Preparing Lunch
While out on patrol one day we were invited to lunch by a friendly chief. Lunch was prepared at our feet, the whole process from start to finish being gone through—from the cutting of the sheep’s throat (as above) to his final dishing–up.
16th July.—Early this morning I picked up Pyke and Taylor (the Native Commissioner), and we rode on to inspect the country between the centre and west of the enemy’s position. At Jozan’s Kraal (friendly), about four miles north of the enemy, we stopped to talk, get news, and lunch. Lunch was got for us by our host, Jozan, as follows:—A live sheep was brought, and laid before us on some leafy twigs; its throat was then gently cut, the liver taken out, and fried in an iron bowl. Off this we made our meal, without any bread or other concomitant, excepting salt, which was held by a human salt–cellar for us. We took our salt by dipping each his hunk of meat into the nigger’s grimy palm.
We had a good look at the enemy’s position, and then we got thirty of Jozan’s men, armed with assegais and shields, to go with us across the neutral valley and examine the great kraal that lay opposite, in which watch–fires had been burning the night before. As we got near to it, we spread out our little army into a crescent shape, with two horns advanced, and we attacked the village in style; but the only enemy there were two men and one ox, and these cleared out in a great hurry before we got in. We burned the kraal, and then reconnoitred into the koppies beyond, where we found another kraal, also deserted, which we burned. Among other odds and ends of loot in this kraal, we found a high–jump standard, evidently stolen from the Athletic Sports Ground near Buluwayo.
But my release from town and office life now came. As I knew the Matopos country and the enemy’s whereabouts, I was sent to act as guide to Colonel Plumer, who was to have the immediate direction of operations in the Matopos, Vyvyan taking the office work off my hands.
A Human Salt–Cellar