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"What made me think of South Africa was that novel of Olive Schreiner's, you know 'The Story of an African Farm. Gregory Rose is so like you." "I never read 'The Story of an African Farm," said Hoopdriver. "I must. What's he like?" "You must read the book. But it's a wonderful place, with its mixture of races, and its brand-new civilisation jostling the old savagery. Were you near Khama?"
All these things I find in the Boers, and it is these things which destroy people, to make an end of them in the country. The custom of the Boers has always been to cause people to be sold, and to-day they are still selling people. Khama." Coming down to a recent date, I reproduce here a letter from a Zulu Chief, which appeared in the London Press in November, 1899.
As they danced they cast charms into the fire and chanted loathsome spells and terrible curses on Khama. As a boy he had been taught that these witch-doctors had the power to slay or to smite with foul diseases. He would have been more than human if he had not felt a shiver of nameless dread at this lurid and horrible dance of death. Yet he never hesitated.
This young man's tense face and the keen eyes that glowed in the firelight showed his contempt for those who swaggered so much and did so little. He was Khama, the son of Sekhome, the chief. The wild flames gleamed on him as he stood there, full six feet of tireless manhood leaning on his gun, like a superb statue carved in ebony.
Hepburn burned with shame and anger that his own fellow-countrymen should so disgrace themselves. Ill as he was he rose and went out with the chief and saw with his own eyes that it was as Khama said. "I will clear them all out of my town," cried the chief. It was Saturday night. Khama's Decisive Hour On the Monday morning Khama sent word to all the white men to come to him.
It was no wonder that the great Bamangwato tribe looked at the tall, silent, resolute young chieftain and, comparing him with his crafty father Sekhome and his treacherous, cowardly younger brother Khamane, said, "Khama is our boikanyo our confidence." The Fight with the Witch-doctors
Chief Sekhome found that the white man's name was David Livingstone; and that he was a kind doctor who could make boys and men better when they were ill, with medicines out of a black japanned box. When evening came the boy Khama saw the strange white man open another box and take out a curious thing which seemed to open yet was full of hundreds and hundreds of leaves.
It was a cold, dreary day. The chief sat waiting in the Kgotla while the white men came together before him. Hepburn, the missionary, sat by his side. Those who knew Khama saw as soon as they looked into his grim face that no will on earth could turn him from his decisions that day. "You white men," he said to them sternly, "have insulted and despised me in my own town because I am a black man.
Even as Khama charged at the head of his men into the breaking ranks of the Matabele, his younger brother, Khamane, whom he had put in charge of his city in his absence, said to the people: "You may brew beer again now." Many of the people did not obey, but others took the corn of the tribe and brewed beer from it.
He strode forward swiftly, anger and contempt on his face, scattering the witch-doctors from his path and leaping full upon their fire of charms, stamped it out and scattered its embers broadcast. The wizards fled into the darkness of the night. The Fight with the Kaffir Beer At last Khama's treacherous old father, Sekhome, died. Khama was acclaimed the supreme chief of all the Bamangwato.
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