he majesty of the king, praised him
aloud. But he vouchsafed an answer to none. One noble only he caused to
be killed, because he carried in his hand a stick of the royal red wood,
which Chaka himself had given him in bygone years. (1)

(1) This beautiful wood is known in Natal as "red ivory."--ED.

On the last night before the forming of the Ingomboco, the
witch-doctors, male and female, entered the kraal. There were a hundred
and a half of them, and they were made hideous and terrible with the
white bones of men, with bladders of fish and of oxen, with fat of
wizards, and with skins of snakes. They walked in silence till they came
in front of the Intunkulu, the royal house; then they stopped and sang
this song for the king to hear:--

We have come, O king, we have come from the caves and the rocks
and the swamps,
To wash in the blood of the slain;
We have gathered our host from the air as vultures are gathered in
war.
When they scent the blood of the slain.

We come not alone, O king: with each Wise One there passes a
ghost,
Who hisses the name of the doomed.
We come not alone, for we are the sons and Indunas of Death,
And he guides our feet to the doomed.

Red rises the moon o'er the plain, red sinks the sun in the west,
Look, wizards, and bid them farewell!
We count you by hundreds, you who cried for a curse on the king.
Ha! soon shall we bid YOU farewell!

Then they were silent, and went in silence to the place appointed for
them, there to pass the night in mutterings and magic. But those who
were gathered together shivered with fear when they heard their words,
for they knew well that many a man would be switched with the gnu's tail
before the sun sank once more. And I, too, trembled, for my heart was
full of fear. Ah! my father, those were evil days to live in when Chaka
ruled, and death met us at every turn! Then no man might call his life
his own, or that of his wife or child, or anything. All were the king's,
and what war spared that the witch-doctors took.

The morning dawned heavily, and before it was well light the heralds
were out summoning all to the king's Ingomboco. Men came by hundreds,
carrying short sticks only--for to be seen armed was death--and seated
themselves in the great circle before the gates of the royal house.
Oh! their looks were sad, and they had little stomach for eating that
morn