Adventure Magazine Cover — page 49: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

In Kaffir Kraals* ag re Upina Survives through Childhood _ = SANTIE SABALALAY 2-<~¢ Who Lived it. EDITOR’S NOTE—Since white men first penetrated the Black Conti- nent there has been a constant struggle to understand the soul and psychol- ogy ofithe savage—to learn something of his ideals; his secret reactions to emotions, such as suspicion, rage, hunger, ambition, love; his instincts in the jungle; his apprehension of death; his animal lust for butchery in battle; his seeming callousness to pain; his extraordinary superstitions and occult powers. . . Hitherto the best that has been done was in H.H. Johnston’s ‘‘History of a Slave,’’ strung second-hand on tales told him by a Moham- medan converted from savagery. But here at last we have the curtain plainly lifted! Santie Sabalala, a pure-blooded Fingo-Zulu, of the race that brought forth Lobengula and Chaka, the most terrible leaders of savages of whom we have any record, has boldly bared the soul of the savage. Santie Saba- lala, who was taught by a friendly white man, gives an account that has no single hint of the influence of civilization or religion. It is pure savagery told by an extremely intelligent man who has come out of the kraals with- out forgetting anything that was magnificent, strange, horrible, or funny in the life of his own people. His style of writing is unusually good. The scenes he portrays are ex- traordinarily vivid—and terrible. And altogether we believe he contributes a remarkable chapter—more absorbing than fiction—to the history of man. While the portrayal of savage life from birth to settled maturity extends through six articles, each of these articles is a complete picture in itself. TISGIVEN very fewpeople tocome out of one environment.and live in another and be able to recount their experiences and feelings in that other existence. Yet that is precisely what the writer will attempt to do, for, have you ever thought what funny tales and incidents the people who have departed into the great Beyond would tell if they could return? * This is an Off-the-Trail Arilicle. *‘‘In Kaffir Kraals,”’ copyright, 1921, by Santie Sabalala. I hardly think they would be so very much impressed by the Great and Wonder- ful Pearly Gates or Streets of Gold as by the more “human” elements, such as the fact that St. Peter was a very surly indi- vidual, Studying one’s record in the Cor- poral Form or how quickly and efficiently the Chief Recording Angel was able to get hold of that record without any bothersome See nole at foot of first contents page. 39 CONMIC re) DOOLKE co iin