The problem of the races in Africa / by Harriette E. Colenso.
- Colenso, Harriette Emily, 1847-1932.
- Date:
- 1897
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The problem of the races in Africa / by Harriette E. Colenso. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![occupation of managing their own affairs, that a certain amount of “ idleness ” is inevitable. But I am as “ firmly persuaded ” as Colonel Elsdale that “ the energy and capacity for work is in them, and only needs to be brought out.” All that is wanted is a little sympathetic leading, as Colonel Elsdale’s own experience shows.* One word more as to idleness. Colonel Elsdale points out that when Europeans cannot get Africans to work the fault may lie with the Europeans. In this connection I may quote a lesson taught me by a Zulu. He was fresh from Zululand, just after the war of 1879, having hurried down on learning by a message from my father, that he might come to his brother, who was one of the only two wounded Zulus brought by the British army into the colony. On the wounded man’s discharge from military hospital, my father gave him food and lodging while his brother worked to earn a pony on which to carry him home to Zululand. The work at first was clearing weeds in our shrubbery, and the first day, going out to inspect in the middle of the morning, I remarked, “ How is it that I find so little done, and you sitting in the shade. I thought you Zulus were so vigorous ?” To which he replied “ Is it not the lady [my- self] who delayed ? Had she only told me of this overnight, I could have got it done before the sun began to scorch.” That was true enough, and the fault in that case, the failure to make the best use of the means available, the willing Zulu, and the fresh cool morning hours, was mine, not his. He and a half brother earned the pony, and got their crippled brother home, a journey of about 100 miles. We * Of heartless cruel driving we see the results in Matabeleland, and in Mashonaland. The natives there, it seems, are now starved before they will work for the white man. At the beginning of March the Cape Times correspondent at Salisbury tells us, “ the police have this week destroyed a large area of native crops, thus co?npelling the natives to come in and work submissively ” (Cape Times, March 12, 1897). And the London daily papers, e.g. of June 1, 3, and 14, show the same sort of thing going on in the Jubilee month, and in the Queen’s dominions—not in those of some “ irresponsible, savage despot.”](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22395842_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
