ld country during times of
excessive rain, and the same remark applied to roads. You should
think more of your blessings, my friends, as the old woman said to her
complaining daughter who had twins two years running, adding that they
might have been triplets.

To return--after this I confessed myself beaten and gave up until such
time as it should please Providence to turn off the water-tap. Trekking
out of sight of that infernal river which annoyed me with its constant
gurgling, I camped on a comparatively dry spot that overlooked a
beautiful stretch of rolling veld. Towards sunset the clouds lifted
and I saw a mile or two away a most extraordinary mountain on the lower
slopes of which grew a dense forest. Its upper part, which was of bare
rock, looked exactly like the seated figure of a grotesque person with
the chin resting on the breast. There was the head, there were the arms,
there were the knees. Indeed, the whole mass of it reminded me strongly
of the effigy of Zikali which was tied about my neck, or rather of
Zikali himself.

"What is that called?" I said to Hans, pointing to this strange hill,
now blazing in the angry fire of the setting sun that had burst out
between the storm clouds, which made it appear more ominous even than
before.

"That is the Witch Mountain, Baas, where the Chief Umslopogaas and a
blood brother of his who carried a great club used to hunt with the
wolves. It is haunted and in a cave at the top of it lie the bones of
Nada the Lily, the fair woman whose name is a song, she who was the love
of Umslopogaas."[*]

[*] For the story of Umslopogaas and Nada see the book
called "Nada the Lily."--Editor.

"Rubbish," I said, though I had heard something of all that story and
remembered that Zikali had mentioned this Nada, comparing her beauty to
that of another whom once I knew.

"Where then lives the Chief Umslopogaas?"

"They say that his town is yonder on the plain, Baas. It is called the
Place of the Axe and is strongly fortified with a river round most of
it, and his people are the People of the Axe. They are a fierce people,
and all the country round here is uninhabited because Umslopogaas has
cleaned out the tribes who used to live in it, first with his wolves
and afterwards in war. He is so strong a chief and so terrible in battle
that even Chaka himself was afraid of him, and they say that he brought
Dingaan the King to his end because of a quarrel about this Nada.
Ce