CHAPTER IV
ALPHONSE AND HIS ANNETTE



After dinner we thoroughly inspected all the outbuildings and
grounds of the station, which I consider the most successful
as well as the most beautiful place of the sort that I have seen
in Africa. We then returned to the veranda, where we found Umslopogaas
taking advantage of this favourable opportunity to clean all
the rifles thoroughly. This was the only _work_ that he ever did
or was asked to do, for as a Zulu chief it was beneath his dignity
to work with his hands; but such as it was he did it very well.
It was a curious sight to see the great Zulu sitting there upon
the floor, his battleaxe resting against the wall behind him,
whilst his long aristocratic-looking hands were busily employed,
delicately and with the utmost care, cleaning the mechanism of
the breech-loaders. He had a name for each gun. One -- a double
four-bore belonging to Sir Henry -- was the Thunderer; another,
my 500 Express, which had a peculiarly sharp report, was 'the
little one who spoke like a whip'; the Winchester repeaters were
'the women, who talked so fast that you could not tell one word
from another'; the six Martinis were 'the common people'; and
so on with them all. It was very curious to hear him addressing
each gun as he cleaned it, as though it were an individual, and
in a vein of the quaintest humour. He did the same with his
battle-axe, which he seemed to look upon as an intimate friend,
and to which he would at times talk by the hour, going over all
his old adventures with it -- and dreadful enough some of them