and only using the broad cutting edge for a circular sweep, or
sometimes in a melee. I think he considered the punch a neater

and more sportsmanlike tool, and it was from his habit of pecking
at his enemy with it that he got his name of 'Woodpecker'. Certainly

in his hands it was a terriblyefficient one.
Such was Umslopogaas' axe, Inkosi-kaas, the most remarkable and

fatal hand-to-hand weapon that I ever saw, and one which he cherished
as much as his own life. It scarcely ever left his hand except

when he was eating, and then he always sat with it under his
leg.

Just as I returned his axe to Umslopogaas, Miss Flossie came
up and took me off to see her collection of flowers, African

liliums, and blooming shrubs, some of which are very beautiful,
many of the varieties being quite unknown to me and also, I believe,

to botanical science. I asked her if she had ever seen or heard
of the 'Goya' lily, which Central African explorers have told

me they have occasionally met with and whose wonderful loveliness
has filled them with astonishment. This lily, which the natives

say blooms only once in ten years, flourishes in the most arid
soil. Compared to the size of the bloom, the bulb is small,

generally weighing about four pounds. As for the flower itself
(which I afterwards saw under circumstances likely to impress

its appearance fixedly in my mind), I know not how to describe
its beauty and splendour, or the indescribablesweetness of its

perfume. The flower -- for it has only one bloom -- rises from
the crown of the bulb on a thick fleshy and flat-sided stem,

the specimen that I saw measured fourteen inches in diameter,
and is somewhat trumpet-shaped like the bloom of an ordinary

'longiflorum' set vertically. First there is the green sheath,
which in its early stage is not unlike that of a water-lily,

but which as the bloom opens splits into four portions and curls
back gracefully towards the stem. Then comes the bloom itself,

a single dazzling arch of white enclosing another cup of richest
velvety crimson, from the heart of which rises a golden-coloured

pistil. I have never seen anything to equal this bloom in beauty
or fragrance, and as I believe it is but little known, I take

the liberty to describe it at length. Looking at it for the
first time I well remember that I realized how even in a flower

there dwells something of the majesty of its Maker. To my great
delight Miss Flossie told me that she knew the flower well and

had tried to grow it in her garden, but without success, adding,
however, that as it should be in bloom at this time of the year

she thought that she could procure me a specimen.
After that I fell to asking her if she was not lonely up here

among all these savage people and without any companions of her
own age.

'Lonely?' she said. 'Oh, indeed no! I am as happy as the day
is long, and besides I have my own companions. Why, I should

hate to be buried in a crowd of white girls all just like myself
so that nobody could tell the difference! Here,' she said, giving

her head a little toss, 'I am I; and every native for miles around
knows the "Water-lily", -- for that is what they call me -- and

is ready to do what I want, but in the books that I have read
about little girls in England it is not like that. Everybody

thinks them a trouble, and they have to do what their schoolmistress
likes. Oh! it would break my heart to be put in a cage like

that and not to be free -- free as the air.'
'Would you not like to learn?' I asked.

'So I do learn. Father teaches me Latin and French and arithmetic.'
'And are you never afraid among all these wild men?'

'Afraid? Oh no! they never interfere with me. I think they
believe that I am "Ngai" (of the Divinity) because I am so white

and have fair hair. And look here,' and diving her little hand
into the bodice of her dress she produced a double-barrelled

nickel-plated Derringer, 'I always carry that loaded, and if
anybody tried to touch me I should shoot him. Once I shot a

leopard that jumped upon my donkey as I was riding along. It
frightened me very much, but I shot it in the ear and it fell

dead, and I have its skin upon my bed. Look there!' she went
on in an altered voice, touching me on the arm and pointing to

some far-away object, 'I said just now that I had companions;
there is one of them.'

I looked, and for the first time there burst upon my sight the
glory of Mount Kenia. Hitherto the mountain had always been

hidden in mist, but now its radiant beauty was unveiled for many
thousand feet, although the base was still wrapped in vapour

so that the lofty peak or pillar, towering nearly twenty thousand
feet into the sky, appeared to be a fairy vision, hanging between

earth and heaven, and based upon the clouds. The solemnmajesty
and beauty of this white peak are together beyond the power of

my poor pen to describe. There it rose straight and sheer --
a glittering white glory, its crest piercing the very blue of

heaven. As I gazed at it with that little girl I felt my whole
heart lifted up with an indescribableemotion, and for a moment

great and wonderful thoughts seemed to break upon my mind, even
as the arrows of the setting sun were breaking upon Kenia's snows.

Mr Mackenzie's natives call the mountain the 'Finger of God',
and to me it did seem eloquent of immortal peace and of the pure

high calm that surely lies above this fevered world. Somewhere
I had heard a line of poetry,

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,
and now it came into my mind, and for the first time I thoroughly

understood what it meant. Base, indeed, would be the man who
could look upon that mighty snow-wreathed pile -- that white

old tombstone of the years -- and not feel his own utter insignificance,
and, by whatever name he calls Him, worship God in his heart.

Such sights are like visions of the spirit; they throw wide
the windows of the chamber of our small selfishness and let in

a breath of that air that rushes round the rolling spheres, and
for a while illumine our darkness with a far-off gleam of the

white light which beats upon the Throne.
Yes, such things of beauty are indeed a joy for ever, and I can

well understand what little Flossie meant when she talked of
Kenia as her companion. As Umslopogaas, savage old Zulu that

he was, said when I pointed out to him the peak hanging in the
glittering air: 'A man might look thereon for a thousand years

and yet be hungry to see.' But he gave rather another colour
to his poetical idea when he added in a sort of chant, and with

a touch of that weird imagination for which the man was remarkable,
that when he was dead he should like his spirit to sit upon that

snow-clad peak for ever, and to rush down the steep white sides
in the breath of the whirlwind, or on the flash of the lightning,

and 'slay, and slay, and slay'.
'Slay what, you old bloodhound?' I asked.

This rather puzzled him, but at length he answered --
'The other shadows.'

'So thou wouldst continue thy murdering even after death?' I said.
'I murder not,' he answered hotly; 'I kill in fair fight. Man

is born to kill. He who kills not when his blood is hot is a
woman, and no man. The people who kill not are slaves. I say

I kill in fair fight; and when I am "in the shadow", as you white
men say, I hope to go on killing in fair fight. May my shadow

be accursed and chilled to the bone for ever if it should fall
to murdering like a bushman with his poisoned arrows!' And he

stalked away with much dignity, and left me laughing.
Just then the spies whom our host had sent out in the morning

to find out if there were any traces of our Masai friends about,
returned, and reported that the country had been scoured for

fifteen miles round without a single Elmoran being seen, and
that they believed that those gentry had given up the pursuit