beyond getting something to eat, and tobacco now and then, does not seem to ask for anything by way of payment, and I always thought the native _isanusi_ was nothing if not acquisitive? But he is always here. For want of a better expression he is getting upon my nerves, and not only upon mine. It seems as if we were somehow being drawn within an influence, and an influence the more weird and inexplicable that it is through an agency that we should traditionally hold as something inferior, and therefore quite absurd to take seriously. I mean a native influence. "Shall I risk disgracing myself for ever in your eyes by owning that I am getting just a little bit frightened? Yes, frightened--I'm afraid there's no other word for it--and the worst of it is I don't in the least know what I am frightened of. It seems as if a something was hanging over us--a something awful, and from which there is no escape. You remember it was such a presentiment that made me say what I did the last time you were here, and you reassured me on the subject of the witch doctor at any rate. As to him, there is another strange circumstance. Arlo, too, seems to have come under his influence. Arlo who never could be got to take to any native, and now he is more obedient to this Ukozi than to any of us; yet it is the obedience of fear, for he whines and crouches when the witch doctor speaks to him. Here, you will allow, is a real mystery. "There are other things I might say, but I think I have said enough. Again I hope you won't put me down as a weak-minded idiot frightened at her own shadow. This country, you see, is so new and strange to us, and our position is rather lonely; father, too, is ageing a good deal, so there is some excuse if we feel a little--well, nervous, at times. As it is I have put off writing to you until, as I reckon from what you said, your time in Zululand must be nearly up, and then only that you may not delay to come and see us immediately on your return. "All send kind regards and are looking forward to welcoming you back, but none more so than-- "Yours very sincerely, "Aida Sewin. "P.S.--I would rather you didn't mention anything of this to Falkner." ------------------------------------------------------------------------