tainties the words of Christ may pass

away too. The depression which religious changes bring to many minds is not, however, a clear medium through which to look at facts. For those who can cast this depression away the character of Christ still remains the stronghold of the doctrine of the Resurrection. The eyes of the world are turned upon the Gospels. Perhaps there was never a time when the thought of the character of Christ preoccupied the mind of Christendom as it does now. Christianity is more the test of public and private action than The Spectator.

ever before. Is it not possible that in the future the shaking of public faith in verbal inspiration and in sacramental grace may be seen to be but the misread results of a revived power to grasp the reality of the Christian revelation? His Spirit is with Christendom while Christendom recognizes the divine side of human nature, and it can still find consolation in the eternal words of the Son of Man, "Because I live, ye shall live also," implying as they do that the inheritance of life is consequent upon the Fatherhood of God.

The general impression left upon a reader's, or at any rate on this reader's, mind after a study of Mr. Kidd's examples and deductions is that Pondo or Zulu children are in most particulars exceedingly like any other children who chance to arrive in this world with white instead of black skins. They play the same games, or, if girls, love the same dolls, as for the matter of that the old Egyptians did long ago. Indeed the doll make-believe appears to be carried further than is common in Europe. Thus the small Kaffirs build actual huts for them in place of the Dutch houses that here are provided ready made from the toyshop. They give them stones to grind their corn, mats for sleeping, pots for cooking, and so forth. They provide them with a cattle-kraal stocked with clay oxen, goats and fowls. They marry them in a realistic manner, singing the appropriate songs. The owner of a boydoll will manufacture and pay away ten clay cattle in order to supply it with a wife or wives in the shape of properly or improperly-dressed

fe

"Savage Childhood." By Dudley Kidd. London: Black, 1906. 78. 6d. net.

male dolls, and with such married puppets a lad may play although it is beneath his dignity to amuse himself with an unwed maiden doll.

So it is with everything else. They have their parties which last all night, and their clans that play with or more generally fight other clans belonging to the next kraal or tribe. The sense of honor is very fully developed in them, and the sense of greediness still more, so much so indeed that they will stuff themselves with half-cooked and unplucked birds caught in the veld, which, did they bring them home, they fear would be taken from them and eaten by their elders. They manufacture excellent traps to catch these birds and other wild things, such as mice, which they also eat. They possess an elaborate system of fagging, and a good fight with sticks, not fists, is the joy of their hearts. As at home the boys look down upon the girls, except on certain occasions, when for instance a pair of them will share the same pempe, or bird-scaring hut, in which they play at being sweethearts, the head boy choosing the best-favored girl, or sometimes the prettiest girl

selecting her own boy. They have their vices, of which the missionaries can tell much, but of course in a work of this nature these are slurred over. Also they have their virtues, such as politeness, obedience, and family affection, although Mr. Kidd says that when the boys become adult they care no more for their mothers, being henceforth almost entirely taken up with the pleasures of life. Upon this point I may add that the author's experience does not altogether tally with my own recollection. I have known grown-up Kaffirs to be extremely fond not only of their own mothers but of all their father's other wives, though doubtless, being nearer to the animal as a race, they are apt like animals to forget those who bore and nurtured them when they no longer need their protecting care. But the parents do not forget, or even the grandparents, uncles, and other relatives; indeed the affection which they show for young people is often very beautiful and touching. I never remember hearing of such atrocities happening among natives as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children bring to light annually by the thousand in our highly civilized and Christian land, and I believe that the father or relation who was guilty of such deeds would be killed or at least driven out of the tribe. Often it is far otherwise. Thus I recall that during the Matabele war a native soldier was seen running away with a bundle on his back. As the chase of him went on, in his wild effort to save his life, he threw away everything he carried, his pots, his blanket, even his assegal, all except the bundle. At length he was run down, and this bundle was found to contain his sister's heavy two-year-old child.

