idea of an
ancestral spirit, or the spirit of an
ancestor, to that of
a god. In the case of an able and highly
intelligent person like the
Mopo of this story, the ideal would probably not be a low one;
therefore he is made to speak of Umkulunkulu as the Great Spirit, or
God.
It only remains to the
writer to express his regret that this story is
not more
varied in its hue. It would have been
desirable to introduce
some gayer and more happy incidents. But it has not been possible. It
is believed that the picture given of the times is a
faithful one,
though it may be open to
correction in some of its details. At the
least, the aged man who tells the tale of his wrongs and
vengeancecould not be expected to treat his subject in an optimistic or even in
a
cheerful vein.
[1] I
grieve to state that I must now say the late Mr. F. B. Fynney.
NADA THE LILY
INTRODUCTION
Some years since--it was during the winter before the Zulu War--a
White Man was travelling through Natal. His name does not matter, for
he plays no part in this story. With him were two wagons laden with
goods, which he was transporting to Pretoria. The weather was cold and
there was little or no grass for the oxen, which made the journey
difficult; but he had been tempted to it by the high rates of
transport that prevailed at that season of the year, which would
remunerate him for any
probable loss he might suffer in cattle. So he
pushed along on his journey, and all went well until he had passed the
little town of Stanger, once the site of Duguza, the kraal of Chaka,
the first Zulu king and the uncle of Cetywayo. The night after he left
Stanger the air turned
bitterly cold, heavy grey clouds filled the
sky, and hid the light of the stars.
"Now if I were not in Natal, I should say that there was a heavy fall
of snow coming," said the White Man to himself. "I have often seen the
sky look like that in Scotland before snow." Then he reflected that
there had been no deep snow in Natal for years, and, having drunk a
"tot" of squareface and smoked his pipe, he went to bed beneath the
after-tent of his larger wagon.
During the night he was awakened by a sense of bitter cold and the low
moaning of the oxen that were tied to the trek-tow, every ox in its
place. He
thrust his head through the curtain of the tent and looked
out. The earth was white with snow, and the air was full of it, swept
along by a cutting wind.
Now he
sprang up, huddling on his clothes and as he did so
calling to
the Kaffirs who slept beneath the wagons. Presently they awoke from
the stupor which already was
beginning to
overcome them, and crept
out, shivering with cold and wrapped from head to foot in blankets.
"Quick! you boys," he said to them in Zulu; "quick! Would you see the
cattle die of the snow and wind? Loose the oxen from the trek-tows and
drive them in between the wagons; they will give them some shelter."
And
lighting a
lantern he
sprang out into the snow.
At last it was done--no easy task, for the numbed hands of the Kaffirs
could scarcely
loosen the
freeze 的过去分词">
frozen reims. The wagons were outspanned
side by side with a space between them, and into this space the mob of
thirty-six oxen was
driven and there secured by reims tied crosswise
from the front and hind wheels of the wagons. Then the White Man crept
back to his bed, and the shivering natives, fortified with gin, or
squareface, as it is called locally, took
refuge on the second wagon,
drawing a tent-sail over them.
For
awhile there was silence, save for the moaning of the huddled and
restless cattle.
"If the snow goes on I shall lose my oxen," he said to himself; "they
can never bear this cold."
Hardly had the words passed his lips when the wagon shook; there was a
sound of breaking reims and trampling hoofs. Once more he looked out.
The oxen had "skrecked" in a mob. There they were,
running away into
the night and the snow, seeking to find shelter from the cold. In a
minute they had vanished utterly. There was nothing to be done, except
wait for the morning.
At last it came, revealing a
landscape blind with snow. Such search as
could be made told them nothing. The oxen had gone, and their spoor
was obliterated by the fresh-fallen flakes. The White Man called a
council of his Kaffir servants. "What was to be done?" he asked.
One said this thing, one that, but all agreed that they must wait to
act until the snow melted.
"Or till we
freeze, you whose mothers were fools!" said the White Man,
who was in the worst of tempers, for had he not lost four hundred
pounds' worth of oxen?
Then a Zulu spoke, who
hitherto had remained silent. He was the driver
of the first wagon.
"My father," he said to the White Man, "this is my word. The oxen are
lost in the snow. No man knows whither they have gone, or whether they
live or are now but hides and bones. Yet at the kraal yonder," and he
pointed to some huts about two miles away on the
hillside, "lives a
witch doctor named Zweete. He is old--very old--but he has
wisdom, and
he can tell you where the oxen are if any man may, my father."
"Stuff!" answered the White Man. "Still, as the kraal cannot be colder
than this wagon, we will go and ask Zweete. Bring a bottle of
squareface and some snuff with you for presents."
An hour later he stood in the hut of Zweete. Before him was a very
ancient man, a mere bag of bones, with sightless eyes, and one hand--
his left--white and shrivelled.
"What do you seek of Zweete, my white father?" asked the old man in a
thin voice. "You do not believe in me and my
wisdom; why should I help
you? Yet I will do it, though it is against your law, and you do wrong
to ask me,--yes, to show you that there is truth in us Zulu doctors, I
will help you. My father, I know what you seek. You seek to know where
your oxen have run for shelter from the cold! Is it not so?"
"It is so, Doctor," answered the White Man. "You have long ears."
"Yes, my white father, I have long ears, though they say that I grow
deaf. I have keen eyes also, and yet I cannot see your face. Let me
hearken! Let me look!"
