285 APPENDIX. 
concerned. I very much fear he will not long be restrained 
from punishing some of his old enemies; for notwithstand- 
ing his present desire to be on good terms with the Station, 
and although his mother and several of his principal cap- 
tains are averse to war, yet there are living on the “ Great 
Place,” a number of young men who are truly “Sons of 
Belial,” and who long for an opportuuity of enriching 
themselves with the plunder of the neighbouring tribes. 
These, by indirectly taunting the Chief with want of cou- 
rage and by making unfavourable comparisons between him 
and his ancestors, and by gathering up every little trivial 
report, as to what other Chiefs may have said to their own 
Chief's disadvantage, are very frequently the originators of 
bloody contests. Should the next news from Natal remove 
all apprehension of danger from that quarter, I should not 
be surprised if the whole country from the Zimvooboo to 
the Bashee be involved in war. 
October 15th.—The whole country is alarmed, and the 
petty Chief, So Barilli, has sent his cattle to feed upon 
the Station for safety, owing to the following occurrence. A 
male child has been born to Faku lately, which, from the 
rank of its mother, is the great son or heir of its father. 
According to a custom which has prevailed from time im- 
memorial among the Amapondas and Amatembu, it was 
deemed necessary for a great Chief, of a particular family, 
in which the honour is hereditary, to be put to death, so 
that his head might be used as a vessel to hold a decoction 
of roots, with which the new-born child was to be washed : 
this charm, they imagine, will prevent Faku’s family from 
becoming extinct. Umewengi, the Chief who was to have 
been put to death, fled with his cattle to the mountains, 
and being supported by several powerful clans, refused to 
