We have now seen how the Kaffirs obtain the staple of their animal food by the cattle-pen and hunting-field, and how they procure vegetable food by cultivating the soil. We will next proceed to the various kinds of food used by the Kaffirs, and to the method by which they cook it. Man, according to a familiar saying, has been defined as _par excellence_ the cooking animal, and we shall always find that the various modes used in preparing food are equally characteristic and interesting. The staff of life to a Kaffir is grain, whether maize or millet, reduced to a pulp by careful grinding, and bearing some resemblance to the oatmeal porridge of Scotland. When a woman has to cook a dinner for her husband, she goes to one of the grain stores, and takes out a sufficient quantity of either maize or millet, the former being called umbila, and the latter amabele. The great cooking pot is now brought to the circular fireplace, and set on three large stones, so as to allow the fire to burn beneath it. Water and maize are now put into the pot, the cover is luted down, as has already been mentioned, and the fire lighted. The cooking pot is made of clay, which is generally procured by pounding the materials of an ant-hill and kneading it thoroughly with water. Her next proceeding is to get her mill ready. This is a very rude apparatus, and requires an enormous amount of labor to produce a comparatively small effect. It consists of two parts, namely, the upper and lower millstones, or the bed and the stone. The bed is a large, heavy stone, which has been flat on the upper surface, but which has been slightly hollowed and sloped. The stone is oval in shape, and about eight or nine inches in length, and is, in fact, that kind of stone which is popularly known under the name of “cobble.” When the corn is sufficiently boiled, and the woman is ready to grind it, she takes it from the pot, and places it on the stone, under which she has spread a mat. She then kneels at the mill, takes the stone in both hands, and with a peculiar rocking and grinding motion reduces it to a tolerably consistent paste. As fast as it is ground, it is forced down the sloping side of the stone, upon a skin which is ready to receive it. This form of mill is perhaps the earliest with which we are acquainted, and it may be found in many parts of the world. In Mexico, for example, the ordinary mill is made on precisely the same principle, though the lower stone is rudely carved so as to stand on three legs.