Some of his immediate followers were ill, and they sent for a prophetess who knew that the white man did not believe in her powers. So she sent him a message, saying that, if he would give her a cow, she would detect the charms that were destroying his people, and would allow him to be present when she dug up the enchanted roots. So he sent a cow, and two days afterward had another message, stating that the cow was too small, and she must have a larger one, or that the difference must be made up in calico. At the same time she asked for the services of one of his men, named Maslamfu. He sent the calico, but declined the latter portion of the request, knowing that the man was only wanted as a means of gaining information. The expected day arrived, and, on account of the celebrity of the prophetess, vast numbers of men belonging to various tribes came in bodies, each headed by a chief of a kraal. Messenger after messenger came to announce her advance, but she did not make her appearance, and at last a courier came to say that the spirit would not allow her to proceed any further until some beads were sent to her. The chiefs, of whose arrival she had heard, and on whose liberality she doubtlessly depended, made a collection straightway, got together a parcel of beads, and sent the present by the messenger. The beads having softened her heart, she made her solemn entry into the kraal, followed by a guard of fifty warriors, all in full panoply of war. The procession moved in solemn march to the centre of the isi-baya, and then the warriors formed themselves in a line, their large shields resting on the ground and covering the body as high as the chin, and their assagais grasped in their right hands. She was also accompanied by Maslamfu, the very man whom she had asked for, and who was evidently an old attendant of her own. The prophetess was decorated in the usual wild and extravagant manner, and she had improved her complexion by painting her nose and one eyelid with charcoal, and the other eyelid with red earth. She had also allowed all her hair to grow, and had plastered it together with a mixture of charcoal and fat. The usual tufted wand of office was in her hand.