Chapter Seventeen.
Majendwa’s Kraal.
A large, well-built Zulu kraal is to my mind a picturesque and symmetrical object with its perfect double circle of ring fences enclosing the yellow domes of the grass huts, and the large open space in the centre, dappled with many coloured cattle, or alive with the dark forms of its inhabitants. Such a kraal was that of the chief, Majendwa. It lay deep down in a large basin-like hollow; an amphitheatre, as it were, sparsely bushed and surrounded by high, terrace-like cliffs. On one side these rose up to a tall cone of considerable height.
The valley bottom and the slopes of the hills were covered with grazing herds, all sleek and round and shining, for the grass was abundant, and rains had been plentiful in these highlands.
“That looks promising,” I remarked to Falkner, as we gazed around upon this land of plenty. “I hope to take back a good few of these with us.”
“By Jove, yes,” he said. “I say, I wonder if there’s anything to shoot among those cliffs over there.”
“Not very much. An odd reebok or klipspringer is about all you’d get. However, we can try later on. Hallo! That looks uncommonly like Majendwa himself.”
Two tall Zulus were stalking along a path which should converge with ours a little way ahead. We had ridden on, leaving the waggons to follow, and the sound of their creaking and jolting was even now borne to our ears behind, as they wound down the rocky track which led into the hollow from that side, together with an occasional driving shout.
“Is it?” said Falkner, looking up with some curiosity. “By Jingo, he’s a fine-looking chap for a nigger, anyway.”
“Thought you’d worn through that ‘nigger’ string of yours, Falkner,” I said. “Don’t play on it for the benefit of Majendwa, that’s all.”
I may have seen as fine, but I never saw a finer specimen of a Zulu than Majendwa. Tall and straight, and for his age marvellously free from that corpulence which seems to come upon nearly all Zulus of rank or birth in middle life, every movement of his limbs showing great muscular strength the man’s frame was a model. His countenance even from a European standpoint was singularly handsome, the broad, lofty forehead and clear eyes conveying the idea of intellectuality and high breeding, in short he looked what he was, an aristocrat of his race. His greeting was dignified yet cordial.
“I see you, Iqalaqala,” he said, having waited for us to come up—“and am glad. It is long since you brought trade our way.”
I answered that my wandering days were over for the present, yet I could not altogether sit still, so had come straight up to the Abaqulusi to trade with them first. Then following their inquiring glance at my companion, I told them he was a neighbour of mine who had been an officer in the English army, causing them to look at him with redoubled interest.
“What’s it all about, Glanton?” struck in Falkner who was always impatient when I was talking and bound to cut in at the wrong time. “Who’s the other chap?”
“Muntisi, the chief’s second son. He’s got seven, but this and the eldest are the only two who wear the ring.”
“Well, I like their looks. Here, have some ’bacca, old chap,” pulling out his pouch.
Majendwa, who of course didn’t understand the familiarity of the address, received the tobacco, in his dignified way, with a slight smile and a glance of furtive curiosity at Falkner’s parti-coloured countenance, which had by no means shed all traces of his bout of fisticuffs with Dolf Norbury. Then he said:
“Come within, Iqalaqala. I will send men to show your people where to outspan.”
We walked on with them, leading our horses, for we had dismounted to greet them. As we drew near, the kraal, which had seemed deserted, sprang into life. Heads appeared above the thorn fence, watching the approach of the waggons in the distance, and from where the red topknots of women were grouped, a buzz and chatter of expectation went up.
“Hallo, Glanton. You’re never going to leave that there?” said Falkner, as I deliberately put down my rifle outside the gate before entering. “I’m hanged if I’ll leave mine.”
“But you must. It’s etiquette.”
“Oh blazes, but I don’t like it,” he grumbled, as he complied reluctantly. However Majendwa, whose ready tact had seen through his reluctance, told me we need not disarm there, and in fact we had better bring in our weapons, for there was nothing he enjoyed so much as inspecting firearms.
As we passed among the huts, I greeted several men whom I knew personally. Falkner the while staring curiously about him.
“I tell you what, Glanton. Some of these are devilish fine-looking girls,” he remarked. “Quite light coloured too, by Jove.”
