Pambaniso, a Kaffir Hero. By Thomas Ross Beattie. (Sampson Low,
Marston, and Co.)—This is not one of the fictions with which our boys and girls are wont to be entertained and instructed, more or less, at this season, but a true chronicle of Kaffir life. Pambaniso was a real man, " tho Robin Hood of Kaffraria," as Mr. Beattie calls him, and his adventures are worth reading. But the most notable part of the book is the end. The two chapters entitled "A Strange Delusion," and " Waiting for the End," contain the story of as curious a chapter as is to be found in human history. About forty years ago the Kaffirs were induced, by a madman who posed as a prophet, to believe that if they would kill all their cattle and destroy all their food, they would receive these possessions back again in a general resurrec- tion of all that they had sacrificed, together with a vast increase, and the additional advantage that their English masters would be driven out of the country. This was actually done, and done so completely that thousands died of starvation. It is curious to see in actual progress the delusions that have passed out of the midst of civilisation.
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