The Coolies are brought into the Colony by the Government under an enactment of the Legislature. They agree to serve for a period of 10 years, after which they are, if they please, taken back. The total cost to the Government is in excess of £20 per man. Among the items of expenditure in 1875 £20,000 was voted for the immigration of Coolies, of which a portion was reimbursed during that year, and further portions from year to year. The Coolie on his arrival is allotted to a planter,--or to any other fitting applicant,--and the employer for 5 years pays £4 per annum to the Government for the man’s services. He also pays the man 12s. a month, and clothes him. He feeds the Coolie also, at an additional average cost of 12s. a month, and with some other small expenses for medical attendance and lodging pays about £20 per annum for the man’s services. As I shall state more at length in the next volume, there are twelve thousand Kafirs at the Diamond Fields earning 10s. a week and their diet;--and as I have already stated there are in British Kafraria many Kafirs earning very much higher wages than that! But in Natal a Zulu, who generally in respect to strength and intelligence is superior to the ordinary Kafir, is found not to be worth £20 a year. The Coolie after his five years of compulsory service may seek a master where he pleases,--or may live without a master if he has the means. His term of enforced apprenticeship is over and he is supposed to have earned back on behalf of the Colony the money which the Colony spent on bringing him thither. Of course he is worth increased wages, having learned his business, and if he pleases to remain at the work he makes his own bargain. Not unfrequently he sets up for himself as a small farmer or market-gardener, and will pay as much as 30s. an acre rent for land on which he will live comfortably. I passed through a village of Coolies where the men had their wives and children and were living each under his own fig tree. Not unfrequently they hire Kafirs to do for them the heavy work, assuming quite as much mastery over the Kafir as the white man does. Many of them will go into service,--and are greatly prized as domestic servants. They are indeed a most popular portion of the community, and much respected,--whereas the white man does I fear in his heart generally despise and dislike the Native.