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 CHAPTER XVII.

THE ZULUS.

Upon entering Natal we exchange the Kafir for the Zulu,—who conceives himself to be a very superior sort of man—not as being equal to the white man whom he reverences, but as being greatly above the other black races around him. And yet he is not a man of ancient blood, or of long established supremacy. In the early part of this century,—beyond which I take it Zulu history goeth not,—there was a certain chief of the Zulus whom we have spoken of as King Chaka. To spell the name aright there should be a T before the C, and an accent to mark the peculiar sound in the Kafir language which is called a click. To the uninstructed English ear Chaka will be intelligible and sufficient. He was King of the Zulus, but the tribe was not mighty before his time. He was a great warrior and was brave enough and gradually strong enough to "eat up" all the tribes around him; and then, according to Kafir fashion, the tribes so eaten amalgamated themselves with the eaters, and the Zulus became a great people. But Chaka was a bloody tyrant and if the stories told be true was nearly as great an eater of his own people as of his enemies. In his early days the territory which