airing a little of what I knew of the language, and found to
my great delight that the midnight stranger proved to be
a man from the east coast; from Mozambique. He said he
had seen me going out alone anti without any weapons, and
remarked that it. was nob safe to do ¡so, as there were
Makololo about. Whàt he meant by this I never could
make out, because then? we were very far from the locality
where the Makololo war-was saidto.Jbe raging.-
I tried to induce- him to «accompany me to the king’s
kraal; but he saidi that be.had;;a number of comrades encamped
some distance-off, and. he could-not leave them.
The comrades wOre a flparty! of-hunters. A promise of a
present, however, b|ought him to agree that he would
help me to get Angoni men as an escort to the king’s
town. . j v-f. • •
Notwithstanding ;the fact that I had considerable difficulty
in converging, wjth myxhew. friend, his appearance at that
emergency proved a blessing. His name was Frasincho. *
Time,,seemed to i.ly at a furious rate whenever the occasion
for moving arrived. 'Htisincho was true to: his. word, but it
became evident that he was rather, frightened of the Angoni.
I stood with the fragments, of cloth, trying to make bargains
that were perforce -curbed by economy as well - as by unhappy
dreams—too well, conjured-by experience—of the
trying days in store. In matters r of bargain Frasincho was
silent, and not ; infrequently, his dumbness was vety aggravating.
Three of the six ¡A.ngOni.-men who had been paid
on the previous day again camé forward, but three morfe
were again paid.
Once when the three men who,had,been paid refused
their loads I indiscreetly, in a moment of haste,, shouted out
to them in Zulu the word' thieves. At this Frasincho
quickly and wisely said :
“ Don’t say anything more ; you are alone in this people’s
I made Frasincho explain to the Angoni that they should
say to the king, whenever we arrived, that I wished boys to
go to the lake to my white brothers. Frasincho, although
calling these people very, bad names, said the king would
be sure to give me boys.
A lunch on.fresh air and.on recollections of the past
sufficed, me, as shortly afterwards I sat watching the six
savages plunging and sporting in the deep, waters that
eddied’round the jagged rocks of the Kameo river. We
we're six miles 'north of Deuka’s town, at the * place, where I
looked upon the sparkling volume of swift flowing waters
which flowed westward to the Revuqwe river.
As we moved on, for the halt was of brief duration, the
country became more open. The waves of treeless land in
the small river valley looked flat, so that the eye s vision
was'extended, the small grass-covered hills sinking into
the prevailing plains. In 'th e uneven horizon were still
¡seen tlie'SThngànja peaks,' rearing nip against the blue' of the
eastern Sky. ,
I t struck me strangely during this part of the northward
march that my life was entirely in the hands of these
wild AngoniJ Ho' doubt they- were imbued with all sorts
■of ideas as to the hidden powers which the white man had.
Necessity compelled silence upon my part. Among themselves
they had hád j several disputes, and then for many
miles we marched along without a syllable being uttered.