letter reached me all right, and just in the very nick of time, for it came on Saturday, and the day before Mr. John arrived here (Kwa’ Jobe), and called the men to come to him on Monday, that they might talk together about Matshana’s affair. On Sunday my friend Mlingane came, and we took counsel together; for by this time it was well known that Mr. John had come to speak with the people about that matter of Matshana. So we put our heads together, and I got up very early on Monday morning and hurried off to Deke, and told him that he was called by Sobantu (the Bishop) to go before the Governor. He readily agreed to go, and went down at once, on the very day when Matshana’s people came together to Mr. John, so that he never went to him; but, when I arrived, there had just come already the messenger to call him to go to Mr. John, and another came just as he was about to set off for ’Maritzburg. I told him to call for Mpupama on his way, and take him on with him. I see that you have done well and wisely in sending that letter without delay to me.” Accordingly these two men, Deke and Mpupuma, reached Bishopstowe safely in good time. Also Ntambama, Langalibalele’s brother, of whom the Bishop had heard as having been present on the occasion, readily came at his summons, though he was not asked to give his evidence, nor did the Bishop know what it would be before he made his statement in court. But for the prudent action of William Ngidi, Ntambama would have been the only witness whose testimony would have sustained the Bishop’s statements during the first days of the inquiry; and his evidence, unsupported, might have been suspected, as that of Langalibalele’s brother, of not being disinterested, and would have been contradicted at once (see below) by Ncamane’s. On Saturday, July 31st, the inquiry being about to begin on the Monday, Magema received a doleful letter from William Ngidi to the effect that the ’Inkos Sobantu must take care what he was about, for that all the people were afraid, and would not venture to come forward and give evidence against a high government official. He spoke, however, of one man “whom I trust most of all the people here,” and who had the scar upon his neck of a wound received upon the day of Matshana’s arrest. Discouraging, indeed, as it was to find on the very eve of the inquiry that all his efforts through William Ngidi had failed to procure witnesses, except the two sent down by him at the first, the Bishop was utterly at a loss to understand how his message to Cetshwayo had, to all appearance, also entirely failed with respect to those men of Matshana still living Kwa’ Jobe, as well as (it seemed) those living in Zululand.