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Updated: May 18, 2025
He strutted up and down the compound for a few minutes, showing off his fine feathers; called his chief induna to him, and instructed the man in my presence that I was to be permitted to go wherever I pleased in Basutoland, stay in the country as long as I pleased, and kill as much game as I chose; and then, dismissing me rather abruptly, retreated to the interior of the itunkulu, and, as I afterwards learned, sent for his wives, that they might behold him in his unaccustomed bravery.
Every man of these twenty-one savage warriors showed upon his person the scars of many wounds, and carried himself with a pride of bearing which forbade him to display the slightest sign of consciousness of our presence. A minute later the curtain of reed matting that hung in the doorway of the itunkulu was thrust aside, and a man came forth.
Six of these square structures built of "wattle-and-daub" and roofed with thatch, the largest of them measuring about twenty feet by twelve, and about seven feet high to the overhanging eaves were built in a row, with spaces of about six feet between them; while the seventh, which I rightly conjectured to be the itunkulu, or King's House, stood about twelve feet in front of the others, and was about the same size as the largest of them.
The king considered for a moment, and then answered in the affirmative, at the same time beckoning to a certain chief, an elderly, grey-headed man, and giving him an order; whereupon the chief whom I assumed to be deep in his monarch's confidence left his place in the semicircular cordon behind the throne, and, advancing to where the bundle lay at my feet, lifted it reverentially and bore it away to a large, rectangular hut which I took to be the itunkulu, or king's house at the far corner of the square, whither Lomalindela and I forthwith followed him.
In the privacy of his itunkulu he was much more expansive than he had been on the previous day in the presence of his indunas, unhesitatingly admitting that, had he been compelled to accept either of the above-mentioned alternatives, he would have suffered serious loss of prestige in the eyes of his own people.
At the moment of our entrance not a person but ourselves was visible in the square, except the guard at the gate; but a few seconds later twenty soldiers under the command of a very splendid-looking officer emerged from one of the buildings and took up a position on either side of a chair hewn out of a solid block of wood and draped with a magnificent lion-skin kaross, which stood some half a dozen paces in front of the itunkulu.
His Majesty immediately recognised the force of this, and thereupon retreated to the interior of the itunkulu, taking me and the clothes with him; and there, in feverish haste, he proceeded to array himself under my direction. By a miracle the garments fitted him almost as though they had been made for him for he was at this time still a young man, and had not yet begun to put on flesh.
The shouts, exclamations, laughter, and remonstrances increased rather than diminished as the moments sped, and presently Mapela came to me, took me by the arm, and gently led me from the itunkulu, saying as he did so: "Come, 'mlungu; let us go. A king is but a man, after all, among his women folk, and it is not seemly that you and I should linger and hear more of what is passing yonder."
And, as he did so, a company of a hundred picked warriors His Majesty's own bodyguard marched out from behind the itunkulu, and, under an induna in an especially imposing war dress, ranged themselves in a semicircle round and immediately behind the king's person.
For perhaps ten minutes although it seemed more like half an hour to me this dreadful, breathless stillness remained unbroken; then a faint sound, like that of a sudden breeze sweeping over grass, but which was in reality an involuntary sigh of relief from suspense emanating from fifty thousand breasts, stirred the air as the curtain veiling the entrance to the itunkulu, or king's house, was drawn aside, and the figure of Lomalindela, fully clad in his hussar uniform, sword included, appeared.
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