Twala

“ And when I see that the horns are ready to toss Twala, then will I, with the men who remain to me, charge home in Twala's face, and if fortune goes with us the day will be ours, and before Night drives her black oxen from the mountains to the mountains we shall sit in peace at Loo. ”

“ There were also present about a score of chiefs, amongst whom I recognised most of our friends of the night before.
Twala greeted us with much apparent cordiality, though I saw him fix his one eye viciously on Umbopa.
“Welcome, white men from the Stars,” he said; “this is another sight from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last night’s moon, but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were it not for such as these,” and he pointed round him, “we should none of us be here this day; but men are better. ”

“ I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once king of the Kukuana people. This youth is Scragga.”
“He nearly scragged me,” murmured Good.
“Scragga, son of Twala, the great king—Twala, husband of a thousand wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great Road, terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of a hundred thousand warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the Terrible.”
“So,” said I superciliously, “lead us then to Twala. We do not talk with low people and underlings.”
“It is well, my lords, we will lead you; but the way is long. ”

“ Truly these Kukuanas are a wonderful people. Death has no terrors for them when it is incurred in the course of duty.
"And whilst the eyes of the multitude of Twala's soldiers are thus fixed upon the fight," went on Ignosi, "behold, one-third of the men who are left alive to us (i.e. about 6,000) shall creep along the right horn of the hill and fall upon the left flank of Twala's force. And one-third shall creep along the left horn and fall upon Twala's right flank. ”

“ Infadoos told us also that all Twala’s regiments had submitted to Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs in the outlying country. Twala’s death at the hands of Sir Henry had put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne left alive.
I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief shrugged his shoulders. “Yes,” he answered; “but the Kukuana people can only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. ”

“ The king seated himself upon the centre stool, Gagool crouched at his feet, and the others stood behind him.
"Greeting, white lords," Twala cried, as we came up; "be seated, waste not precious time—the night is all too short for the deeds that must be done. Ye come in a good hour, and shall see a glorious show. Look round, white lords ”

“ So be it, white men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and welcome, too, thou black one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou wouldst have been stiff and cold by now. It is lucky for thee that thou too camest from the Stars; ha! ha!”
“I can kill thee before thou killest me, O king,” was Ignosi’s calm answer, “and thou shalt be stiff before my limbs cease to bend.”
Twala started. “Thou speakest boldly, boy,” he replied angrily; “presume not too far.”
“He may well be bold in whose lips are truth. The truth is a sharp spear which flies home and misses not. ”

“ By the time that we had eaten our breakfasts, and smoked a pipe, a message was brought to us by no less a personage than Infadoos himself that Twala the king was ready to see us, if we would be pleased to come.
We remarked in reply that we should prefer to wait till the sun was a little higher, we were yet weary with our journey, etc., etc. It is always well, when dealing with uncivilised people, not to be in too great a hurry. They are apt to mistake politeness for awe or servility. ”

“ Incubu, the great warrior—for to-day he fought like a buffalo in a net, and Twala’s soldiers went down before his axe like young corn before the hail; ”

“ If delayed until we carry the corpse to the grave there must be ten; but after it is deposited in the grave there must be fifteen. To-morrow morning there will be a tabu, and, if the sacrifice be delayed until that time, forty men must die.' "Then the high priest, Hewahewa, inquired of the chiefs, 'Where shall be the residence of King Liholiho?' They replied, 'Where, indeed? You, of all men, ought to know.' Then the priest observed, 'There are two suitable places; one is Kau, the other is Kohala.' The chiefs preferred the latter, as it was more thickly inhabited. ”

“ I was now, as may be imagined, very familiar with all the tribe, and, by being able to make myself just understood, could join them in any affair, though Tugela was not present, as at this hunt.
After our assembling we soon set off, and proceeded in so straight a direction that I supposed the lair of a lion had already been ascertained, which surmise proved correct, for we had not gone a very great distance before we came in sight of the king of the desert, alone and majestic, having by his side the bare bones of an eland, the flesh of which animal had just served to stay his royal hunger. ”

“ The sixth heaven is the dwelling-place of Tawhaki, and it is from here that he governs the host of inferior gods and atuas who work and shape, and help and hinder, the destinies of Tiki’s children. To these three heavens of Tawhaki are directed most incantations and songs and Karakias of the people; high up into these three heavens also reaches the power of the Tohungas of great Mana, and their incantations often compel the gods to work good or evil according to the will of the Tohunga. ”

“ While the first missionaries were on their way around the Horn, the idolatrous customs which had obtained in the island, as far back as tradition reached were suddenly broken up. Old Kamehameha I., was dead, and his son, Liholiho, the new King was a free liver, a roystering, dissolute fellow, and hated the restraints of the ancient tabu. His assistant in the Government, Kaahumanu, the Queen dowager, was proud and high-spirited, and hated the tabu because it restricted the privileges of her sex and degraded all women very nearly to the level of brutes. ”

“ Carved is there Tama-te-Kapua, the great Chief—Tohunga, her ancestor, who came from Hawaiki.
Silent is the whare-puni; silent are the carved ancestors; and silent is Ngawai, watching the mist covering the snow-clad mountains in the distance.
It is the hour of the fairies and the spells; the hour when the sun hides; and Tawhiri-matea, [81] the God of the Winds, is resting—the happy hour when man forgets his wishes, and the path of his mind is guided by the spirits of his destination: it is the hour when the woman-Rangatira knows that she is a woman, and will be a slave. ”

