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Pagadi is humble before you; he comes with warrior and with shield, but he comes to lay them at your feet. O father of chiefs, son of the great Queen over the water, is it permitted that Pagad' approach you? Ou, I see it is, your face is pleasant; Bayete, Bayete!" He ends, and, saluting again, springs forward, and, flying hither and thither, chants the praises of his chief.
Pagadi stops and raises his hand, and the place is filled with a silence that may be felt. But not for long. The next moment five hundred shields are tossed aloft, five hundred spears flash in the sunshine, and with a sudden roar, forth springs the royal salute, "Bayete!"
"Pagadi," he says, "Pagad', chief and father of the Amocuna, is coming. Pagad', the brave in battle, the wise in council, the slayer of warriors; Pagad' who slew the tiger in the night time; Pagadi, the rich in cattle, the husband of many wives, the father of many children. Pagad' is coming, but not alone; he comes surrounded with his children, his warriors.
Bayete!" a salutation only accorded to Zulu royalty, to the governors of the different provinces, and to Sir T. Shepstone, the Secretary for Native Affairs he would deliver his message or his news and fall into the rear. Presently came one saying, "Pagadi is very old and weak; Pagadi is weary; let his lords forgive him if he meet them not this day.
There his son, the chief that is to be, and all his wives, shall greet them; let his lords be honoured by Pagadi, through them." An acknowledgment was sent, and we still rode on, beginning the ascent of the formidable stronghold, on the flat top of which was placed the chief's kraal. A hard and stiff climb it was, up a bridle path with far more resemblance to a staircase than a road.
It rolls against the mountains, it beats against the ground: "He is coming, he is here, attended by his chosen. Now we shall go forth to slay; now shall we taste of the battle." Higher yet and higher, till at length the chief, Pagadi, swathed in war-garments of splendid furs, preceded by runners and accompanied by picked warriors, creeps slowly up. He is old and tottering, and of an unwieldy bulk.
The warrior left us little time, however, for either reflections or deductions, for, striking his shield with his assegai, he rapidly poured forth this salutation: "Bayete, Bayete, O chief from the olden times, O lords and chief of chiefs! Pagadi, the son of Masingorano, the great chief, the leader of brave ones, the son of Ulubako, greets you.
Our faces were set towards a great mountain, towering high above its fellows, called Pagadi's Kop Pagadi being a powerful chief who had fled from the Zulus in the early days of the colony, and had ever since dwelt loyally and peacefully here in this wild place, beneath the protection of the Crown.
Messengers had been duly sent to inform him that he was to receive the honour of a visit, for your true savage never likes to be taken by surprise. Other swift-footed runners had come back with the present of a goat, and the respectful answer, so Oriental in its phraseology, that "Pagadi was old, he was infirm, yet he would arise and come to greet his lords."
All through the past night the farmers for miles around had been aroused by the loud insistent cries of the chief's messengers as they flitted far and wide, stopping but a moment wherever one of their tribe sojourned, and bidding him come, and bring plume and shield, for Pagadi had need of him.
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