ir. James; "you forget the guide."

"Black, isn't he, uncle?"

"Yes; I suppose he's a regular Kaffir, a sort of Zulu. What did the
captain say he was, doctor?"

"An Illaka, he called him, I believe, something of the same sort of
black, as the Matabeles. But you have forgotten two more."

"Two more, sir?" said Dean. "No, we have counted them all."

"What about the two black forelopers?"

"Why, what are they?" cried Mark.

"The two blacks who go in front of the foremost bullocks."

"Oh," said Mark. "I say, we are beginning to grow."

"Yes," said Sir James; "we are getting to be a pretty good hunting
party. What with ourselves, men and cattle, we shall have a good many
mouths to feed."

"But you don't want to go back, father?"

"I did, thoroughly," replied Sir James, "when we were down at that
dreadful port."

"But not now, uncle," cried Dean.

"Certainly not, my boy. I am as eager to go forward as you boys, and I
believe the doctor too. I think we are going to have a most delightful
trip. But I say, this doesn't look to me a very good specimen of the
health of the country;" and he nodded his head in the direction of a
very tall, extremely thin, bilious-looking individual who passed them,
and whom they saw make his way right up to the dealer's house.

"Talk about moustachios," cried Mark. "Why, they look like those of a
china figure in a tea-shop. I wonder what he calls himself."

"And this one too," said Dean, for they met a fine-looking, well built
black with well-cut features, nose almost aquiline, and a haughty look
of disdain in his frowning eyes, as, spear over shoulder, he stalked by
the English party, not even deigning to turn to glance back.

"I should think he's a chief," said Mark; "a sort of king in his way."

"Doesn't cost him much a year for his clothes," said Dean, laughing, for
the big fellow's costume was the simplest of the simple.

"Ah, not much," said Sir James, looking after the man; "one of Nature's
noblemen, who looks as if he had never done a stroke of work in his
life. I wonder whether he would ever dare to make use of that spear."

"I don't think there's any doubt about it, sir," said the doctor, "if he
were offended; and if we meet men like that we shall have to be friends,
for that's an ugly looking weapon that he carries over his shoulder with
such a jaunty air."

"What are you thinking about, doctor?"

"I was thinking about the full-blooded black that the c