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Updated: May 20, 2025
"Sit," I said, pointing to the yellow-wood bench which was seated with strips of rimpi, and the three of them squeezed themselves into the bench and sat there like white-breasted crows on a bough; the young man staring at me with a silly smile, the lawyer peering this way and that, and turning up his sharp nose at the place and all in it, and the interpreter doing nothing at all, for he was a sensible man, who knew the habits of well-bred people and how to behave in their presence.
I slept that night on the cartel, which is a light hardwood frame, closely strung lengthwise and across with rimpi, or thin strips of hide, and which, slung to the framework of the interior of the wagon, under the tent, serves as a bedstead. Upon this, if furnished with a mattress, a pillow, and a pair of blankets as in my own case it is possible to enjoy a perfect night's rest.
One was an elephant gun with strips of rimpi, or green hide, lashed round the stock and locks, such as used to be owned by the Dutchmen a 'roer' they call it.
The man's shield and sheaf of assagais stood close at hand against the wall of the hut, and a ponderous knobkerrie hung just overhead, slung by a loop of rimpi; but the hut contained nothing to distinguish it from that of any other native, and I confess that my first feeling was one of disappointment, for I had never before been in the hut of a nyanga, and I had been led to believe by those who had that I should see all sorts of strange and weird-looking objects if I ever happened to penetrate to the interior of a Kafir witch doctor's hut.
One bore a complete Mashona warrior's panoply, consisting of plumed headdress, leopard-skin mantle, mucha of leopards' tails, armlets, anklets, and garters of cows' tails, a necklace consisting of about forty gold nuggets, bored and strung upon a strip of rimpi, shield, war club, and an immense bangwan, or stabbing spear.
Then she poured brandy into his mouth, but, although the spirit brought a little colour into his pale face, it did not awaken him, for his swoon was deep. "Lay him on the cartel in the waggon," she said, and, lifting him, they placed him upon the rimpi bed. Then she ordered them to inspan the waggon, and this was done quickly, for the oxen lay tied to the trek-tow.
Then it lay down for a while and its herd beside it, for he had tied his wrist to its tail with a rimpi lest it should escape in the darkness. At the first breaking of the light the cow rose, filled itself with grass and started forward on its homeward path, followed by Zinti. For three days they travelled thus, the herd milking the cow from time to time when its udder was full.
He laughed, and crying "That curse of God you mocked at falls at last," with a sudden stroke he drew the sharp edge of the spear across the lashing that held the body to the seat. The rimpi parted, and with a swift and awful rush, like that of a swooping bird, the dead woman and the living man plunged headlong into space.
It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a rimpi, and this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me. 'Untie it, he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow linen on which something was written in rusty letters. Inside this rag was a paper. "Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: 'The paper has all that is on the linen. It took me years to read.
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