Think of the Bushmen. Think of the two men and the two women who have
been exhibited about England for some years. Are the majority of
persons—who remember the horrid little leader of that party in his
festering bundle of hides, with his filth and his antipathy to water, and
his straddled legs, and his odious eyes shaded by his brutal hand, and
his cry of ‘Qu-u-u-u-aaa!’ (Bosjesman for something desperately insulting
I have no doubt)—conscious of an affectionate yearning towards that noble
savage, or is it idiosyncratic in me to abhor, detest, abominate, and
abjure him? I have no reserve on this subject, and will frankly state
that, setting aside that stage of the entertainment when he counterfeited
the death of some creature he had shot, by laying his head on his hand
and shaking his left leg—at which time I think it would have been
justifiable homicide to slay him—I have never seen that group sleeping,
smoking, and expectorating round their brazier, but I have sincerely
desired that something might happen to the charcoal smouldering therein,
which would cause the immediate suffocation of the whole of the noble
strangers.
There is at present a party of Zulu Kaffirs exhibiting at the St.
George’s Gallery, Hyde Park Corner, London. These noble savages are
represented in a most agreeable manner; they are seen in an elegant
theatre, fitted with appropriate scenery of great beauty, and they are
described in a very sensible and unpretending lecture, delivered with a
modesty which is quite a pattern to all similar exponents. Though
extremely ugly, they are much better shaped than such of their
predecessors as I have referred to; and they are rather picturesque to
the eye, though far from odoriferous to the nose. What a visitor left to
his own interpretings and imaginings might suppose these noblemen to be
about, when they give vent to that pantomimic expression which is quite
settled to be the natural gift of the noble savage, I cannot possibly
conceive; for it is so much too luminous for my personal civilisation
that it conveys no idea to my mind beyond a general stamping, ramping,
and raving, remarkable (as everything in savage life is) for its dire
uniformity. But let us—with the interpreter’s assistance, of which I for
one stand so much in need—see what the noble savage does in Zulu
Kaffirland.
The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to whom he submits his
life and limbs without a murmur or question, and whose whole life is
passed chin deep in a lake of blood; but who, after killing incessantly,
is in his turn killed by his relations and friends, the moment a grey
hair appears on his head. All the noble savage’s wars with his
fellow-savages (and he takes no pleasure in anything else) are wars of
extermination—which is the best thing I know of him, and the most
comfortable to my mind when I look at him. He has no moral feelings of
any kind, sort, or description; and his ‘mission’ may be summed up as
simply diabolical.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account