ass, our
party then numbering thirty waggons and about sixty white people.

It was when we were about four days trek, or sixty miles, from the
pass that one evening, as we sat eating our food, Jan, Ralph, and I--I
remember it was the fried steaks of an eland that Ralph had shot--the
lad Gaasha, who had now served us for some six months, came up to the
fire, and having saluted Ralph, squatted down before him Kaffir fashion,
saying that he had a favour to ask.

"Speak on," said Ralph. "What is it?"

"Baas," replied Gaasha, "it is this; I want a week or ten days leave of
absence to visit my people."

"You mean that you want to desert," I put in.

"No, lady," answered Gaasha; "you know that I love the Baas who saved
my life far too well ever to wish to leave him. I desire only to see my
parents and to tell them that I am happy, for doubtless they think me
dead. The Baas proposes to cross into Natal by Van Reenen's Pass, does
he not? Well, not so very far from my home, although none would guess
it unless he knew the way, is another pass called Oliver's Hook, and
by that pass, after I have spoken with my father and my mother if they
still live, I would cross the Quathlamba, finding the Baas again on the
further side of the mountains, as I can easily do."

"I think that I will let you go as I can trust you, Gaasha," said Ralph,
"but tell me the name of your home, that I may know where to send to
seek you if you should not come back as you promise."

"Have I not said that I will come back, Baas, unless the lions or the
Zulus should eat me on the way? But the name of the house of my tribe is
Umpondwana. It is only a little tribe, for the Zulus killed many of us
in the time of Chaka, but their house is a very fine house."

"What does Umpondwana mean?" asked Ralph idly as he lit his pipe.

"It means the Mountain of the Man's Hand, Baas."

Ralph let his pipe fall to the ground, and I saw his face turn white
beneath the sunburn, while of a sudden his grey eyes looked as though
they were about to leap from their sockets.

"Why is it called the Mountain of the Man's Hand?" he asked in a hollow
voice. "Speak quick now, and do not lie to me."

Gaasha looked up at him astonished. "How should I know, Baas, when the
place was named so before I was born, and none have told me? But I think
that it may be because upon one of the slopes of the mountain, which has
great cliffs of red rock, are five ridges, which, seen from the plai