I rendered this for the benefit of the chief that my companion observed that the women of the Abaqulusi were far better looking than any he had ever seen in Zululand, which evoked a laugh from those men who heard, and a delighted squeal from those of the sex thus eulogised. Then Falkner committed his first blunder.
We had gained the chief’s hut, and stooping down, I had entered the low door first, Falkner following. When halfway through he drew back.
“Dash it all!” he exclaimed, “I’ve dropped my matchbox.”
“Never mind. Come right through,” I warned. “Don’t stop on any account.”
But it was too late. He had already crawled back, and picked up the lost article.
“Why what’s the row?” he said, startled at my peremptory tone.
“Only that it’s awful bad manners with them to stop halfway through a door and back out again. It’s worse, it makes a sort of bad múti. It’s a pity you did it.”
“Oh blazes, how was I to know? Sort of ill luck, eh—evil eye and all that kind of business? Well, you can put that right with them.”
I tried to do this, incidentally explaining that he was a new arrival in the country and could not talk with their tongue yet, and of coarse was not familiar with their ways, that I hoped they would bear this in mind during the time we should spend at the kraal. But although the chief and his son took the incident in good part I could see they would much rather it had not happened. As regarded the offender himself one thing struck me as significant. Time was, and not so long ago either, when he would have pooh-poohed it, as a silly nigger superstition. Now he showed some little concern, which was a sign of grace.
Tywala, which is beer brewed from amabele, or native grown millet, if fresh and cleanly made, is an excellent thirst quencher on a hot day, and you never get it so well and cleanly made as in the hut of a Zulu chief. Of this a great calabash was brought in, and poured out into black bowls made of soft and porous clay.
“By Jove, Glanton,” cut in Falkner, during an interval in our talk. “This is something like. Why this jolly hut,” looking round upon the clean and cool interior with its hard polished floor, and domed thatch rising high overhead—“is as different as possible to the poky smoky affairs our niggers run up. And as for this tipple—oh good Lord!”
There was a squashing sound and a mighty splash. He had been raising the bowl to his lips, and that by the process of hooking one finger over the rim thereof. The vessel being, as I have said, of soft clay was unable to stand that sort of leverage, and had incontinently split in half, and the contents, liberal in quantity, went souse all over his trousers as he sat there, splashing in milky squirts the legs of Majendwa and three or four other men of rank who had come in to join the indaba. These moved not a muscle, but I could catch a lurking twinkle in the eyes of the chief’s son.
“Here, I say. Tell them I’m devilish sorry,” cried Falkner shaking off the stuff as best he could. “I’m not accustomed to these things, you know.”
I put it to them. They looked at Falkner, then at the shattered bowl, and as a Zulu is nothing if not humorous, one and all went off into a roar of laughter.
“Hallo! That’s better,” grinned Falkner looking up, as he tried to wipe off the liquid with his handkerchief. “Why these are jolly sort of fellows after all. I was afraid they were going to look beastly glum over it. Tell them I’ll get into their ways soon, Glanton. Meanwhile here’s their jolly good health,” taking a big drink out of a fresh bowl that was placed before him, only this time taking care to hold it with both hands.
Soon the cracking of whips and an increased buzz of voices without announced the arrival of the waggons, and we all went out to the place of outspan. The sun was sinking behind the high ridge which bordered the great basin, and the plain in front of the kraal was dappled with homing herds, and on these I looked with the eye of a connoisseur and especially on the little fat, black Zulu oxen, which always fetch a good price for trek purposes. The shrill shout and whistle of the boy herds, blended with the trample and mooing of the cows brought in for the evening milking—but the chief interest on the part of the denizens of the great kraal was centred around the waggons. However it was too late to unload for trade purposes that evening, so beyond getting out a few things for gifts to Majendwa and some of the principal men of the place, I left everything undisturbed.
“Here’s our hut, Falkner,” I said, presently, as we returned within the kraal. “We’re going to sleep here.”
“Sleep here?” he echoed. “Don’t know. I’d much rather sleep at the waggons. How about crawlers,” surveying doubtfully the interior, wherein Tom was depositing the few things we should require for the night.
