s reply at once powerfully aroused my curiosity, for I perceived that
'Ngaga was referring to those strange occult powers with which the witch
doctors are credited by the white men who have been thrown into most
intimate contact with the natives. I had heard many extraordinary and
apparently well-authenticated stories told respecting the alleged power
of the nyangas to visualise distant happenings, to foretell coming
events, to discover the whereabouts of lost articles, to read the
thoughts of men and lay bare their most cherished secrets, and also to
inflict upon their enemies loss, suffering, and even death. I had no
doubt that many of the strange stories to which I had listened had
originated in some very trivial and ordinary circumstance which had been
magnified and distorted into a weird and supernatural happening by the
superstitious credulity of the original narrator; but there were others
of an equally weird and unaccountable character, which had been told by
hard-headed, intelligent, unimaginative men as having come within the
scope of their own personal experience, that seemed to indicate that the
nyangas really possessed powers denied to the great majority of their
fellow-men. Moreover, it must be remembered by the sceptical that all
who have ever been intimately associated with the African savage are
fully agreed that he is gifted with certain strange, uncanny powers
quite incomprehensible to the white man, as was indubitably demonstrated
during the last Zulu war, when the natives exhibited an intimate
knowledge of certain events--notably the disaster to the British troops
at Isandhlwana--within an hour or two of their occurrence, and several
days before the news became known through the ordinary channels of
communication.

Now, taking into consideration such facts as these, which are common
knowledge and yet are quite inexplicable by the most profound students
of ordinary science, one is inclined to ask, if such things are possible
to the ordinary savages, why should not other and still more
extraordinary powers be possessed by those among them who have inherited
the secrets handed down to them by others who, through many generations,
have made it the sole business of their lives to study what we, for want
of a better term, are pleased to designate the occult? I confess that I
am not of those who will believe only what they are able to understand;
upon what principle, therefore, shall I say that I will b