Allen Gardiner's plan was to go to the fountain head and endeavour to deal with the chief himself, so as to make him a Christian instead of an enemy. With this end he set out absolutely unaccompanied, except by Cyrus the interpreter, and a Zulu servant whom he had hired named Umpondombeni, and this with the knowledge that an English officer had shortly before been treacherously murdered, and that Dingarn was a blood- stained savage. The king had been informed of his coming, and had pronounced that he was _his_ white man, and should make haste to Umkingoglove, his present abode. The first view of this place, with a double circular fence around it, resembled a race-course, the huts being ranged along the ring of the enclosure so as to leave the centre free for the reviews and war dances of the Kaffirs. Gardiner was very near entering by the wrong gate, in which case all his escort would have been put to death. A hut was assigned to him, a sort of beehive of grass and mud, with a hole to enter by. His own lines, strung together in his many unoccupied moments for his children's benefit, are so good a description of the Kaffir huts that form a kraal or village, as to be worth inserting:-- "I see them now, those four low props That held the haystack o'er my head, The dusky framework from their tops Like a large mouse-trap round me spread. To stand erect I never tried, For reasons you may guess: Full fourteen feet my hut was wide, Its height was nine feet less. My furniture, a scanty store, On saddle-bags beside me laid, A hurdle, used to close the door, Raised upon stones, my table made." There he received a bundle of the native sugar-cane, a bowl of maize beer from Dingarn, and was invited to his palace. This was surrounded by a fence, outside which the Captain was desired to sit down. Presently a black head and very stout pair of shoulders appeared above it, and a keen sable visage eyed the visitor fixedly for some time, in silence, which was only broken by these words, while indicating an ox, "There is the beast I give you to slaughter." His black majesty then vanished, but presently to reappear from beneath the gateway dressed in a long blue cloak, with a white collar, and devices at the back. After directing the distribution of some heaps of freshly slain oxen that lay around, he stood like a statue till a seat was brought him, and then entered into conversation. Captain Gardiner made him understand that trade was not the object of the visit; but the real purpose was quite beyond him; he seemed to regard what was proposed to him as an impossibility, and began to inquire after the presents, which, unfortunately, were still on the road.