PART III.-PORTUGUESE PROGRESS IN SOUTH AFRICA. JUNDREDS of well-built and wide- that he might pass the word amongst the as we boys ed on the beach. They were engaged in piling up thousands of huge beams that had been floated ashore from a fourmasted 3000-ton sailing-bark anchored in English River, which constitutes the port of Lorenzo Marquez. As they worked they sang, and when thirty or forty of them lifted high some monstrous bit of Oregon pine it was as though the act was part of some fantastic musical drill; for at a certain stage of their song up went the great beam, tossed high by one impulse, and with it on their shoulders they marched away, singing in unison, and bearing their burden to its appointed resting-place. Then they moved back to fetch another beam; but not as day-laborers move in the land of the "walking delegate." These unspoiled savages moved with the elasticity of young athletes; they chuckled and gurgled and crooned, and made those thousand idiotic noises which in children correspond to irresponsible satisfaction touching nothing in particular; and as they laughed and sang they now and then gave little kicks, and made little movements with their hands and heads, indicative of what we all wish to do when we are restless from long inaction. Here they were, in the midst of their long day of toil, showing unmistakably that they had life enough left in them to perform a song and dance between the lifts. So I asked the manager of the lumber yards (an American) if his men would like to stop work for an hour or so and have some skylarking. He called up one of his blacks, who appeared to enjoy local popularity, and told him Copyright, 1896, by Harper and Brothers. All rights reserved. a the mid-day meal, which here was eaten at eleven o'clock, and consisted of bread furnished by their employers, and such other luxury as they chose to add from their own purse. After their dinner was over our blacks of Delagoa Bay lined up along the sandy beach in the blistering noon sun, and at once commenced to sing in unison, and to beat their feet and knock together the sticks they carried, one in each hand. At first the movement suggested the drill of a gymnastic class, but in a very few minutes the excitement so rose that eyes began to snap, the bodies commenced to move convulsively, and the singing became touched with ferocity. Then up started a new note from somewhere in the ranks, and out jumped a naked Zulu, brandishing his two sticks and leading off into another song, the refrain of which was at once caught up by his comrades, who stamped the ground and swayed their bodies as though deeply affected by the words of the one who now held every eye. He was singing of war, and acted the part of a Zulu chief, making extravagant bounds into the air, brandishing his spear, and at the same time dancing in perfect accord with the weird music about him. Sometimes he splashed into the little waves of the beach; then sprang back into the deep sand; then rushed forward in attack; then crouched as though warding off an imaginary blow; finally falling back exhausted amongst his comrades. But the savage song kept on, and the place of the retiring dancer was quickly filled by another, who sprang out into the open amidst cheers and rapping of sticks. This one was obviously given to doing the comic, for he drew forth shouts of laughter by hopping round in a large circle, raising his knees to his chin like a supercilious game-cock, and wagging his hands and elbows with equally grotesque effect. He squirmed and wriggled and hopped about, while the singing changed from the sound of war to the patter of the quickstep. All beat their sticks to gether merrily, and shouted out their song with vigorous sympathy. At last he too became exhausted, and a third took the floor with a new burst of song. Each dancer impersonated some set of emotions, and was applauded according to the vigor with which he threw himself into the part. It was marvellous to note the variety of songs, or rather of chants, commanded by these men the powerful effect their voices produced. This effect reminded me of the songs sung on the march by a Russian regiment. It was usually in a minor key, and the tone was always round and rich; it might be loud and savage, but never harsh or unmusical. When the principal favorites had danced themselves into apparent helplessness the leaders drew the whole body of blacks off into two camps, about one hundred yards apart. Now commenced a war-dance of even more violent character than the first, for it was proposed that there should be a mimic battle here on the spot. The joke was a bit ghastly to me, as I recalled that this same harbor town of Lorenzo Marquez had been more than once threatened with extinction by possibly the same blacks who to-day were brandishing their clubs in sham war. But it was well done, and the better for the fact that every black present threw himself into his part with a fervor that made my illusion almost complete. They approached one another with demonstrations of great hatred; making huge springs into the air, which no doubt were intended by way of intimidation: they sang together the same Zulu war-cry which rang through the ranks of Cetewayo's warriors, and at one time carried disaster amongst English regulars. There could not have been more than seven hundred in this fight, but with all the gyrations of their arms and heads and legs and sticks I could have almost sworn that thousands were engaged. The battle looked as though it might have furnished inspiration to a Zulu Homer. Blows fell with painful suddenness; eyes glared with mock frenzy; passes were made which suggested violent death. Then, while the great body of warriors was engaged in this furious scuffle, one champion would challenge another from the opposite ranks, and the two would engage in a spirited duel, according to the rule of Zulu chivalry, using the righthand stick as a broadsword, and the lefthand one by way of a shield. Their eyes blazed with excitement; the foam dripped from the corners of their voluble lips; their bodies quivered with a frenzy that seemed real, or else it was such a frenzy as only great actors could have simulated. The shouts that burst from them and the savagery they were enacting were equally calculated to recall the wrongs they had suffered at the hands of the Portuguese and the wars in which they had shared only a few months gone by. Yet, in the midst of such fury of mind and action, not once did I see a blow dealt in malice; not once did I catch a resentful look. Now and then on the naked head came a crack that would have split a cocoanut; but, so far from evoking angry retaliation, it was met by a grin of good-nature and a redoubled zeal in warding. Finally both sides became exhausted in the prolonged conflict, and they retired, as by mutual consent, to rub their sore limbs and laugh over their little triumphs. When they had rested a little they gave us an entertainment that closed and crowned the whole affair. The white overseer knew who among the natives were the champions of Zulu fighting, and he coaxed some of them to challenge the rest to single combat. So we had now some fencing more exciting to watch than even that which we had previously witnessed. For in the grand fight the matching was the result of accident, and each fought with an eye solely to a general effect. Now, however, the champions were carefully selected, and the duel was watched by the assembled armies. Nothing on the floor of any fencing club has ever held me so interested as this series of gladiatorial duels on the sandy beach of Delagoa Bay. It is difficult to tell what most I admired-the surpassing swordsmanship, or the splendid display of mus cular agility, or the exquisite good-breeding of the knights engaged, or the wildly interested ring of spectators; it was all of it admirably strange, single of its kind, and withal typical of the black race before it had been degraded by ill treatment. II. That the blacks are still so gentle in their ways towards one another and towards their white conquerors is not due wholly to the Portuguese, whose flag floats over the coasts of Mozambique. To illustrate this, I have here gathered together, from different sources, native as well as white, the true story of a war between the Portuguese and their black subjects. When I arrived in Lorenzo Marquez the echoes of this war were still heard; several Portuguese men-of-war lay in English River under the windows of the Governor; little ginger-colored soldiers from Lisbon marched about with very big guns upon their shoulders, and every night the little fort acted as though before the next daybreak the poisonous swamps about Delagoa Bay would ring with the war cry of surrounding chiefs and the swish of well-whetted assegais. Seeing the many big ships swinging at anchor before this small town little prepares the visitor to realize that he is arriving at a port whose possession by Portugal depends upon a tenure so feeble that its |