our request, we sat down beside tbe monarch. Patience,
however, entailed great personal inconvenience. For four
weary hours we sat drinking beer and trying to devour great
chunks of beef handed to us upon the royal fork of His
Majesty; who, while attending to the orations of his people,
was busily engaged in gorging himself with a mass of meat
which he held on a fork in his left hand, while with an
enormous carving-knife he fanned off the swarming flies.
Every now and then Fairbairn took a sly look at me to
see what my powers of reception were in the beef-eating
line.
Little slave boys, who had only recently been captured,
and were nothing but skin and bone, crouched up beside
us, and were glad to accept either morsels of beef or drops
of beer that we did not want. G-ladly enough would I
have given them the whole lot; but I was well aware that
the better I proved a capacity for eating and drinking,
the more would savage appreciation smile upon me and
favour my designs. The reader, therefore, may be assured
that I tried to be sufficiently omnivorous.
Evidently a case of no slight importance was being heard
by. Lo-ben. All eyes were riveted upon him, and the
facial expressions showed how eager every hearer was to
catch even an echo of the weighty words which fell from the
monarch’s mouth. Occasionally, as he conversed with the
assembled endunas, Lo-ben would utter some transcendent
expression of infallible wisdom, which when given forth
would get many responsive ejaculations of acquiescence and
sympathy.
“ Yebo, yebo, Kumalo!” cried the audience. “ Ye, hay,
h a y !” *
* Yebo means yes. Kv/malo is a courtesy title for the royal family.
The other exclamations indicate approval. .
ROYAL KRAAL OF LO BENGULA.