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Updated: June 25, 2025
I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said, that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No human creature could live long without water in that heat.
"White people," he said, "who come hither, whence I know not, and why I know not, greeting." "Greeting, Twala, King of the Kukuanas," I answered. "White people, whence come ye, and what seek ye?" "We come from the Stars, ask us not how. We come to see this land." "Ye journey from far to see a little thing. And that man with you," pointing to Umbopa, "does he also come from the Stars?"
It was always so from his boyhood. If he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side." Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it. "It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his remark. "Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far.
We had but half a pint a head, and each of us could have drunk a gallon. Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa remark to himself in Zulu "If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises to-morrow." I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death is not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from sleeping.
There is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or lose it as Heaven above may order." I translated.
"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as though he was petrified. "Nanzia manzie!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud voice. We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool of water.
I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived what appeared to be a hole in the snow. "It is the cave," said Umbopa. We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that the hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which da Silvestra wrote.
Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and watching the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating "daccha" from a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of an eland, till one by one they rolled themselves up in their blankets and went to sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa, who was a little apart, his chin resting on his hand, and thinking deeply.
Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa ranged themselves alongside of me, and lifted their rifles. "Stop!" I shouted boldly, though at the moment my heart was in my boots. "Stop! we, the white men from the Stars, say that it shall not be. Come but one pace nearer, and we will put out the moon like a wind-blown lamp, as we who dwell in her House can do, and plunge the land in darkness.
Umbopa set to work, with the assistance of an extremely prepossessing young woman, to boil our portion in a large earthenware pot over a fire which was built outside the hut, and when it was nearly ready we sent a message to Infadoos, and asked him and Scragga, the king's son, to join us.
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