"Go slow, Amos Topper, and maybe you won't stumble. A good system, says I; and why? 'cos it's lasted all these centuries--since and before Jacob he collected a heap o' goats for his wife. See yer, when a white man marries a girl he don't give nothin' for her, but he asks her father how much he's going to give the girl. That's what a white man does, and lor' lov' yer, more often than not he swallows up all her money, and then beats her, the skunk. Now a black man is different. When he goes courtin' he don't ask the father how much the girl's goin' to bring to the hut--not he. What he does is to ask the father how much he wants for the girl. `Five cows,' says the father `for the girl is nice an' fat.' Well, the young buck he's got to get them five cows, and if he takes one outer a white man's kraal that's due to his impatience--it don't prove the system is wrong. Well, the five cows is paid over, an' the girl goes to the young buck. As usual, the pair has children--and the cows has calves. Maybe the husband beats his wife. What then; why, sir, the wife takes her children and goes back to her father. `I've come back,' she says, `and I'm going to live on them cows and calves.' The father he can't say nothin'; 'cos why, 'cos he took those same cows in trust for his daughter 'gainst she should come, back to him on account of her husband's bad treatment. That's so. The _Ukolobola_ is better'n a magistrate for keeping the peace 'twixt husband and wife. That's why I say 'tis a good system, an' a just system." "'Tis well known," said Amos, "that Abe Pike's got no cause to kick against Kaffir customs, because he keeps no cattle worth havin'--nor nothin' else, for that matter." "By the way, Uncle Abe," I said quickly, to prevent the coming storm; "you promised to tell us how it was you gave over searching for that diamond mine." "Meaning that bull elephant," said Amos Topper, still aggressively; "and I do say this, of all the yarns I heard there's none to beat that for downright contrariness to what is reasonable. Who ever heard of a bull elephant rampaging round with a red diamond stuck in his forehead?" "Humph!" grunted Abe. "If we was to believe nothin' you never yeard on we'd be a pack o' blamed jackasses, and no mistake. Now, I tell you that same elephant is a-tramping around now over yonder in the Addo bush, with that same red diamond a-gleamin' in his forehead, if so be the hide ain't growed over it." "Why don't you get a permit from Government and shoot him, then!"