For
awhile he was silent, rocking himself to and fro, then he spoke:
"You have a farm, White Man, down near Pine Town, is it not? Ah! I
thought so--and an hour's ride from your farm lives a Boer with four
fingers only on his right hand. There is a kloof on the Boer's farm
where mimosa-trees grow. There, in the kloof, you shall find your oxen
--yes, five days' journey from here you will find them all. I say all,
my father, except three only--the big black Africander ox, the little
red Zulu ox with one horn, and the speckled ox. You shall not find
these, for they have died in the snow. Send, and you will find the
others. No, no! I ask no fee! I do not work wonders for
reward. Why
should I? I am rich."
Now the White Man scoffed. But in the end, so great is the power of
superstition, he sent. And here it may be stated that on the eleventh
day of his
sojourn at the kraal of Zweete, those whom he sent returned
with the oxen, except the three only. After that he scoffed no more.
Those eleven days he spent in a hut of the old man's kraal, and every
afternoon he came and talked with him, sitting far into the night.
On the third day he asked Zweete how it was that his left hand was
white and shrivelled, and who were Umslopogaas and Nada, of whom he
had let fall some words. Then the old man told him the tale that is
set out here. Day by day he told some of it till it was finished. It
is not all written in these pages, for portions may have been
forgotten, or put aside as irrelevant. Neither has it been possible
for the
writer of it to render the full force of the Zulu idiom nor to
convey a picture of the
teller. For, in truth, he acted rather than
told his story. Was the death of a
warrior in question, he stabbed
with his stick, showing how the blow fell and where; did the story
grow
sorrowful, he groaned, or even wept. Moreover, he had many
voices, one for each of the actors in his tale. This man, ancient and
withered, seemed to live again in the far past. It was the past that
spoke to his
listener, telling of deeds long forgotten, of deeds that
are no more known.
Yet as he best may, the White Man has set down the substance of the
story of Zweete in the spirit in which Zweete told it. And because the
history of Nada the Lily and of those with whom her life was
intertwined moved him
strangely, and in many ways, he has done more,
he has printed it that others may judge of it.
And now his part is played. Let him who was named Zweete, but who had
another name, take up the story.
CHAPTER I
THE BOY CHAKA PROPHESIES
You ask me, my father, to tell you the tale of the youth of
Umslopogaas,
holder of the iron Chieftainess, the axe Groan-maker, who
was named Bulalio the Slaughterer, and of his love for Nada, the most
beautiful of Zulu women. It is long; but you are here for many nights,
and, if I live to tell it, it shall be told. Strengthen your heart, my
father, for I have much to say that is
sorrowful, and even now, when I
think of Nada the tears creep through the horn that shuts out my old
eyes from light.
Do you know who I am, my father? You do not know. You think that I am
an old, old witch-doctor named Zweete. So men have thought for many
years, but that is not my name. Few have known it, for I have kept it
locked in my breast, lest, thought I live now under the law of the
White Man, and the Great Queen is my chieftainess, an assegai still
might find this heart did any know my name.
Look at this hand, my father--no, not that which is withered with
fire; look on this right hand of mine. You see it, though I who am
blind cannot. But still, within me, I see it as it was once. Ay! I see
it red and strong--red with the blood of two kings. Listen, my father;
bend your ear to me and listen. I am Mopo--ah! I felt you start; you
start as the
regiment of the Bees started when Mopo walked before
their ranks, and from the assegai in his hand the blood of Chaka[1]
dropped slowly to the earth. I am Mopo who slew Chaka the king. I
killed him with Dingaan and Umhlangana the princes; but the wound was
mine that his life crept out of, and but for me he would never have
been slain. I killed him with the princes, but Dingaan, I and one
other slew alone.
[1] The Zulu Napoleon, one of the greatest geniuses and most wicked
men who ever lived. He was killed in the year 1828, having
slaughtered more than a million human beings.--ED.
What do you say? "Dingaan died by the Tongola."
Yes, yes, he died, but not there; he died on the Ghost Mountain; he
lies in the breast of the old Stone Witch who sits aloft forever
waiting for the world to
perish. But I also was on the Ghost Mountain.
In those days my feet still could travel fast, and
vengeance would not
let me sleep. I travelled by day, and by night I found him. I and
another, we killed him--ah! ah!
Why do I tell you this? What has it to do with the loves of
Umslopogaas and Nada the Lily? I will tell you. I stabbed Chaka for
the sake of my sister, Baleka, the mother of Umslopogaas, and because
he had murdered my wives and children. I and Umslopogaas slew Dingaan
for the sake of Nada, who was my daughter.
There are great names in the story, my father. Yes, many have heard
the names: when the Impis roared them out as they charged in battle, I
have felt the mountains shake and seen the waters
quiver in their
sound. But where are they now? Silence has them, and the white men
write them down in books. I opened the gates of distance for the
holders of the names. They passed through and they are gone beyond. I
cut the strings that tied them to the world. They fell off. Ha! ha!
They fell off! Perhaps they are falling still, perhaps they creep
about their
desolate kraals in the skins of snakes. I wish I knew the
snakes that I might crush them with my heel. Yonder, beneath us, at
the burying place of kings, there is a hole. In that hole lies the
bones of Chaka, the king who died for Baleka. Far away in Zululand
there is a cleft upon the Ghost Mountain. At the foot of that cleft
lie the bones of Dingaan, the king who died for Nada. It was far to
fall and he was heavy; those bones of his are broken into little
pieces. I went to see them when the vultures and the jackals had done
their work. And then I laughed three times and came here to die.
All that is long ago, and I have not died; though I wish to die and
follow the road that Nada trod. Perhaps I have lived to tell you this
tale, my father, that you may repeat it to the white men if you will.