are dead, or that they cannot be identified. Such a case as this may well occur in the course of a war, for the enemy will sometimes swoop down on a kraal, and if their plans be well laid, will kill every male inhabitant. Even if all are not killed, the survivors may be obliged to flee for their lives, and thus it may often happen that a young girl finds herself comparatively alone in the world. In such a case, she would go to another chief of her tribe, or even to the king himself, and ask permission to become one of his dependants, and many instances have been known where such refugees have been received into tribes not their own. When a girl is received as a dependant, she is treated as a daughter, and if she should happen to fall ill, her guardian would offer sacrifices for her exactly as if she were one of his own daughters. Should a suitor present himself, he will have to treat with the guardian exactly as if he were the father, and to him will be paid the cattle that are demanded at the wedding. Mr. Fynn mentions that the women are very tenacious about their relatives, and that in many cases when they could not identify their real relations, they have made arrangements with strangers to declare relationship with them. It is possible that this feeling arises from the notion that a husband would have more respect for a wife who had relations than for one who had none. As an example of the curious minuteness with which the Kaffir law goes into the details of domestic polity, it may be mentioned that if a female dependant be married, and should afterward be fortunate enough to discover her real relatives, they may claim the cattle paid for her by the husband. But they must give one of the cows to her protector as payment for her maintenance, and the trouble taken in marrying her. Moreover, if any cattle have been sacrificed on her behalf, these must be restored, together with any others that may have been slaughtered at the marriage-feast. The fact that she is paid for by her husband conveys no idea of degradation to a Kaffir woman. On the contrary, she looks upon the fact as a proof of her own worth, and the more cattle are paid for her, the prouder she becomes. Neither would the husband like to take a wife without paying the proper sum for her, because in the first place it would be a tacit assertion that the wife was worthless, and in the second, it would be an admission that he could not afford to pay the usual price. Moreover, the delivery of the cattle, on the one side, and the delivery of the girl on the other, are considered as constituting the validity of the marriage contract, and are looked upon in much the same light as the giving of a ring by the husband and the giving away of the bride by her father in our own marriage ceremonies.