After thanking the Dicksons, I went to the little store and bought
some supplies. I also went to the hotel and bought some liquor, this
being merely for camouflage, as I wished them to think I needed it.
The supplies and liquor I gave to a native carrier, telling him to
take it to the place where we expected to camp for the night. There
were six packages in all, weighing about forty-five pounds, and it was
amusing to see this kaffir summon five others to help him. Each Swazi,
carrying his shield, knob-kerrie, and assegai, started for our camp
with a little parcel on his head.
The wagon was late. I began to be worried, for I had estimated that it
would arrive in the village about eight o'clock. I spent a nervous
hour or so waiting for it to show up, but it did not do so till about
9:30. I told Sibijaan to proceed to the camping place about two miles
further on, and we pushed ahead to be on hand when it arrived.
Soon we ran into a typical wonder-sight of that part of the country. I
had noticed a red glow in the sky off to the left, and on turning a
little hill we saw that the whole side of a mountain was one
tremendous fire. While this was at its worst, or most glorious,
height, the great red African moon came up over the mountain like a
huge ball of flame. The whole scene was so striking that Sugden
insisted we ought to take a picture of it. We hurried back to the
wagon and found a number of Swazis trailing it out of curiosity. With
the aid of a box of cigarettes, I pressed twelve of them into service
and got the cameras to the spot from which we wanted to take the
picture. While we were doing this little Swazis seemed to spring up
out of the ground, and before we had finished there must have been at
least four score of them wondering what the white men were trying to do.
Sibijaan saw a chance to air his superior knowledge and I heard him
telling these little fellows a preposterous yarn.
"You see those black boxes?" he said, pointing to the cameras. "Well,
those are the magic boxes of Nkoos Mzaan Bakoor, the great white
witch-doctor. He will look at the fire through them and soon it will
go out. If he is offended, he can make the fire burn up the whole
country and kill all the Swazis!"
I was afraid to look back and note the effect of this beautiful lie,
but I heard the kaffir exclamation of wonder--"Ou! Ou!"--from a dozen
throats and decided that my trusty henchman had gotten away with it.
By the time we had packed our cameras again the wagons had caught up
with us and we went on. The spot I had picked for the camp was under a
small grove of palm trees across a little stream, and we arrived there
to find that the six carriers had started a fire. It was about
midnight when our wagons reached camp, and soon after we rolled up in
our blankets and dropped off to sleep just where we stood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account