I must say I like Kafir servants in some respects. They require, I acknowledge, constant supervision; they require to be told to do the same thing over and over again every day; and, what is more, besides telling, you have to stand by and see that they do the thing. They are also very slow. But still, with all these disadvantages, they are far better than the generality of European servants out here, who make their luckless employers' lives a burden to them by reason of their tempers and caprices. It is much better, I am convinced, to face the evil boldly and to make up one's mind to have none but Kafir servants. Of course one immediately turns into a sort of overseer and upper servant one's self; but at all events you feel master or mistress of your own house, and you have faithful and good-tempered domestics, who do their best, however awkwardly, to please you. Where there are children, then indeed a good English nurse is a great boon; and in this one respect I am fortunate. Kafirs are also much easier to manage when the orders come direct from the master or mistress, and they work far more willingly for them than for white servants. Tom, the nurse-boy, confided to me yesterday that he hoped to stop in my employment for forty moons. After that space of time he considered that he should be in a position to buy plenty of wives, who would work for him and support him for the rest of his life. But how Tom or Jack, or any of the boys in fact, are to save money I know not, for every shilling of their wages, except a small margin for coarse snuff, goes to their parents, who fleece them without mercy. If they are fined for breakages or misconduct (the only punishment a Kafir cares for), they have to account for the deficient money to the stern parents; and both Tom and Jack went through a most graphic pantomime with a stick of the consequences to themselves, adding that their father said both the beating from him and the fine from us served them right for their carelessness. It seemed so hard they should suffer both ways, and they were so good-tempered and uncomplaining about it, that I fear I shall find it very difficult to stop any threepenny pieces out of their wages in future. A Kafir servant usually gets one pound a month, his clothes and food. The former consists of a shirt and short trousers of coarse check cotton, a soldier's old great-coat for winter, and plenty of mealy-meal for "scoff." If he is a good servant and worth making comfortable, you give him a trifle every week to buy meat. Kafirs are very fond of going to their kraals, and you have to make them sign an agreement to remain with you so many months, generally six. By the time you have just taught them, with infinite pains and trouble, how to do their work, they depart, and you have to begin it all over again.