first full meal that had passed their lips after weeks
of starvation. When at length they were satisfied we addressed them,
thanking them for their bravery, telling them that they were free and
asking what they meant to do.

Upon this point they seemed to have but one idea. They said that they
would come with us who were their protectors. Then followed a great
_indaba_, or consultation, which really I have not time to set out.
The end of it was that we agreed that so many of them as wished should
accompany us till they reached country that they knew, when they would
be at liberty to depart to their own homes. Meanwhile we divided up the
blankets and other stores of the Arabs, such as trade goods and beads,
among them, and then left them to their own devices, after placing a
guard over the foodstuffs. For my part I hoped devoutly that in the
morning we should find them gone.

After this we returned to our _boma_ just in time to assist at a sad
ceremony, that of the burial of my hunter who had been shot through the
head. His companions had dug a deep hole outside the fence and within
a few yards of where he fell. In this they placed him in a sitting
position with his face turned towards Zululand, setting by his side two
gourds that belonged to him, one filled with water and the other with
grain. Also they gave him a blanket and his two assegais, tearing the
blanket and breaking the handles of the spears, to "kill" them as they
said. Then quietly enough they threw in the earth about him and filled
the top of the hole with large stones to prevent the hyenas from digging
him up. This done, one by one, they walked past the grave, each man
stopping to bid him farewell by name. Mavovo, who came last, made a
little speech, telling the deceased to _namba kachle_, that is, go
comfortably to the land of ghosts, as, he added, no doubt he would do
who had died as a man should. He requested him, moreover, if he returned
as a spirit, to bring good and not ill-fortune on us, since otherwise
when he, Mavovo, became a spirit in his turn, he would have words to say
to him on the matter. In conclusion, he remarked that as his, Mavovo's
Snake, had foretold this event at Durban, a fact with which the deceased
would now be acquainted he, the said deceased, could never complain of
not having received value for the shilling he had paid as a divining
fee.

"Yes," exclaimed one of the hunters with a note of anxiety in his voice,
"but your Snak