As any one who is acquainted with them will know, Kaffir children lead an extremely happy life. Their appear

ance in the world being desired and brought about under the most sane and sanitary conditions, they seem to suffer but little from ill-health. Their cheerfulness is amazing, and unless they happen to be Christians they have no school or prospective examinations to trouble them, nor are they ever overworked in other ways. Lastly they are not called upon to shrink from the spiritual fears and shadows which are more or less inseparable from religion, as we understand the word. No invisible, almighty Power is waiting to punish them, should they do wrong, or ultimately to drag them to some dreadful place, although it is true that in such circumstances the tribal spirit. or Itongo, may make itself disagreeable in various ways. Death and its terrors are far from them; in fact even as grown men they do not, or used not to. fear death, which it would seem they look on as a painless sleep, notwithstanding their belief in ghosts. In short, like their elders they live a life of ideal physical happiness. What has the Kaffir to fear who dwells under the shadow of the British flag? He can no longer be killed at the whim of some chief or enemy. is not pestered by our gnawing ambitions and ever-increasing needs; his nerves and his bodily state are perfect; he has food, wives, children to his heart's desire, and he can generally win wealth, that is, cattle, if he wishes for them and chooses to work. Indeed as he goes on in years the giving of his numerous daughters in marriage provides him with these automatically, and in so large a country they increase without cost or trouble to himself. Perhaps the only unhappy creatures in an average kraal are the poor old women, who being "finished" and of no further use are looked down upon and neglected by every one, and sometimes left to support themselves as best they can. All the rest rejoice

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from sunrise to set and from year's end to year's end, till at length in old age they sink to sleep, having for the most part lacked nothing except, it may be, the delights of war. Their life is one long, animal joy, which, however much it may shock us, suits them extremely well.

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That this does shock the white man there is no doubt, the missionary for certain obvious reasons, and the colonist for others, while all are perhaps unconsciously irritated by the spectacle of such complete content in a world that for most is honeycombed with sorrows. Moreover, the white man wants labor and understands very . clearly that this state of affairs prevents the Kaffir from working and forces him, the superior being, to import Chinamen to do what, in South Africa, it is not in accordance with his custom or his dignity to do himself. So he declares, and by no means beneath his breath, that the Kaffir is a worthless, idle fellow. the first point the Kaffir differs from him and the two races may be left to argue the matter out, which in the future they will doubtless do at the muzzles of guns and the points of spears, as to a small extent they have already done in the past. As to the second and this Mr. Kidd demonstrates very well-the Kaffir is not really idle; only he objects to work of a sort that does not interest him at all. What to him are railways and telephones and holes in the ground out of which it amuses a mad race to dig gold? He has his own equivalents for all such things, and to procure them he will work hard enough. See him hunting for his food or raising his corn for the winter store, or building a hut for a new wife, or engaged in the labors of battle at the bidding of his chief. Then the Kaffir works as hard as any European, for he works for what he wants, not for what the white

man wants. Perhaps in time to come the white man's needs will grow desirable in his eyes also, and then doubtless he will strive for them and become a new man, having eaten of the tree of knowledge. That must be our part, to raise his ideals to our own, and the rest will follow.

Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who knew the natives better perhaps than any other Englishman ever has or ever will again, used to say to me that they must learn by the creation of new wants and new desires to work as we do for several generations, before we could hope really to civilize or still more to Christianize them. It seems probable that he was right. As a Buddhist would say, they are several "Rounds" behind the highly developed European.

Perhaps the most interesting portions of Mr. Kidd's book are those in which he treats of the superstitions connected with childbirth and childhood, some of which, or their counterparts, are not unknown in our own enlightened land. It appears, to take an instance, although for this we have no parallel, that among the Kaffirs women think that if they eat the flesh of porcupines their children will be very ugly. The native doctor, however, is equal to the occasion. He gives to the expectant lady porcupine to eat that has been treated with his medicine and the evil is averted. What is this but a primitive application of our novel discovery of anti-toxins? Another strange prejudice is that which the Kaffir entertain against twins, that are held to be most unlucky, although oddly enough a twin is always expected to be clever. So pronounced is this dislike that in the old days a woman who produced twins for the second time was put to death. Its origin appears to be that to produce more than one offspring at a birth like a dog or a pig is supposed to be bestial, an odd

idea indeed to enter the head of a people with such strong animal proclivities.

