The red Kaffir is a man with a good deal of character, which he does his best to destroy. The pure kraal Kaffir, who lounges negligently in his red blanket or squats on his loins by the fire at night, telling interminable stories about nothing in particular, has many points which mark him from the "town boy"--the spoiled child of civilisation, who treads tenderly in his hard "Blucher" boots, and covers his corduroy trousers with bright patches of other material; who has to support his weary frame against every pillar and post and corner he comes across, and who is generally shiftless, saucy, and squalid. The kraal Kaffir is lean, long, and tough, dignified in his movements, courteous to his friends, given over to long spells of silence broken by fits of noisy eloquence, his sullen, solemn face seldom lit up by a smile, and his black smoke-stained eyes smouldering always with an unquenchable fire, that flames out when he meets a Fingo on the highway, or when the fire-water runs through his veins at the beer-drinking. The red Kaffir is a warrior. He is also a lawyer. I am not certain whether he most prefers to settle a dispute by argument or by the kerrie, but I think his idea of greatest happiness would be a long disputation extending over a week, to be rounded off with the clashing of kerries. Some people, who have seen the wide smile on the face of a West Coast negro, accept that all-pervading grin as the main feature of the entire black race, and argue from it that all blacks are good-tempered children, prone to every impulse. That is not true of the Kaffir. He is of the Bantu stock, which includes the Zulu and the Basuto, whose chief sentiment is stern pride of race, whose ruling expression is one of sullen reserve, and whose national impulse is to fight. They were cradled somewhere in the valley of the Nile, the hot nursery of fierce races; their remote ancestors swept South, destroying as they went, and the southernest fringe are Amaxosa of the Cape frontier, the men who have waged five separate wars with the red-coats of England and the sure-shooting border settlers. Pringle has, in these lines, given a vivid picture of the Kaffir: "Lo! where the fierce Kaffir Crouches by the kloof's dark side, Watching the settlers' flocks afar-- Impatient waiting till the evening star Guides him to his prey."