mysticism, magic, and superstition, to which there is some allusion in
this romance. It has been little if at all exaggerated. Thus the
writer well remembers hearing a legend how the Guardian Spirit of the
Ama-Zulu was seen riding down the storm. Here is what Mr. Fynney says
of her in the pamphlet to which reference has been made: "The natives
have a spirit which they call Nomkubulwana, or the Inkosazana-ye-Zulu
(the Princess of Heaven). She is said to be robed in white, and to
take the form of a young maiden, in fact an angel. She is said to
appear to some chosen person, to whom she imparts some revelation;
but, whatever that revelation may be, it is kept a profound secret
from outsiders. I remember that, just before the Zulu war,
Nomkubulwana appeared, revealing something or other which had a great
effect throughout the land, and I know that the Zulus were quite
impressed that some calamity was about to befall them. One of the
ominous signs was that fire is said to have descended from heaven, and
ignited the grass over the graves of the former kings of Zululand.
. . . On another occasion Nomkubulwana appeared to some one in
Zululand, the result of that visit being, that the native women buried
their young children up to their heads in sand, deserting them for the
time being, going away weeping, but returning at nightfall to unearth
the little ones again."

For this divine personage there is, therefore, authority, and the same
may be said of most of the supernatural matters spoken of in these
pages. The exact spiritual position held in the Zulu mind by the
Umkulunkulu,--the Old--Old,--the Great--Great,--the Lord of Heavens,--
is a more vexed question, and for its proper consideration the reader
must be referred to Bishop Callaway's work, the "Religious System of
the Amazulu." Briefly, Umkulunkulu's character seems to vary from the
idea of an ancestral spirit, or the spirit of an ancestor, to that of