suddenly Panda
appeared out of his hut, accompanied by a few servants, and seemed
to utter some kind of prayer, as he did so throwing dust or powdered
medicine towards us, though what this ceremony meant I did not
understand.

When he had finished Maputa raised a spear, whereon the whole regiment,
in perfect time, shouted out the royal salute, "Bayete", with a
sound like that of thunder. Thrice they repeated this tremendous and
impressive salute, and then were silent. Again Maputa raised his spear,
and all the four thousand voices broke out into the Ingoma, or national
chant, to which deep, awe-inspiring music we began our march. As I do
not think it has ever been written down, I will quote the words. They
ran thus:

"Ba ya m'zonda,
Ba ya m'loyisa,
Izizwe zonke,
Ba zond', Inkoosi."[*]

[*--Literally translated, this famous chant, now, I think,
published for the first time, which, I suppose, will never
again pass the lips of a Zulu impi, means:

"They [i.e. the enemy] bear him [i.e. the King] hatred,
They call down curses on his head,
All of them throughout this land
Abhor our King."

The Ingoma when sung by twenty or thirty thousand men
rushing down to battle must, indeed, have been a song to
hear.--EDITOR.]

The spirit of this fierce Ingoma, conveyed by sound, gesture and
inflection of voice, not the exact words, remember, which are very rude
and simple, leaving much to the imagination, may perhaps be rendered
somewhat as follows. An exact translation into English verse is almost
impossible--at any rate, to me:

"Loud on their lips is lying,
Rebels their King defying.
There shall be dead and dying,

Red are their eyes with hate;
Lo! where our impis wait
Vengeance insatiate!"

It was early on the morning of the 2nd of December, a cold, miserable
morning that came with wind and driving mist, that I found myself with
the Amawombe at the place known as Endondakusuka, a plain with some
kopjes in it that lies within six miles of the Natal border, from which
it is separated by the Tugela river.

As the orders of the Amawombe were to keep out of the fray if that were
possible, we had taken up a position about a mile to the right of what
proved to be the actual battlefield, choosing as our camping ground
a rising knoll that looked like a huge tumulus, and was fronted at a
distance of about five hundred yards