when a condition of greater freedom resulted. Here the common people acquired sufficient power to make their wishes respected to some extent, and nothing of im- portance was undertaken without a general assembly of the men of the tribe being first held, when each one was at liberty to express his views. But even in these cases the opinion of a member of the ruling family was regarded as of vastly greater weight than that of a commoner. Merit was of small account against privilege of blood in the estimation of any branch of the Bantu race.

Among the tribes under the normal system of government the rule of the paramount chief in times of peace was hardly felt beyond his own kraal. Each clan possessed all the machinery of administration, and in general it was only in cases of serious quarrels between them or of appeals from judicial decisions that the tribal head used his authority. In war, however, he issued commands to all, and on important occasions he summoned the minor chiefs to aid him with advice.

The members of the ruling families, even to the most distant branches, were of aristocratic rank, and enjoyed many privileges. Their persons were inviolable, and an indignity offered to one of them was considered a crime of the gravest nature. Even the customs of the people were set aside in favour of the chiefs of highest rank. A common man of the coast tribes, for instance, could not marry certain relatives by blood, no matter how distant, but a great chief could, though connections nearer than fourth or fifth cousins were very rare. Such a marriage was strictly forbidden to a commoner, but was allowed in the chief's case, in order to obtain a woman of suitable birth to be the mother of the heir in the great line.

Portuguese writers relate that the principal chiefs in the territory between the Sabi and Zambesi rivers took their own sisters and daughters as their wives of highest rank, but perhaps this statement arose from their attaching the European meaning to the words sister and daughter, which when used by people of the Bantu race applied equally to cousins and nieces on the father's side. No marriages with sisters or daughters in the European sense is permitted at the present day, but with cousins — sisters in the Bantu sense — they are common among the interior tribes.

With regard to the common people, the theory of the universal Bantu law was that they were the property of the rulers, consequently an offence against any of their persons was atoned for by a fine to the chief. Murder and assaults were punished in this manner. When a man died, his nearest relative was required to report the circumstance to the head of the clan, and to take a present of some kind with him as consolation for the loss sustained.

But while the government of all the tribes was thus in theory despotic, the power of the chiefs in those which were not under military rule was usually more or less restrained. In each clan there was a body of counsellors — commonly hereditary — whose advice could not always be disregarded. A great deal depended upon the personal character of the chief. If he was a man of resolute will, the counsellors were powerless ; if he was weak they possessed not only influence, but often real authority. Then there was a custom that a fugitive from one clan was entitled to protection by the chief of another with which he took refuge, so that an arbitrary or unpopular ruler was in constant danger of losing his followers. This custom was an effectual check upon gross and unrestrained tyranny.

The law of succession to the government favoured the formation of new tribes. The first wives of a paramount chief were usually the daughters of some of his father's principal retainers ; but as he grew older and increased in power his alliance was courted by great families, and thus it generally happened that his consort of highest rank was taken when he was of advanced age. Usually she was the daughter of a neighbouring ruler and was selected for him by the counsellors of the tribe, who provided the cattle required by her relatives. She was termed the great wife, and her eldest son was the principal heir.

Another of his wives was invested at an earlier period of his life, by the advice of his counsellors and friends, with the title of wife of the right hand, and to her eldest son some of his father's retainers were given, with whom he formed a new clan. The government of this was entrusted to him as soon as he was full grown, so that while his brother was still a child he had opportunities of increasing his power. If he was the abler ruler of the two, a quarrel between them arose almost to a certainty as soon as the great heir reached manhood and was also invested with a separate command. If peace was maintained, upon the death of his father the son of the right hand acknowledged his brother as superior in rank, but neither paid him tribute nor admitted his right to interfere in the internal government of the new clan.

In some of the tribes three sons of every chief divided their father's adherents among them. In the latter case the third heir was termed the representative of the ancients or the son of the left hand.

