NATIVE PRIDE

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15169, 7 December 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

NATIVE PRIDE

A town in Rhodesia is not generally a town, declares Mrs. M. L. Woods in "Pastels Under the Southern Cross." A few scattered shops, a broad road deep in red dust, down which a sudden miscellaneous hord of black occasionally pours constitute a town. Of these natives Mrs. Woods give the following description :

"They are collected from all parts of Rhcdcsia, from Portuguese territory, even from Nyasaland. Dressed in anything and everything, they como pell-mell, grinning' and chattering, eomo like young •colts bounding into the air as they go. These happy fellows are probably rejoicing because they are being sent to some mine where certain of their friends and relations are already working.

"This is the native as he appears entering on hie term of service at the mines. I once saw a group. of black men who had completed, their term of service and were on their way home. ' They wero serious, dignified, conscious of clean and complete costumes, consisting of shirt, and trousers and a' hard'straw hat. Each had bis neat bundlo .and . his gaily ' painted wooden box.

" Wo were once appreciative witnesses of the home-coming of such a miner at a waysido station.' "' A party ,of relatives and friends ..had come from the kraal to : meet the returning one, all innocent in their nakedness and rags. ■ The plutocrat surveyed them with a scandalised eye; coldly he waved away their salutations and endearments, obviously too shocked and pained to appreciate them. -Then, he withdrew from the platform .to : the foot of a neighbouring tree, and beckoned his : bewildered friends to approach. In a'few minutes, before . the eyes of the passen--gers in the train, he had clothed his wholeparty with decency, and surely, in their eyes-, with splendour.. Then, ; and. only then, did he condescend to return their greetings; and, exceedingly joyful, all marched off."