mixed Zulu and Basuto blood who were called the Ama-Sisa, that
is, the People of the Sisa. Now "Sisa" in the Zulu tongue has a peculiar
meaning which may be translated as "Sent Away." It is said that they
acquired this name because the Zulu kings when they exercised dominion
over all that district were in the habit of despatching large herds of
the royal cattle to be looked after by these people, or in their own
idiom to be _sisa'd_, i.e. agisted, as we say in English of stock that
are entrusted to another to graze at a distance from the owner's home.

Some, however, gave another reason. In the territory of this tribe was
a certain spot of which we shall hear more later, where these same
Zulu kings were in the habit of causing offenders against their law or
customs to be executed. Such also, like the cattle, were "sent away,"
and from one of these two causes, whichever it may have been, or perhaps
from both, the tribe originally derived its name.

It was not a large tribe, perhaps there were three hundred and fifty
heads of families in it, or say something under two thousand souls in
all, descendants, probably, of a mild, peace-loving, industrious Basuto
stock on to which had been grafted a certain number of the dominant,
warlike Zulus who perhaps had killed out the men and possessed
themselves of the Basuto women and their cattle. The result was that
among this small people there were two strains, one of the bellicose
type, who practically remained Zulus, and the other of the milder and
more progressive Basuto stamp, who were in the majority.

Among these Sisas missionaries had been at work for a number of years,
with results that on the whole were satisfactory. More than half of
them had been baptised and were Christians of a sort; a church had been
built; a more or less modern system of agriculture had been introduced,
and the most of the population wore trousers or skirts, according to
sex. Recently, however, trouble had arisen over the old question of
polygamy. The missionaries would not tolerate more than one wife, while
the Zulu section of the tribe insisted upon the old prerogative of
plural marriage.

The dispute had ended in something like actual fighting, in the course
of which the church and the school were burnt, also the missionary's
house. Because of these troubles this excellent man was forced to camp
out in the wet, for it was the rainy season, and catching a chill, died
suddenly of heart-failure fol