“ The Tagalas have not the flat nose and prognathous jaw so common amongst the bulk of the Nigritian tribes; their features are regular, the expression animated, while their intelligence and skill are highly spoken of. As slaves they 264 NORTH EAST AFRICA. are much more appreciated than the Nubas, and unfortunately the occasion has often been had of comparing them from this point of view, because they are considered as the personal property of the king. This potentate is regarded as a sort of deity, whom they approach only by crawling on the stomach and scratching the ground with the left hand. ”

“ This reasoning seemed perfectly incomprehensible to Tugela; and I thought, with some trepidation, that if it were so with him, who had lived in white settlements, how might the chief Metilulu take my rejection of his offer.
“Tugela,” I said, “you are aware that it is our custom, our religion, to marry but one wife; therefore, I pray you, tell your chief how sincerely I feel his kindness, but how impossible it is for me to obey.” ”

“ Although the war-party are perfectly friendly with the Tawranga tribe, and in fact, are at present fighting the battles of the latter, yet the white people residing at Tawranga are not quite comfortable, and have taken all possible precautions to prevent robbery, even to the locking of their stockades, and securing in them such bulky articles as canoes and boats, which would otherwise have been very probably taken away or destroyed. ”

“ When all the Tribe had come together in front of the Head Chief's house, the Head Chief stood up and said and sang: 'O Tribe of Tegumai! The Wagai river has been fished too much, and the carp-fish are getting frightened. Nobody must fish in the Wagai river for six months. It is tabu both sides and the middle; on all islands and mud-banks. It is tabu to bring a fishing-spear nearer than ten man-strides to the bank of the river. It is tabu, it is tabu, it is most specially tabu, O Tribe of Tegumai! ”

“ About twelve he was carried once more to the house for eating, into which his head entered, while his body was in the dwelling house immediately adjoining. It should be remarked that this frequent carrying of a sick chief from one house to another resulted from the tabu system, then in force. There were at that time six houses (huts) connected with an establishment—one was for worship, one for the men to eat in, an eating house for the women, a house to sleep in, a house in which to manufacture kapa (native cloth) and one where, at certain intervals, the women might dwell in seclusion. ”

“ Thaba ’Ncho is a native town in which live about 6,000 persons of the Baralong tribe under a Chief of their own and in accordance with their own laws. There is nothing like this elsewhere on the continent of South Africa, or, as I believe, approaching it. Elsewhere it is not the custom of the South African Natives to live in towns. They congregate in kraals, more or less large,—which kraals are villages surrounded generally by a fence, and containing from three or four huts up to perhaps a couple of hundred. Each hut has been found to contain an average of something less than four persons. ”

“ Amongst a crowd of fifty or sixty people, not more than two or three have a cloth of native make, and rarely one of foreign manufacture is to be seen. Some women have stood before me in the very primitive costume of a bunch of leafy twigs.
But far worse clad than these are the Wataturu, a tribe living to the eastward, and the Watuta, living to the westward of this place, besides the Warori and others. ”

“ The word tauvu means literally "Sprung from the same root," or "of common origin." It is applied to two or more tribes who may live in different islands, speak different dialects, and have, in short, nothing in common but their god. They do not necessarily intermarry; they may have held no intercourse for generations; yet, though each may have forgotten the names of its chiefs three generations back, the site of its ancient home, and the traditions of its migrations, it never forgets the tribe with which it is tauvu. ”

“ Members of that tribe may run riot in its village, slaughter its animals, and ravage its plantations, while it sits smiling by; for the spoilers are its brothers, worshippers of its common ancestor, and are entitled in the fullest sense to the "freedom of the city." In several instances I have traced back the bond of tauvu to its origin, the marriage of the sister of some high chief with the head of a distant clan. ”

“ December 14.—We left Tallika, and rode on very peaceably for about two miles, when a violent quarrel arose between two of my fellow-travellers, one of whom was the blacksmith, in the course of which they bestowed some opprobrious terms upon each other; and it is worthy of remark, that an African will sooner forgive a blow than a term of reproach applied to his ancestors. “Strike me, but do not curse my mother,” is a common expression even among the slaves. ”

“ I do not know which one it is, but I think it difficult not to believe that a god who could build a world around Benares would not be intelligent enough to build it around the tank too, and not have to dig it. Youth, long life, temporary purification from sin, salvation through propitiation of the Great Fate—these are all good. But you must do something more. You must
10. Make Salvation Sure. There are several ways. To get drowned in the Ganges is one, but that is not pleasant. To die within the limits of Benares is another ”

“ Tauyasa, commoner, of Naselai village, of the tribe Kai Nuku, lived years before his time. It was his misfortune that he was born a savage with a brown skin: it should not be his fault if he did not enjoy the sweets of civilisation. White men owned land on the banks of the great river: so did he. White men wore trousers and ate with a knife and fork: so would he. White men owned cutters and paid his countrymen to work for them: and so he bought a cutter of his own and paid his fellow-villagers to plant his bananas. ”

“ As a result of this hint given by a maddened king, the great battle of the Tugela was fought at Endondakusuka in December, 1856, between the Usutu party, commanded by Cetewayo, and the adherents of Umbelazi the Handsome, his brother, who was known among the Zulus as “Indhlovu-ene-Sihlonti,” or the “Elephant with the tuft of hair,” from a little lock of hair which grew low down upon his back. ”

“ In the midst of this confusion, a young man, the younger son of a chief of no high lineage, and belonging to a small tribe, gathered around him a number of minor clans and fugitives from various quarters, and by his policy—astute, firm and tenacious—built them up into what soon became a powerful nation. Moving hither and hither along the foot of the great Maluti range, his skilful eye fixed on Thaba Bosiyo as a place fit to be the headquarters of the nation. ”