KAFFIR CHARACTERISTICS--THE CRUELTIES OF WAR--NO REAL SYMPATHY BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE--KAFFIR CRUELTIES--NIGHT ATTACK ON A KAFFIR VILLAGE--WOUNDED PRISONER--“DOCTOR” DIX--KAFFIRS BECOME RARE--CAPTURE OF NOZIAH, SANDILLI’S SISTER--SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF HER ATTENDANT--SERGEANT HERRIDGE. It was during this period, while all elements of warfare at the Cape were dying of exhaustion, that I had time to observe many characteristics of the Kaffir race. One remarkable trait in their character is their sterling singleness of purpose in whatever they undertake. Whatever task a Kaffir has in hand, he does it thoroughly--no hesitation, no swerving from the object proposed; there is a childlike belief in the possible attainment of whatever they seek, which seems incredible to those who know the folly of the searcher. Two small pieces of stick joined together by a strip of leather, and blessed by a witch-doctor, would enable him to face death, in any shape, undismayed, secure in the thought that he possesses a talisman which renders him invulnerable. A Kaffir will chase a whim, a freak, or a fancy as persistently and as eagerly as a schoolboy will chase a butterfly until he sinks from exhaustion. I have seen a native woman seated on the ground, mirroring herself in a bit of broken glass, and vainly trying to reduce her crisp woolly locks into some faint semblance of an Englishwoman’s flowing hair. Thus she would comb and comb, in the useless effort to make herself as artificial as the life she saw reflected there. Reaction with them is naturally as intense as the previous excitement. A Kaffir who has been risking his life so recklessly to defend his home, will, when defeated, become wholly heedless of what remains--wife and children, goods and chattels, may perish before he will awake from his prostration and stretch out a finger to save them. I have seen a native deserter condemned to be hanged, point to the men who were tying the noose on the branch of a tree, and explain by signs that the knot was too long for him to freely swing between the branch and the ground. I have seen another, wounded in the leg, and unable to walk to the place of execution, when placed on my pony to carry him there, urge on the animal to the spot, and when the knot had been placed round his neck, give the “click” that sent the pony on and left him swinging there. A Kaffir woman, driven from her hut, refuses to be burdened with her child on the march, and if placed by force in her arms, will drop the little thing on the first favourable occasion on the roadside to die. Men and women, huddled together as prisoners after an engagement, appear utterly indifferent to one another’s sufferings; the husband will not share his rations with his wife (unless ordered to do so), nor will she share hers with him. A Kaffir child will ask you for the beads you have promised him for bringing you to the hut in which you are going to shoot his own father.