Dingaan, the Zulu chief, was exceedingly fond of ornament. He used to boast that the Zulus were the only people who understood dress. Sometimes he came forward painted with all kinds of stripes and crosses, in a very bizarre style. The people took all this gravely, saying that “he was king and could do what he pleased,” and they were content with his taste. It is this unreflecting character which astounds us in savages. They never made it a question whether the garniture of the king or of the corpse had any thing unsuitable. All along the coasts, from the equator to the north of the Gulf of Guinea, they did not eat without throwing a portion on the ground for those who had died. Sometimes they dug a small hole for these purposes, or they had one in the hut, and into it they poured what they thought would be acceptable. They conceived that they had sensible evidence of the inclinations of the dead. In lifting up or carrying a corpse on their shoulders, men may not attend to the exact direction of their own muscular movements or those of their associates. There are necessarily shocks, jolts and struggles, from the movements of their associates. People will, in some cases, pull different ways when hustled together. All these unconscious movements, not unlike the “table turnings” of the present era, were taken as expressive of the will of the dead man, as to how and whither he was to be carried. Their belief, as we have seen, influenced their life: it was earnest and heartfelt. When the king of Wydah, in 1694, heard that Smith, the chief of the English factory, was dangerously ill with fever, he sent his fetishman to aid in the recovery. The priest went to the sick man, and solemnly announced that he came to save him. He then marched to the white man’s burial-ground with a provision of brandy, oil, and rice, and made a loud oration to those that slept there. “O you dead white people, you wish to have Smith among you; but our king likes him, and it is not his will to let him go to be among you.” Passing on to the grave of Wyburn, the founder of the factory, he addressed him, “You, captain of all the whites who are here! Smith’s sickness is a piece of your work. You want his company, for he is a good man; but our king does not want to lose him, and you can’t have him yet.” Then digging a hole over the grave, he poured into it the articles which he had brought, and told him that if he needed these things, he gave them with good-will, but he must not expect to get Smith. The factor died, notwithstanding. The ideas here are not very dissimilar to those of the old Greeks. It is remarkable, however, that in tracing this negro race along the continent towards the south, we find these notions and practices to fade away, and at last disappear. Southeast of the desert, along the Orange River, there is scarcely a trace of them.