[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Mr. Paul Robeson's emphasis
on the danger of" planting the seeds of hatred and fear" in coloured people—a cruelty from which he was himself saved by the fortunate circum: stances of his early life—brought vividly to one's mind Thomas Mofolo's story, Chaka (recently translated from the Sesuto by F. H. Dutton and published in England by the Oxford University Press).
In his picture of the rise to power of the Zulu war-lord, Mofolo stresses the fact that Chaka's own unhappy childhood —disowned by his father, ill-treated and made to feel his inferior position by his half-brothers and playmates—was precisely the thing which made him a bloodthirsty tyrant, intent only on power and revenge. I do not know whether Mofolo intended his "historical romance" to be read as a parable. But we whites might be wise to so read it.—I am,
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