Sometimes, especially when returning from an unsuccessful war, the Kaffirs are put to great straits for want of food, and have recourse to the strangest expedients for allaying hunger. They begin by wearing a “hunger-belt,” _i. e._ a belt passed several times round the body, and arranged so as to press upon the stomach, and take off for a time the feeling of faint sickness that accompanies hunger before it develops into starvation. As the hours pass on, and the faintness again appears, the hunger-belt is drawn tighter and tighter. This curious remedy for hunger is to be found in many parts of the world, and has long been practised by the native tribes of North America. The hungry soldiers, when reduced to the last straits, have been known to eat their hide-shields, and, when these were finished, to consume even the thongs which bind the head of the assagai to the shaft. The same process of cooking is employed in making the tough skin eatable; namely, partial broiling _under_ ashes, then pounding between stones, and then stewing, or boiling, if any substitute for a cooking-pot can be found. One of the missionaries relates, in a manner that shows the elastic spirit which animated him, how he and his companions were once driven to eat a box which he had made of rhinoceros hide, and seems rather to regret the loss of so excellent a box than to demand any sympathy for the hardships which he had sustained. * * * * * We now come to the question of the liquids which a Kaffir generally consumes. Ordinary men are forced to content themselves with water, and there are occasions when they would only be too glad to obtain even water. Certain ceremonies demand that the warriors shall be fed plenteously with beef during the night, but that they shall not be allowed to drink until the dawn of the following day. At the beginning of the feast they are merry enough; for beef is always welcome to a Kaffir, and to be allowed to eat as much as he can possibly manage to accommodate is a luxury which but seldom occurs. However, the time comes, even to a hungry Kaffir, when he cannot possibly eat any more, and he craves for something to drink. This relief is strictly prohibited, no one being allowed to leave the circle in which they are sitting. It generally happens that some of the younger “boys,” who have been but recently admitted into the company of soldiers, find themselves unable to endure such a privation, and endeavor to slip away unobserved. But a number of old and tried warriors, who have inured themselves to thirst as well as hunger, and who look with contempt on all who are less hardy than themselves, are stationed at every point of exit, and, as soon as they see the dusky form of a deserter approach the spot which they are guarding, they unceremoniously attack him with their sticks, and beat him back to his place in the circle.