The greatest ambition of a Kaffir is to possess cattle, inasmuch as their owner can command every luxury which a savage millionaire desires. He can eat beef and drink sour milk every day; he can buy as many wives as he likes, at the current price of eight to fourteen cows each, according to the fluctuation of the market; he can make all kinds of useful articles out of the hides; he can lubricate himself with fat to his heart’s content, and he can decorate his sable person with the flowing tails. With plenty of cattle, he can set himself up as a great man; and, the more cattle he has, the greater man he becomes. Instead of being a mere “boy,” living with a number of other “boys” in one hut, he becomes a “man,” shaves his head, assumes the proud badge of manhood, and has a hut to himself. As his cattle increase, he adds more wives to his stock, builds separate huts for them, has a kraal of his own, becomes the “umnumzana,” or great man--a term about equivalent to the familiar “Burra Sahib” of Indian life--and may expect to be addressed by strange boys as “inkosi,” or chief. Should his cattle prosper, he gathers round him the young men who are still poor, and who are attracted by his wealth, and the hope of eating beef at his cost. He assigns huts to them within his kraal, and thus possesses an armed guard who will take care of his cherished cattle. Indeed, such a precaution is absolutely necessary. In Africa, as well as in Europe, wealth creates envy, and a man who has succeeded in gathering it knows full well that there are plenty who will do their best to take it away. Sometimes a more powerful man will openly assault his kraal, but stratagem is more frequently employed than open violence, and there are in every tribe certain old and crafty cattle-stealers, who have survived the varied dangers of such a life, and who know every ruse that can be employed.