nd not before, you
shall continue the message thus: 'These are the other words that Hokosa
set in my mouth: "Know, O Prince, that the king, your brother, grows
very strong, for he is a great soldier, who learned his art in bygone
wars; also the white man that is named Messenger has taught him many
things as to the building of forts and walls and the drilling and
discipline of men. So strong is he that you can scarcely hope to conquer
him in open war--yet snakes may crawl where men cannot walk. Therefore,
Prince, let your part be that of a snake. Do you send an embassy to the
king, your brother and say to him:--

"'My brother, you have been preferred before me and set up to be king in
my place, and because of this my heart is bitter, so bitter that I have
gathered my strength to make war upon you. Yet, at the last, I have
taken another council, bethinking me that, if we fight, in the end it
may chance that neither of us will be left alive to rule, and that the
people also will be brought to nothing. To the north there lies a good
country and a wide, where but few men live, and thither I would go,
setting the mountains and the river between us; for there, far beyond
your borders, I also can be a king. Now, to reach this country, I must
travel by the pass that is not far from your Great Place, and I pray
you that you will not attack my _impis_ or the women and children that I
shall send, and a guard before them, to await me in the plain beyond the
mountains, seeing that these can only journey slowly. Let us pass by in
peace, my brother, for so shall our quarrel be ended; but if you do so
much as lift a single spear against me, then I will give you battle,
setting my fortune against your fortune and my god against your God!'

"Such are the words that the embassy shall deliver into the ears of
the king, Nodwengo, and it shall come about that when he hears them,
Nodwengo, whose heart is gentle and who seeks not war, shall answer
softly, saying:--

"'Go in peace, my brother, and live in peace in that land which you
would win.'

"Then shall you, Hafela, send on the most of your cattle and the women
and the children through that pass in the mountains, bidding them to
await you in the plain, and after a while you shall follow them with
your _impis_. But these shall not travel in war array, for carriers must
bear their fighting shields in bundles and their stabbing spears shall
be rolled up in mats. Now, on the sixth day of yo