“Oh, that won’t trouble us. Beyond a few cockroaches of the smaller sort a new hut like this is clean enough. You see Majendwa’s an old friend of mine, and he wouldn’t take it in good part if we didn’t sleep in his kraal, at any rate for a night or two. Now we’re going to dine with him. Look they’ve just killed a young beast in honour of our arrival.”
And dine with him we did, and Falkner himself was fain to own that the great slabs of grilled beef, cut from the choicest part, down the back to wit, which were presently brought in, flanked by roasted mealies, and washed down by unlimited tywala constituted a banquet by no means to be sneezed at. What though a clean grass mat did duty for a plate, and a skewer of wood for a fork, even he admitted that we might have fared much worse.
I did not talk much as to the state of the country with our entertainers that night—that I could get at better by degrees, and later. But they chuckled mightily as I described the scrap with Dolf Norbury.
“Udolfu!” Oh yes, they knew him well, used to trade with him at one time, but they didn’t want such whites as him in the Zulu country, they said. I could understand this the more readily, for I knew that he had tried on his bounce even to the verge of attempted blows with Ngavuma, Majendwa’s eldest son, who was from home just now, and for his pains had got a broad assegai into his ribs which had kept him quiet on the flat of his back for a matter of three or four months or so. So chatting—and translating for the benefit of Falkner—even he agreed we had got through an uncommonly jolly evening, and that the real Zulu was a real brick, by Jove! Then we turned in.
I have a knack of shutting my eyes and going sound off about thirty seconds after my head touches the pillow, or whatever does duty for one, and that night made no exception to my general practice. I heard Falkner fumbling about and cussing because he couldn’t get his blankets fixed up just as he wanted them, and so on; then I recollect my half-smoked pipe dropping from my mouth just as usual, and then I recollect no more, till—
I woke—not at all as usual when there was nothing to wake me. The moonlight was streaming in through the interstices of the wicker slab that constituted the door, throwing a fine silver network upon the floor of the hut. Striking a match I looked at my watch. It was just after one. But as the light flickered and went out I became aware of something else. I was alone in the hut. What the deuce had become of Falkner?
Raising myself on one elbow I called his name. No answer. I waited a little, then got up and crawled through the low doorway.
The moon was nearly at full, and I stood looking over the screen of woven grass which was erected in front of the door, leaving just room on each side for a man to pass. The scene was of wonderful beauty. The great circle of domed huts lying between their dark ring fences, the shimmering solitude of the moonlit plain, and beyond, the far amphitheatre of terraced cliffs rising to the twinkling stars. The calm beauty of it all riveted me, accustomed as I was to night in the open—do we ever get accustomed to such nights as this I wonder?—and I stood thinking, or rather beginning to think—when—
Such a clamour broke forth upon the sweet stillness of the night as though all the dogs in the kraal—no, in the world—had suddenly gone stark, staring, raving mad, and then in the light of the broad moon I saw Falkner Sewin clad in nothing but a short light shirt, sprinting as I feel sure he never sprinted before or since. Behind him poured forward a complete mass of curs, gaunt leggy brutes and as savage as they make them, given the conditions of night and a fleeing unwonted object. The ground was open in front of Majendwa’s huts, so he had some start.
“This way!” I yelled, lest he should mistake the hut, then quick as lightning I was inside. So was he, in about a moment, and was on his back with both heels jammed hard against the slammed-to wicker slab that constituted the door, while the whole snarling mouthing pack was hurling itself against the same, snapping and growling, till finding they couldn’t get in, the ill-conditioned brutes started to fight with each other. Then a man came out of an adjacent hut and shied knobsticks into the lot, dispersing them with many a pained yell. The while I lay there and laughed till I cried.
“If you could only have seen yourself, Falkner, covering distance in the moonlight and a short shirt,” I managed to gasp at length. “Man, what the deuce took you wandering about at night? They don’t like that here, you know.”
“Oh damn what they like or what they don’t like!” he growled pantingly. “I couldn’t sleep—some infernal leggy thing or other ran over me—so thought I’d admire the view a little by moonlight. Then those loathly brutes came for me all at once. Here! give us hold of that fat flask we had the sense to bring along. I want a drink badly.”
“So do I!” I said starting off to laugh again. “Well, you mustn’t do any more moonlight patrols. It’s tagati, as the Zulus say.”