Formerly one twin was killed, generally by its grandmother, or sometimes the father would choke it with a lump of earth, or it was exposed, or thrown into a river. Once a friend of my own, attracted by a sound of feeble wailing, found such an unfortunate infant lying beneath a bush, and saved its life. On the other hand, the surviving twin, if looked upon with a doubtful eye, is treated with great respect as a person of most unnatural abilities, such as a foreknowledge of the weather and a power of averting sickness. To strike or otherwise injure a twin is very ill-omened, and in the case of war he has the honor of being placed in the forefront of the battle, as a wild and fearless person. The twin's own views upon the subject are not recorded, nor does Mr. Kidd tell us what happens among the Bantu peoples when one of their women produces triplets. Probably the whole tribe is convulsed.

The natives seem to think it astonishing that infants should be afraid of feathers, nor does Mr. Kidd advance any explanation of this fact. Yet one suggests itself. Many European parents must have noticed how terrified their babies are of fur. Is not the reason to be found in the circumstance that without doubt countless numbers of their remote forefathers The Saturday Review.

were devoured by fur-bearing animals, and may not many little Kaffirs in the past have been eaten by eagles and vultures, which are very hungry fowl? Doubtless all these things come down with the blood, perhaps even from that dim time when man was something else.

I have said already that it would appear that on the whole, although their minds may move a little more slowly at first, there is but a small difference between the Kaffir and the European infant. Afterwards hereditary influences may count for much, but it is a question whether environment does not count for more. Mr. Kidd says:

"Our main aim in the education of backward races should be to draw out, discipline, and strengthen the various faculties (and especially the imagination) of the children, so that when the age of puberty arrives these faculties may be able to resist the degenerative and blighting tendencies that must soon arise. The politician in South Africa pays attention chiefly to the question of the franchise of the native; the statesman is profoundly interested in the education of the children."

Few will differ from this opinion; only is the South African "statesman" so profoundly interested in the matter as Mr. Kidd seems to think? If so, it is of good augury for the future of the Bantu people. H. Rider Haggard.

Mrs. Sellar, widow of the wellknown Edinburgh professor, has utilized her personal knowledge of the great literary lights of the Victorian era in a volume entitled "A Book of Recollections and Impressions."

Messrs. Blackwood will be the publishers.

Mr. George Allen has nearly ready a new volume of essays by Maurice Maeterlinck, entitled "Life and Flow

the aim of which is to give selections from the works of the foremost writers on spiritual life and practice, with biographical and critical introductions. Among the twelve volumes arranged for are "Augustine of Hippo," edited by the Bishop of Southampton; "Thomas à Kempis," edited by the Bishop of Ripon; "St. Francis de Sales," by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould; and "Savonarola," by Canon Benham.

Mr. Andrew Lang is editing an interesting book entitled "Poet's Country." The contributors include Professor Churton Collins, Mr. W. J. Loftie, Mr. E. H. Coleridge, and others, and the book will deal with the various places in Britain associated with the poets, tracing their indebtedness to nature and their own immediate environment. One feature of this book, which will be issued in May, will be its fine series of reproductions from colored drawings by Mr. F. 8. Walker.

The prospectus is out of "The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1837-61," to be edited by Mr. A. C. Benson and Viscount Esher, and published by Mr. John Murray, probably in October. The first volume covers the correspondence of the Queen till the age of twenty-five; the second, the repeal of the Corn Laws, the disruption of the old Whig party, and Chartism; the third, the Eastern Question and various struggles in Europe and Asia. There will be a large number of illustrations.

Yet another anthology! Mr. Edward Thomas has prepared an anthology of songs and ballads which will be issued shortly under the title of "The Pocket Book of Poems and Songs for the Open Air." The book is on entirely new lines; not only is it intended to serve as a country wayfarer's book, but in many cases the airs are given