III--THE FIRST ROUND

"After this, as it was now midday, and I had killed enough meat, we
marched back triumphantly to camp, where I proceeded to concoct a stew
of buffalo beef and compressed vegetables. When this was ready we ate
the stew, and then I took a nap. About four o'clock, however, Gobo
woke me up, and told me that the head man of one of Wambe's kraals had
arrived to see me. I ordered him to be brought up, and presently he
came, a little, wizened, talkative old man, with a waistcloth round his
middle, and a greasy, frayed kaross made of the skins of rock rabbits
over his shoulders.

"I told him to sit down, and then abused him roundly. 'What did he
mean,' I asked, 'by disturbing me in this rude way? How did he dare to
cause a person of my quality and evident importance to be awakened in
order to interview his entirely contemptible self?'

"I spoke thus because I knew that it would produce an impression on him.
Nobody, except a really great man, he would argue, would dare to speak
to him in that fashion. Most savages are desperate bullies at heart, and
look on insolence as a sign of power.

"The old man instantly collapsed. He was utterly overcome, he said;
his heart was split in two, and well realized the extent of his
misbehaviour. But the occasion was very urgent. He heard that a mighty
hunter was in the neighbourhood, a beautiful white man, how beautiful