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"My officer in command," he said in a polite but determined voice, "wishes me to tell you that we are a good hundred men strong, that we are well provided with food and ammunition, and that we hold a strong position in some houses and kraals. Every moment we are expecting ten thousand men from Belmont, and we are waiting here with the sole purpose of conducting them to Lord Roberts."
It was dusk when I reached the foothills of the Swaziland mountains. Far off, as I approached, I could see the twinkling lights at the kraals on the high ledges. I camped at the foot of a very high, naked peak of granite, which was almost sheer on the side facing me. This peak turned out to be densely populated by, baboons. At intervals, all night long, pandemonium reigned among these brutes.
From that time forward she took food readily enough, but only if I would feed her. "But I must tell you of the dreadful end of Hendrik. From the day that we captured Hendrika the whole place began to swarm with baboons which were evidently employed in watching the kraals. One day Hendrik went out towards the hills alone to gather some medicine.
Even the little furrow between the farmhouse and the kraals was now a stream, knee-deep, which almost bore away the Kaffer women who crossed it. It had rained for twenty-four hours, and still the rain poured on.
Divers national peculiarities of the physique of homes; as, Tartars' tents, Esquimaux snow-pits, Caffre kraals, Steppe huts, South-sea palm-thatch, tree-villages, caves, log-cabins, and so forth.
At the proper season the Cape farmers go out with buckets and shake the flowers till they have collected sufficient honey to last them for the winter, a honey more fragrant than that made by bees. After a long ride over the open, which must once have been thickly populated, to judge from the number of remains of kraals, we came at length to Fort Weeber.
A few cactus shrubs and aloes were scattered about in rear of the principal dwelling, in the midst of which stood several mud-huts resembling gigantic bee-hives. In these dwelt some of the Hottentot and other servants of the farm, while, a little to the right of them, on a high mound, were situated the kraals or enclosures for cattle and sheep.
But I, Mopo, who was now the first man in the land after the kings, ceasing to be a doctor and becoming a general, went up against Engwade with the regiment of the Bees and the regiment of the Slayers and smote him in his kraals. It was a hard fight, but in the end I destroyed him and all his people: Engwade killed eight men with his own hand before I slew him.
For this purpose are built several enclosures with high walls, "kraals," as they are called, a word of the same signification as the Spanish "corral," and I fancy introduced into Africa by the Portuguese since it is not a native term. These kraals are important structures about the homestead of a boer, almost as much so as his own dwelling-house, which of itself also bears the name of "kraal."
"The people of the kraals, taken quite by surprise, fled when they saw their foes, and most of them took shelter in the neighbouring bush. Two or three men were distinctly seen in their flight from the kraal, and one of them is known to have been wounded.
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