the sake of a change

The more I see of the Kafirs, the more I like them. People tell me they are unreliable, but I find them gay and good-humored, docile and civil. Every cowherd on the veldt has his pretty “sako” bow (phonetic spelling again, on my part) as he passes me when I am fern or grass-seed hunting in the early morning, and I hear incessant peals of laughter from kitchen and stable. Of course, laughter probably means idleness, but I have not the heart to go out every time (as indeed I ought, I believe) and make them, as Mr. Toots calls it, “resume their studies.” Their mirth is very different from that of my old friends the West Indian negroes, who are always chattering and grinning. The true Kafirs wear a stolid expression of countenance in public, and are not easily moved to signs of surprise or amusement, but at home they seem to me a very merry and sociable people. Work is always a difficulty and a disagreeable to them, and I fear that many generations must pass before a Kafir will do a hand’s turn more than is actually necessary to keep his body and soul together. They are very easily trained as domestic servants, in spite of the drawback of not understanding half what is said to them, and they make especially good grooms. The most discouraging part of the training process, however, is that it is wellnigh perpetual, for except gypsies I don’t believe there is on the face of the earth a more restless, unsettled human being than your true Kafir.
Change he seems to crave for, and change he will have, acknowledging half his time that he knows it must be for the worse. He will leave a comfortable, easy place, where he is well treated and perfectly happy, for harder work, and often blows, just for the sake of a change.

No kindness can attach him, except in the rarest instances, and nothing upon earth could induce him to forego his periodical visits to his own kraal. This means a return, for the time being, to barbarism, which seems very strange when a man has had time to get accustomed to clothes and a good room and good food, and the hundred and one tastes which civilization teaches. Imagine laying aside the comforts and decencies of life to creep in at the low door of a big beehive, and squat naked round a huge fire, smoking filthy tobacco and drinking a kind of beer which is made from mealies!

I’ve often seen this beer, and Charlie is very anxious I should taste it, bringing me some occasionally in an old biscuit-tin with assurances that “Ma’” will find it very good. But I cannot get beyond looking at it, for it is difficult to associate the idea of beer with a thick liquid resembling dirty chocolate more than anything else. So I always stave off the evil day of tasting with ingenious excuses.