There is nothing more puzzling in South Africa than the genealogy and nomenclature of the Kafir tribes, and nothing, perhaps, less interesting to English readers. In the first place the authorities differ much as to what is a Kafir. In a book now before me on Kafir Laws and Customs, written by various hands and published in 1858 by Colonel Maclean who was Governor of British Kafraria, we are told that “The general designation of Kafraria has been given to the whole territory extending from the Great Fish River to Delagoa Bay.” This would include Natal and all Zululand. But if there be one native doctrine more stoutly enunciated in and about Natal than another, it is that the Zulus and Kafirs are a different people. The same passage, however, goes on to say that, properly speaking, that territory only should be included which is occupied by the Amaxosa and Abatembu tribes, the Amampondo and the Amazulu being--different. An English reader must be requested to reject as surplusage for his purpose the two first syllables in all these native names when they take the shape of Ama or Aba or Amam. They are decorous, classical, and correct as from Kafir scholars, but are simply troublesome among simple people who only want to know a little. The Amam Pondos, so called from one Pondo a former chief, are familiarly called Pondos. The Aba Tembus,--from Tembu a chief thirteen or fourteen chiefs back from the present head of the tribe,--are Tembus. They have been also nick-named Tambookies, an appellation which they themselves do not acknowledge, but which has become common in all Kafir dissertations. The Amaxosas, who among the Kafirs are certainly the great people of all, in the same way are Xosas, from Xosa a chief eleven chiefs back from Kreli. But these Xosas, having been divided, have taken other names,--among which the two principal are the Galekas of which Kreli is king, from Galeka Kreli’s great-grandfather; and the Gaikas, of which Sandilli is chief,--from Gaika, Sandilli’s father. But the student may encounter further difficulty here as he will find this latter name learnedly written as Ngqika, and not uncommonly spelt as Ghika. The spelling I have adopted is perhaps a little more classical than the latter and certainly less pernicious than the former. But though, as above stated, one of the authors of the book from which I have quoted has eliminated the Pondos as well as the Zulus from the Kafirs, thus leaving the descendants of Xosa and of Tembu to claim the name between them, I find in the same book a genealogical table, compiled by another author who includes the Pondos among the Kafirs, and derives the Galekas, Ghikas, Pondos, and Tembus from one common ancestor whom he calls Zwidi, who was fifteen chiefs back from Kreli, and whom we may be justified in regarding as the very Adam of the Kafir race since we have no information of any Kafir before him.