In this manner new tribes, entirely independent of the old ones from which they sprang, were frequently formed. This was especially the case when the adjacent territory was thinly occupied by a weak people like the Bushmen, affording means for the ruler of lower rank without difficulty to remove to a distance from his brother. The disintegrating process was to some extent checked by frequent tribal wars and feuds, which forced chiefs of the same family to make common cause with each other, but whenever there was comparative peace it was in active operation, and so a steady and rapid expansion of the Bantu race was effected.

With the limitations that have been mentioned, in the life of the people the chief was everything, his wishes were the guide of their conduct, his orders were implicitly obeyed, the best of all they had was at his disposal. To every one else they could tell the grossest falsehoods without disgrace, but to him they told the simple truth, and that in language which could not bear two meanings. They could not even partake of the crops in their own gardens until he gave them leave to do so. In this case, when the millet was ripe the chief appointed a day for a general assembly of the people at his residence, that was known as the great place ; he then went through certain rites, among which was the offering of a small quantity of the fresh grain to the spirits of his ancestors, either by laying it on their graves or by casting it into a stream, after which ceremony he gave the people permission to gather and eat.

Every people has its own standard of virtue, which if it does not live up to, it at least respects. The Bantu had theirs, which consisted in fidelity to the chief. A man might be a thorough scoundrel according to European ideas, cruel, lascivious, intemperate, mean : all this mattered nothing if he was devoted to his chief, in which case in the estimation of his tribe he was virtuous. There was a reason for this, as will presently be seen.

The most solemn oath that a man could take was by either some great legendary ruler or the one then living, though he did not regard even that as binding if he believed that by speaking falsely the interest of the chief would be advanced. Portuguese writers state that the people near the Zambesi swore by Mambo, which was rather one of the titles of the head of a great tribe than his proper name, but the individual or his line of ancestors was meant. At present the form of oath varies slightly in different places, the most common expression being I call to witness or I point to, as Ki supa ka Mokatskane, the usual oath of a Mosuto, I point to Mokatshane.

The amount of taxes paid by the people for the mainten- ance of government was not fixed, as it is in European states. The ordinary revenue of a chief was derived from confiscations of property, fines, and presents, besides which his gardens, that were usually large, were cultivated by the labour of his people. The right of the ruler to the personal service of his subjects was everywhere recognised, and it extended even to his requiring them to serve others for his benefit. The Portuguese engaged carriers from a chief, who took a considerable portion of their earnings, just as the tribal heads at present send their 37oung men to a distance to work for them. Men who would not think of assisting in the cultivation of their own gardens went willingly, when called upon to do so, to labour in those of their chief. The breast of every animal killed, which was regarded as the choicest meat, was sent to him as his right, and certain furs were his alone. When he felt so disposed, he made a tour through his tribe, when each kraal visited provided food for him and his attendants, and if he was in need, made him a present of cattle. The oxen, often from fifty to a hundred, needed to procure his principal wife — who was to be the mother of the future ruler — were contributed by his retainers.

In some of the tribes the chief might be said to be the owner of everything. Cattle taken in war were his property, and though the cows were distributed among the people, who had the use of the milk, he could demand their restoration at any time. All trade with strangers passed through his hands, and he kept as much of the gains as he chose. Though this system was confined to the military tribes, even in those less highly organised it was usual for the chiefs to exact heavy dues upon commercial transactions between their subjects and others. When, for instance, the first fairs were established by the British authorities on the Xosa border, the chiefs fixed the quantity of beads or other merchandise to be received for every ox or tusk of ivory, and commonly took about half for themselves, without the people raising any objection.

The charges upon the government, except in the case of the military tribes, were limited to the cost of entertainment of attendants and visitors, and of presents to favourites or for services performed. There were no salaries to be paid, and no public works to be provided for. In all the country from the Zambesi to the southern coast there was not so much as a road, nothing better than a footpath, which, though leading towards a fixed point, wound round every obstacle in the way, great or small, for no one cared to remove even a puny boulder to obtain a more direct line. Many of these footpaths were worn deep by constant use for years, but they were never repaired. The simplest bridge over a stream was unknown, nor was there any other public work, if barricades of stones in the approaches to hill tops are excepted.

CHAPTER IV.

DESCRIPTION OF THE BANTU (continued).