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Chitembo was working in his garden when we arrived, but soon came, and gave us the choice of all the standing huts: he is an old man, much more frank and truthful than our last headman, and says that Chitapanga is paramount chief of all the Abemba.
The humble spirit, Inaguy regretfully reported, had proved conspicuous by its absence; but after much discussion a bargain had been eventually struck whereby the two followers of Inaguy were to be retained as hostages while the headman was to be released upon condition that he returned at once to the Great White Chief, conveying a message that unless the latter and his party turned up at the village before sunset, the hostages would be put to death.
My principal companions were a Kafir of mixed origin, called Sikauli, commonly abbreviated into Scowl, the Zulu chief Saduko, and a headman of the Undwandwe blood named Umbezi, at whose kraal on the high land about thirty miles away I left my wagon and certain of my men in charge of the goods and some ivory that I had traded.
Through a man we left on an island a little below Mpende's, we subsequently learned that poor Monaheng had fled thither, and had been murdered by the headman for no reason except that he was defenceless. This headman had since become odious to his countrymen, and had been put to death by them. On the 23rd of June we entered Pangola's principal village, which is upwards of a mile from the river.
"The Great War Chief," by which we understood he meant General Greene, "say all Catawba take war-path 'gainst redcoat; make Uncanoola headman; give um new name. Wah!" At this we shook hands with him again, well pleased that our stanch ally should have recognition at the hands of the general. Then I would ask if he were on the way to raise his tribesmen to fight with us.
A runner, who was the bearer of a message to the rajah from the headman, had left on the morning after Harry's party had started; and had returned with the news that he had found the headless bodies of all the escort, but had seen no traces of the white man nor his followers, who had doubtless all been carried off by the enemy.
We once thought that when the headman came in from a visit of inspection, with his spear, bow and arrows, they had been all taken up for the occasion, and that he had all the while been hidden in some hut slily watching till he heard that the strangers might be trusted; but on listening to the details given by these men of the appearances of the crops at different parts, and the astonishing minuteness of the speakers' topography, we were persuaded that in some cases we were wrong, and felt rather humiliated.
Similarly a Central Australian headman of the Kaitish tribe strictly abstains from marital relations with his wife all the time that he is performing magical ceremonies to make the grass grow; for he believes that a breach of this rule would prevent the grass seed from sprouting properly.
On asking the names of the next headman he would not inform me, till I told him to try and speak like a man; he then told us that the first Lobemba chief was Motuna, and the next Chafunga. We have nothing, as we saw no animals in our way hither, and hunger is ill to bear.
"Don't be a greater goose than you can help," said Polly. "You know what I mean. Men are so short-sighted! Laura says, 'the Headman ought to have a small dog and a long stick'; but no matter, I'll keep an eye on the children, and you needn't worry about country life for them. They'll take to it kindly." "Well, they ought to, if they have any appreciation of the fitness of things.
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