Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- Fiction; English fiction; Xhosa (African people) -- Fiction
It was here that the first white man had been seen by the Amakosas. "He
came," said Doda, "from there," pointing westward. "The tribes whom
this wild rider--for he was on horseback--passed on the way were too
much terrified to stop him--the covering on his head was supposed to be
part of it, but when he lifted it, it caused still greater surprise. He
was seen to get off his horse at one time, and the people followed the
spoor. They had never seen shoes then; and the print of his feet, so
different to our own, made them believe he was not formed like
ourselves. He carried in his hand a long hollow weapon, from which
there came forth fire, smoke, and thunder; and the horse, being an
animal never before seen by Kafirs, caused deeper dread. The natives
shunned him as a being not of earth. Some killed cattle on his
approach, and placed it in his way as a peace-offering, and, in return,
he would leave beads and tobacco beside it. Some honoured him as a
wizard; from him the `Wizard's Glen' takes its name, for his footprints
were discovered there one day. He had nearly reached the sea, when
Narini's people, believing him to be some unnatural animal, determined
to kill him, and, watching him from the rocks, hunted him down, and
assegaied him. Since then, men have said that he was one of a tribe of
white people, who had been sent by their chief to the country beyond
Shiloh: almost all were murdered. Some found their way back by the
Winterberg, but this one must have intended, to seek the Zooluh country,
where it was known that a race with white skins, but hair dark as the
crow's wing, exchanged beads for slaves." [The Portuguese settled on
the south-east coast.]
Doda ceased to speak, and Zoonah and Lulu commenced singing a wild air,
the first words of which were intended to imitate the clatter of a
horse's hoof.
"Ite cata, cata mawooka,
Na injormane."
"Clatter clatter, he is going;
He goes with a horse, he goes with speed."
Over and over again they repeated this inharmonious, monotonous "Ite
cata, cata mawooka," and then drew the embers of the fire together, and
prepared to set to work anew upon some fresh steaks of meat.
So, sleeping, and eating, and talking alternately, these savages passed
the day in the Sunless Kloof. Lyle was content to wait till nightfall
ere he advanced, and as he was able to understand much of the language
of these children of the wilderness, he listened not without interest to
a conversation between Doda and Lulu, the latter never having been
located, like Doda and Zoonah, among the missionaries. He had lately,
however, paid, a visit to one of the larger frontier towns, where he had
heard an account of a criminal's execution; he had not seen it himself,
and therefore was sceptical.
"I do not doubt," said Doda, "for I have been told by the teacher that
the English always kill a murderer." [The literal translation is, "one
murders another."]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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