on such an expedition.

The wagon in which they trekked was good and comfortable, and although
it was still the rainy season, fortune favoured them in the matter
of weather, so that when they came to the formidable river, they were
actually able to trek across it with the help of some oxen borrowed
from a missionary in that neighbourhood, without having recourse to the
dreaded rope-slung basket, or even to the punt.

Beyond the river they were met by some Christian Kaffirs of the Sisa
tribe, who were sent by the Chief Kosa to guide them through the hundred
miles or so of difficult country which still lay between them and their
goal. These men were pleasant-spoken but rather depressed folk, clad in
much-worn European clothes that somehow became them very ill. They gave
a melancholy account of the spiritual condition of the Sisas, who since
the death of their last pastor, they said, were relapsing rapidly into
heathenism under the pernicious influence of Menzi, the witch-doctor.
Therefore Kosa sent his greetings and prayed the new Teacher to hurry to
their aid and put a stop to this state of things.

"Fear nothing," said Thomas in a loud voice, speaking in Zulu, which by
now he knew very well. "I _will_ put a stop to it."

Then they asked him his name. He replied that it was Thomas Bull, which
after the native fashion, having found out what bull meant in English,
they translated into a long appellation which, strictly rendered, meant
_Roaring-Leader-of-the-holy-Herd_. When he found this out, Thomas flatly
declined any such unchristian title, with the result that, anxious to
oblige, they christened him "Tombool," and as "Tombool" thenceforward
he was known. (Dorcas objected to this name, but Tabitha remarked sagely