he counterfeited the death of some creature
he had shot, by laying his head on his hand
and shaking his left leg— at which time I
think it would have been justifiable homicide
to slay him—I have never seen that
group sleeping, smoking, and expectorating
round their brazier, but I have sincerely
desired that something might happen to the
charcoal smouldering therein, which would
cause the immediate suffocation of the whole
of the noble strangers.

There is at present a party of Zulu Kaffirs
exhibiting at the St. George's Gallery, Hyde
Park Corner, London. These noble savages
are represented in a most agreeable manner;
they are seen in an elegant theatre, fitted with
appropriate scenery of great beauty, and they
are described in a very sensible and
unpretending lecture, delivered with a modesty which
is quite a pattern to all similar exponents.
Though extremely ugly, they are much better
shaped than such of their predecessors as I have
referred to; and they are rather picturesque
to the eye, though far from odoriferous to
the nose. What a visitor left to his own
interpretings and imaginings might suppose
these noblemen to be about, when they give
vent to that pantomimic expression which is
quite settled to be the natural gift of the
noble savage, I cannot possibly conceive; for
it is so much too luminous for my personal
civilisation that it conveys no idea to my
mind beyond a general stamping, ramping,
and raving, remarkable (as everything in
savage life is) for its dire uniformity. But let
us—with the interpreter's assistance, of which
I for one stand so much in need—see what
the noble savage does in Zulu Kaffirland.

The noble savage sets a king to reign over
him, to whom he submits his life and limbs
without a murmur or question, and whose
whole life is passed chin deep in a lake of
blood; but who, after killing incessantly, is in
his turn killed by his relations and friends,
the moment a gray hair appears on his head.
All the noble savage's wars with his fellow-
savages (and he takes no pleasure in anything
else) are wars of extermination—which is the
best thing I know of him, and the most
comfortable to my mind when I look at him. He
has no moral feelings of any kind, sort, or
description; and his " mission " may be
summed up as simply diabolical.

The ceremonies with which he faintly
diversifies his life are, of course, of a kindred
nature. If he wants a wife he appears before
the kennel of the gentleman whom he has
selected for his father-in-law, attended by a
party of male friends of a very strong flavor,
who screech and whistle and stamp an offer
of so many cows for the young lady's hand.
The chosen father-in-law—also supported by
a high-flavored party of male friends—
screeches, whistles, and yells (being seated on
the ground, he can't stamp) that there never
was such a daughter in the market as his
daughter, and that he must have six more
cows. The son-in-law and his select circle of
backers, screech, whistle, stamp, and yell in
reply, that they will give three more cows.
The father-in-law (an old deluder, overpaid
at the beginning) accepts four, and rises to
bind the bargain. The whole party, the
young lady included, then falling into epileptic
convulsions, and screeching, whistling,
stamping, and yelling together—and nobody
taking any notice of the young lady (whose
charms are not to be thought of without a
shudder)—the noble savage is considered
married, and his friends make demoniacal
leaps at him by way of congratulation.

When the noble savage finds himself a
little unwell, and mentions the circumstance
to his friends, it is immediately perceived that
he is under the influence of witchcraft. A
learned personage, called an Imyanger or
Witch Doctor, is immediately sent for to
Nooker the Umtargartie, or smell out the
witch. The male inhabitants of the kraal
being seated on the ground, the learned doctor,
got up like a grizzly bear, appears, and
administers a dance of a most terrific nature,
during the exhibition of which remedy he
incessantly gnashes his teeth, and howls:—
"I am the original physician to Nooker the
Umtargartie. Yow yow yow! No connexion
with any other establishment. Till till
till! All other Umtargarties are feigned
Umtargarties, Boroo Boroo! but I perceive here
a genuine and real Umtargartie, Hoosh Hoosh
Hoosh! in whose blood I, the original Imyanger
and Nookerer, Blizzerum Boo! will
wash these bear's claws of mine. O yow yow
yow! " All this time the learned physician
is looking out among the attentive faces for
some unfortunate man who owes him a cow,
or who has given him any small offence,
or against whom, without offence, he has
conceived a spite. Him he never fails to Nooker
as the Umtargartie, and he is instantly killed.
In the absence of such an individual, the usual
practice is to Nooker the quietest and most
gentlemanly person in company. But the
nookering is invariably followed on the spot by
the butchering.

Some of the noble savages in whom Mr.
Catlin was so strongly interested, and the
diminution of whose numbers, by rum and
small-pox, greatly affected him, had a custom
not unlike this, though much more appalling
and disgusting in its odious details.

The women being at work in the fields,
hoeing the Indian corn, and the noble savage
being asleep in the shade, the chief has
sometimes the condescension to come forth,
and lighten the labor by looking at it. On
these occasions he seats himself in his own
savage chair, and is attended by his shield-
bearer: who holds over his head a shield of
cowhide— in shape like an immense muscle
shell—fearfully and wonderfully, after the
manner of a theatrical supernumerary. But lest
the great man should forget his greatness in
the contemplation of the humble works of