CHAPTER XVII.
THE ZULUS.
Upon entering Natal we exchange the Kafir for the Zulu,—who
conceives himself to be a very superior sort of
man—not as being equal to the white man whom he
reverences, but as being greatly above the other black races
around him. And yet he is not a man of ancient blood, or
of long established supremacy. In the early part of this
century,—beyond which I take it Zulu history goeth not,—there
was a certain chief of the Zulus whom we have
spoken of as King Chaka. To spell the name aright
there should be a T before the C, and an accent to mark
the peculiar sound in the Kafir language which is called
a click. To the uninstructed English ear Chaka will
be intelligible and sufficient. He was King of the Zulus,
but the tribe was not mighty before his time. He was
a great warrior and was brave enough and gradually strong
enough to "eat up" all the tribes around him; and then,
according to Kafir fashion, the tribes so eaten amalgamated
themselves with the eaters, and the Zulus became a great
people. But Chaka was a bloody tyrant and if the stories
told be true was nearly as great an eater of his own people
as of his enemies. In his early days the territory which
