esolate when man has not yet laid his hand upon her
breast; she is only lovely. But when man has been, and has passed away,
then she looks desolate.

"Well, I passed into the kraal, and went up to the principal hut. In
front of the hut was something with an old sheepskin _kaross_ (rug)
thrown over it. I stooped down and drew off the rug, and then shrank
back amazed, for under it was the body of a young woman recently dead.
For a moment I thought of turning back, but my curiosity overcame me; so
going past the dead woman, I went down on my hands and knees and crept
into the hut. It was so dark that I could not see anything, though
I could smell a great deal, so I lit a match. It was a 'tandstickor'
match, and burnt slowly and dimly, and as the light gradually increased
I made out what I took to be a family of people, men, women, and
children, fast asleep. Presently it burnt up brightly, and I saw that
they too, five of them altogether, were quite dead. One was a baby. I
dropped the match in a hurry, and was making my way out of the hut as
hard as I could go, when I caught sight of two bright eyes staring
out of a corner. Thinking it was a wild cat, or some such animal, I
redoubled my haste, when suddenly a voice near the eyes began first to
mutter, and then to send up a succession of awful yells. Hastily I lit
another match, and perceived that the eyes belonged to an old woman,
wrapped up in a greasy leather garment. Taking her by the arm, I dragged
her out, for she could not, or would not, come by herself, and the
stench was overpowering me. Such a sight as she was--a bag of bones,
covered over with black, shrivelled parchment. The only white thing
about her was her wool, and she seemed to be pretty well dead except for
her eyes and her voice. She thought that I was a devil come to take her,
and that is why she yelled so. Well, I got her down to the waggon,
and gave her a 'tot' of Cape smoke, and then, as soon as it was ready,
poured about a pint of beef-tea down her throat, made from the flesh
of a blue vilder-beeste I had killed the day before, and after that she
brightened up wonderfully. She could talk Zulu,--indeed, it turned out
that she had run away from Zululand in T'Chaka's time,--and she told
me that all the people whom I had seen had died of fever. When they had
died the other inhabitants of the kraal had taken the cattle and
gone away, leaving the poor old woman, who was helpless from age and
infirmity, to p