Though these people practice polygamy, giving for a cause, if asked, the necessity for keeping their huts right, getting their dinners cooked, and grounds tilled; and though, also, they treat their women not very much better than the Australian natives who regarded the softer sex but little above their dogs, yet they are extremely jealous respecting their wives' fidelity. The chief has a regular harem, which, like in Turkey, has a special guard to watch who goes out or in. Should a wife be found unfaithful, the punishment is severe, sometimes death even. I believe that, in the present case, the husband fancied his new wife had fled to another kraal, for he was extremely irate; but he first decided to go to the bush where the women had been, so he started off with several others, Tugela and myself among the number, and led by the boy--I mean a boy now, who had gone out with the women--not to help, be it understood, for even at an early age the male sex asserts its superiority. Forward we went into the bush, lit up by the red glow of the setting sun, but not a sign could we discover of the lost wife. For over an hour we searched and called in vain, and the husband ordered a return, stating his resolve to visit the neighbouring kraals next morning, and demand to have his wife restored, as he felt certain she had fled to one of them. It was at this moment that a peculiar cry from one of the Kaffir's brought all the rest to the spot. There, on the grass, apparently dead, murdered, laid the body of the young wife. The horror I experienced at the sight was not seemingly felt by my companions, rage being the only feeling they exhibited, as, taking up the inanimate body, in which we yet detected signs of life, we bore it back to the kraal. A large wound was on the skull, while there were others about the body, such as, with an European, might in all probability have caused death, but to my surprise Tugela said that he had no doubt the woman would soon get over it. "But who could have tried to murder her?" I asked. "The other wives," he replied coolly. "The other wives! In Heaven's name, why?" "From jealousy. Old wives do not like young ones." "And what will they get for doing it?" "Stick, a great deal of stick." Tugela was right; the wives did get stick considerably; while, a few days after, I saw the young wife working in the kraal as if nothing had happened. The tenacity of life in these people, I confessed, was great indeed. CHAPTER TWELVE. THE ELEPHANT HUNT--MY MIND GROWS EASIER.