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One after another the men came to report the completion of their tasks. "Pita ya maji tayiari," said Sanguiki coming from the new-made water trail. "I zuru," approved Kingozi. "Hema tayiari," reported Simba, reaching his hand for the light rifle. Kingozi glanced toward the tent and nodded. A licking little fire flickered in the cook camp.
By this the experienced traveller would have known that the men were very tired, tired to the point of exhaustion; for the more wearied the Central African native, or the steeper the hill he, laden, must surmount, the louder he sings or yells. "Maji hapana m'bale, bwana," observed the gun bearer to the white man. "Water is not far, master." The white man merely nodded.
The way led to the top of one of those low transverse swells that conceal the middle distance without actually breaking the surface of the veldt. In the corresponding depression beyond now could be discerned a wandering slender line of green. "Maji huko!" murmured Simba. "There is the water." Suddenly he stooped low, uttering a peculiar hissing sound.
The fulfilment of the ancient Persian prophecy as applied to Jesus, together with the reference to the "star" which the Maji saw, and which went before them till it came and stood over where the young child lay, furnishes a striking illustration of the manner in which Eastern legends and ancient sacred writings are interwoven with the doctrines relating to Christianity.
Then every blessed fool of a property owner took a whack at his bare shoulders as he passed, shrieking hysterically, "Haya! haya! pesi! pesi!" and the like to men already doing their best. It was a grand sight! In the meantime the fire itself was roaring away. The old graybeard suddenly ceased crying "maji," and darted forward to where I stood on the bale of cotton.
The Persians are by some writers said to have been the earliest fire-worshippers: by others the truth of this statement is denied, while many claim, and indeed the Maji themselves declared, that they never worshipped fire at all in any other manner than as an emblem of the divine principle which they believed resided within it.
At the foot of this is the Maji ya Wheta, a hot, deep-seated spring of fresh water, which bubbles up through many apertures in a large dome-shaped heap of soft lime an accumulation obviously thrown up by the force of the spring, as the rocks on either side of it are of igneous character. We arrived at the deserted village of Kirengue.
Vociferations, accusations, commands arose to screams. One old graybeard occupied himself by standing on tiptoe and screeching, "Maji! maji! maji!" at the top of his voice, as though that added anything to the visible supply. The water-carrier of the moment disappeared in a swirl of excited contestants.
"O Herbert Spencer," the command would run, "if you would condescend to bend your mighty intellect to the lowly subject of maji, and will snatch time from your profound cerebrations to assure its being moto sans, I would esteem it infinite condescension on your part to let pesi pesi."
The Wahumba, who are numerous, from Nyambwa to the Uyanzi border, informed my soldiers that there was a "Maji Kuba" away to the north. Mizanza, our next camp after Nyambwa, is situated in a grove of palms, about thirteen miles from the latter place.
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