treachery and dishonesty generally given them
by travellers who have visited Malacca.

The Fingoes make very good herdsmen;
and are also employed in landing goods from
the surf boats in Algoa Bay. They are a
fine, sturdy race, temperate and industrious,
and extremely parsimonious. The money
which they save they bury in the earth in
some place known only to themselves, and as
they often purchase cattle it is by no means
unusual to see them tender in payment some
hundred or two of shillings and sixpences
encrusted in dirt, having been dug up after,
probably, two years' interment. Many of
them make a bargain with their masters to
receive so many cows per annum instead of
money, as this species of property is the
highest of all in their estimation. And here
I may mention a circumstance, probably not
known to the general reader, and to which
may be traced the late disastrous Kafir war.

It is the law among the Kafirs, that each
man shall purchase his wife from her father,
by payment of a certain number of head of
cattle according to the young lady's rank in
life. Now it often happened among Kafirs,
as among civilised Europeans, that young men
of very small means, or of none at all, fell in
love with young maidens whose papas were
men of high degree, and turned up their noses
at poor suitors. The ardent youths thus
repulsed, felt that something desperate must be
done to win their beloved mistresses. Therefore,
having no very great respect for the
distinctions of meum and tuum, they would
walk over the boundary into the colony, pick
out the requisite number of cattle from the
first herd they saw, drive them to their own
kraals and then—claim their brides. The
colonists, not taking a romantic view of the
proceeding, called it theft; and one day,
catching a lover thus employed, he was lodged
in gaol. He was afterwards being conducted
by a very small escort of soldiers to a town
on the frontier for trial, and was handcuffed
to a Hottentot prisoner. On the road, a
large party of armed Kafirs rushed out of the
Bush, attacked the guard, chopped off the
arm of the Hottentot in order to free their
countryman from his companionship, and
before the guard could recover from the
surprise of the attack, made their way back into
the Bush—the Hottentot's amputated arm
dangling to the wrist of the liberated Kafir!
The Governor of the colony sent to the chief
into whose territory they were tracked, to
demand the delivery up of the offenders.
The chief refused and told the Governor to
come and fetch them "if he dared." The
other chiefs joined in the defiance; and war,
of course, became inevitable.

The other coloured tribes I have mentioned,
are less numerous within the colony. The
Hottentot is the most civilised of them all
(except the Malay); but even he has hitherto
learnt more of the vices than the virtues of
civilisation. Nations emerging from barbarism
pass through a transition state, which,
though leading to good in the end, is worse,
while it lasts, than the original savage
condition.

The kind of EUROPEAN LABOUR required,
must now be considered. It may easily be
imagined from the above rough sketch of the
aboriginal tribes of South Africa, that
pending their arrival at a state of civilisation, the
European settlers are very badly off in having
to depend upon their labour and services in
farming and domestic operations. The
annoyance to good housewives in having a set
of dirty and drunken servants, is beyond
description. Therefore, on the arrival of
every shipload of emigrants (and they are
far too few,) there is a perfect rush to the
beach to offer engagements to the new comers.
Twenty-five and thirty, or even thirty-six
pounds a year are freely offered as
housemaid's wages to any girl from England, without
an inquiry whether she has ever been
into service before. Unfortunately these girls
have frequently been spoilt on the voyage by
the idleness in which their days have been
spent; besides being none the better for
"Jack's" society, who, though, an excellent
fellow in his way, is by no means "the
housemaid's best companion."

Farm servants are in great request. A
shepherd will get from fifty to seventy pounds
a year, a house to live in, and excellent rations
for himself and family, however numerous.
Few are the sheep-farmers fortunate enough
to possess a good English or Scotch shepherd.

Very superior shepherds—men of some
education—may become large sheep-owners
themselves in time, thus:—Merchants and
shop-keepers of property have generally
farms in the country, which they cannot of
course, attend to themselves. They are glad,
therefore, to select a competent person, one
thoroughly acquainted with sheep, with a
good knowledge of the country, and able to
speak Dutch, to take charge of their farm,
receiving as a remuneration one third of the
increase of the flock each year. Dutch is
indispensable, because half your neighbours
and three-fourths of your servants speak no
other language. It is easily acquired—
especially by Scotchmen, who declare that it is
"mickle like their ain bonnie tongue."

The lowest rate of wages paid to any
journeyman artisan is five shillings per diem.
Sawyers, carpenters, bricklayers and smiths,
earn much more. Plumbers and glaziers are
in great request. If you are unfortunate
enough to break a pane of glass, you may
frequently have to wait a week or ten days
before the glazier can find time to come and
mend it. When I was in Port Elizabeth,
there was but a solitary glazier there (in a
town of three thousand inhabitants), and if
sent for, he would probably reply with great
dignity and composure,

"Mr. C.'s compliments, and some day next