a valley of the hills, something over an hour's ride from the
farm, and not far from the road that ran to Swart Piet's place, lived
the little Kaffir witch-doctoress, Sihamba Ngenyanga. This woman did not
belong to any of the Transkei or neighbouring tribes, but had drifted
down from the North; indeed, she was of Swazi or some such blood, though
why she left her own people we did not know at that time. In appearance
Sihamba was very strange, for, although healthy, perfectly shaped and
copper-coloured rather than black, she was no taller than a child of
twelve years old--a thing that made many people believe that she was a
bush woman, which she most certainly was not. For a Kaffir also she was
pretty, having fine small features, beautiful white teeth, and a fringe
of wavy black hair that stood out stiffly round her head something after
the fashion of the gold plates which the saints wear in the pictures in
our old Bible.

This woman Sihamba, who might have been a little over thirty years of
age, had been living in our neighbourhood for some three or four years
and practising as a doctoress. Not that she was a "black" doctoress, for
she never took part in the "smelling-out" of human beings for witchcraft
or in the more evil sort of rites. Her trade was to sell charms and
medicines to the sick, also to cure animals of their ailments, at which,
indeed, she was very clever, though there was some who said that when
she chose she could "throw the bones" and tell the future better than
most, and this without dressing herself up in bladders and snake skins,
or falling into fits, or trances, and such mummery. Lastly, amongst the
natives about, and some of the Boers too, I am sorry to say, she had the
reputation of being the best of rainmakers, and many were the head of
cattle that she earned by prophesying the break-up of a drought, or the
end of continual rains. Indeed, it is certain that no one whom I ever
knew had so great a gift of insight into the omens of the weather at all
seasons of the year, as this strange Sihamba Ngenyanga, a name that
she got, by the way, because of her habit of wandering about in the
moonlight to gather the herbs and the medicine roots which she used in
her trade.

On several occasions Jan had sent animals to be doctored by this
Sihamba, for she would not come out to attend to them whatever fee was
offered to her. At first I did not approve of it, but as she always
cured the animals, whatever their