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These they handed over to the care of Mafuta, Jantje, and 'Nkuku the voorlouper; then, directing the trio to follow them, Dick and Grosvenor mounted their horses and rode at a foot-pace to the king's village.
The cattle had scarcely been turned loose to graze, under the guardianship of 'Ngulubi, the voorlouper, when the headman of the village, accompanied by some half a dozen minor dignitaries, and followed by ten women bearing baskets containing preternaturally skinny fowls, eggs, green mealie cobs, sugar cane, and calabashes of milk, emerged from the village and advanced upon the wagon.
Upon my arrival I found Jan, my Tottie driver, in great tribulation, it appearing that he had been beset by lions during the second night of my absence, and that the brutes had killed no less than three of the oxen and both zebras, despite the utmost efforts of himself and 'Ngulubi, the Bantu voorlouper; while two other oxen had died through eating tulip, a poisonous plant which he had too late discovered grew in profusion in the immediate neighbourhood of the outspan.
The remaining member of my retinue was a Bantu boy named 'Ngulubi, about sixteen years of age, who acted as voorlouper, or leader of the front span of oxen of the team.
Accordingly, while the Hottentot Jantje, and 'Nkuku, the Kafir voorlouper, remained in charge of the wagon and oxen, Ramoo Samee, the groom, accompanied his masters to the native village, to look after the horses and attend to the cooking while his employers shot hippopotami and crocodiles from the two canoes which they chartered; Mafuta, meanwhile, taking four days' rations, and going off upon a prospecting expedition in search of elephant and buffalo.
But upon their arrival at Bulawayo, although they met with no difficulty in providing themselves with a brand-new wagon and a team of twenty "salted" oxen, together with a Hottentot driver named Jantje, and a Kafir boy named 'Nkuku as voorlouper, no suitable candidate for the post of guide offered himself or could be found; and finally, after devoting a full week to fruitless search and enquiry, Dick and Grosvenor agreed to start without one, and trust to luck and their own good sense.
During the first two days a Bandokolo drove the team, while 'Ngulubi, my Bantu voorlouper, rode beside him on one of my horses, watching the process and receiving instruction; but after that 'Ngulubi himself undertook the driving, while the Bandokolo rode alongside and continued his instruction.
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