WAITING AT INCHLANGIN. 69 
in the evening. The king's man came again ; this 
time accompanied by the induna of the kraal (I sup- 
pose only the acting induna, as the real one is the 
man I met at the King's). He brought with him 
two other chief men, given me as well as himself 
by the king, and to all three I gave some limbo. 
The induna said he would rather have a shirt, and 
I told him I would give it him when he had got me 
the boys. He only brought three to-day. Two 
volunteers, whom I told to wait, also presented 
themselves from another distant kraal. 
"After this, as no more could be done, I went 
out shooting with Mandy (one of the traders here) 
in the afternoon, and got some birds. We had a 
pleasant walk, and saw the wild cotton growing. 
We also saw a beautiful tree with delicate green 
leaves and wreaths of violet-coloured laburnum-like 
blossoms ; also a very sweetly-scented flower, white 
and star-shaped, growing in small clusters upon a 
tree of some size. Mandy says there are crocodiles 
here, but the king does not allow them to be killed, 
as it is thought that any one possessing the body can 
work spells. It is death to a native to kill one. A 
white man on one occasion shot one here eighteen 
feet long, which had been destroying calves and 
goats, and the king sent to have it buried, and had 
men to watch the place. 
" It seems that lately, during a ceremony previous 
to the king's marriage (circumcision), it was thought 
inauspicious for any guns to be fired in the neigh- 
bourhood. They say a Kafir who fired one some- 
