THE KAFFIR, OR ZINGIAN TRIBES, AND THEIR PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES -- ORIGIN OF THE NAME -- THEORIES AS TO THEIR PRESENCE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA -- THE CHIEF TRIBES AND THEIR LOCALITIES -- THE ZULUS AND THEIR APPEARANCE -- THEIR COMPLEXION AND IDEAS OF BEAUTY -- POINTS OF SIMILITUDE AND CONTRAST BETWEEN THE KAFFIR AND THE NEGRO -- MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE KAFFIR -- HIS WANT OF CARE FOR THE FUTURE, AND REASONS FOR IT -- CONTROVERSIAL POWERS OF THE KAFFIR -- THE SOCRATIC MODE OF ARGUMENT -- THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA -- LOVE OF A KAFFIR FOR ARGUMENT -- HIS MENTAL TRAINING AND ITS CONSEQUENCES -- PARTHIAN MODE OF ARGUING -- PLACABLE NATURE OF THE KAFFIR -- HIS SENSE OF SELF-RESPECT -- FONDNESS FOR A PRACTICAL JOKE -- THE WOMAN AND THE MELON -- HOSPITALITY OF THE KAFFIRS -- THEIR DOMESTICATED NATURE AND FONDNESS FOR CHILDREN -- THEIR HATRED OF SOLITUDE. Over the whole of the Southern portion of the great Continent of Africa is spread a remarkable and interesting race of mankind. Though divided into numerous tribes, and differing in appearance, manners, and customs, they are evidently cast in the same mould, and belong to the same group of the human race. They are dark, but not so black as the true negro of the West. Their hair is crisp, short, and curled, but not so woolly as that of the negro; their lips, though large when compared with those of Europeans, are small when compared to those of the negro. The form is finely modelled, the stature tall, the limbs straight, the forehead high, the expression intelligent; and, altogether, this group of mankind affords as fine examples of the human form as can be found anywhere on the earth. To give a name to this large group is not very easy. Popularly, the tribes which compose it are known as Kaffirs; but that term has now been restricted to the tribes on the south-east of the continent, between the sea and the range of the Draakensberg Mountains. Moreover, the name Kaffir is a very inappropriate one, being simply the term which the Moslem races apply to all who do not believe with themselves, and by which they designate black and white men alike. Some ethnologists have designated them by the general name of Chuanas, the word being the root of the well-known Bechuana, Sechuana, and similar names; while others have preferred the word Bantu, and others Zingian, which last word is perhaps the best. Whatever may be the title, it is evident that they are not aborigines, but that they have descended upon Southern Africa from some other locality--probably from more northern parts of the same continent. Some writers claim for the Kaffir or Zingian tribes an Asiatic origin, and have a theory that in the course of their migration they mixed with the negroes, and so became possessed of the frizzled hair, the thick lips, the dark skin, and other peculiarities of the negro race.