I must now, with the reader's permission, pass over a period of nearly six months; for to relate minutely my mode of life during that time would be but an useless recapitulation, interspersed by koodoo and fan-elephant hunting, which would become monotonous. In respect to Metilulu's _protegee_, Zenuta, unpleasantly for me, Tugela had prophesied correctly. She speedily brought me again to the chief's remembrance, and this time he spoke to me in _propria persona_, and desired me to accept her. Making my reply as respectful as I possibly could, I immediately answered, as I had to Tugela, that my religion forbade me taking another wife, as I had one living already in England, and that were I to do so, I should, in my own eyes and those of my countrymen, commit a great crime. The reason of my refusal seemed to create unbounded surprise to Metilulu, who gave utterance to many Kaffir ejaculations. Then he said gravely-- "If you have but one wife, how can she do all the work? It is impossible! She must herself object to such an arrangement; she would want other wives to help her." Let me here remark that such is the case in Caffraria, where a wife will often urge her husband to take more wives, so that her own labour may be lessened; and this is no wonder, when we consider that the most arduous and incessant toil falls to the woman's lot, while their lords and masters idle their time away in sitting and smoking in their hut when they are not milking their cows or hunting. In reply to Metilulu, I informed him that women did not work in my country as they did in his. There the men performed most of the out-door labour, while the women attended to the home duties. The chief smiled derisively as he rejoined that my England must be a very strange country. He then was anxious to know who ground the corn and tilled the fields--whether the men or the women. "The men cultivate the ground," I replied, "while the corn is made into flour by machinery." The last word seemed beyond his comprehension, so I tried to explain my meaning, aiding the description by tracing a windmill with my finger on the ground; but I fear when I ended that he had but a poor idea of the mechanism after all. "But if the men work, who hunts?" he asked, adding, with a laugh--"perhaps the women." "No," I said, "England had never possessed the wild animals Africa had, and those which were native to the soil--such as wild cats, wolves, and foxes--had mostly been exterminated, while the forests had been turned into waving corn-fields; therefore there were no hunters as those he referred to."