king, Chaka, and the war-cries of that despot’s braves reverberated through the mountains. Usidinane is still living, at an advanced age, in charge of a few descendants of these cannibals, who, when Natal became tranquilized, came forth from the shelter they had sought, and occupied ground in the immediate vicinity, and are now called by the tribal name of Amazizi. Off-saddling on our arrival at the caves, before we commenced our exploration, we greedily set to work and ate up all the provisions we had brought, the keen mountain air having made us ravenously hungry. My wife, though an excellent horsewoman, was greatly fatigued, so we determined, the day being far spent before our examination of the caverns was finished, to remain all night in them and return next morning. With the caves themselves I was rather disappointed, as they were merely like huge lime quarries scooped out in the rocks, yet evidence was not wanting of their having been tenanted by human beings, the charred ceilings and the vestiges of fire and bone-ash being distinctly to be seen in their gloomy recesses. It is to my mind an interesting fact that human flesh is never anywhere chosen by man from a sense of preference—either necessity, not depravity, compels—or revenge, not appetite, prompts its use. Some savages consume human flesh as a sacred rite, a part of their religion in honor of the dead, some as a sentiment of affection, and others again with the idea that principles such as courage and honor are conveyed from the dead to the living.[12] Colonel Bowker, whose name is so honorably associated with Basutoland, in an article communicated to the _Cape Monthly_, in 1869, describing a visit to the Putiasana Caves, in that country, says: “There was but little disguising it [cannibalism], and the people when questioned spoke freely of it, as first a necessity and then a choice,” but this I think was simply native braggadocio. Charles Waterton, in his “Natural History Essays,” bears out my opinion. In his essay on “Cannibalism,” he says: “Before I can bring my mind to believe in the existence of cannibalism such as I have defined it at the commencement of these fugitive notes (the feeding of man upon man incited solely by the calls of hunger) I must be convinced that there really does exist a human being, no matter in what part of the world, who will slay his fellow man without any provocation having been offered or any excitement produced, but that he is known to deprive him of his life merely for a supply of daily food, just exactly with the same feelings and with no other than we should shoot a hare or a pheasant to entertain a dinner party.”[13] I have quoted this eminent author verbatim, and though there appears to be an omission of some such word as “not only,” his meaning is sufficiently evident.