oung gentleman in ancient
history, whose name I cannot remember, but who fell in love with
his own shadow, the old Zulu could no longer restrain his feelings.

'Oh, Bougwan!' he said. 'Oh, Bougwan! I always thought thee
an ugly little man, and fat -- fat as the cows at calving time;
and now thou art like a blue jay when he spreads his tail out.
Surely, Bougwan, it hurts my eyes to look at thee.'

Good did not much like this allusion to his fat, which, to tell
the truth, was not very well deserved, for hard exercise had
brought him down three inches; but on the whole he was pleased
at Umslopogaas's admiration. As for Alphonse, he was quite delighted.

'Ah! but Monsieur has the beautiful air -- the air of the warrior.
It is the ladies who will say so when we come to get ashore.
Monsieur is complete; he puts me in mind of my heroic grand --'

Here we stopped Alphonse.

As we gazed upon the beauties thus revealed by Good, a spirit
of emulation filled our breasts, and we set to work to get ourselves
up as well as we could. The most, however, that we were able
to do was to array ourselves in our spare suits of shooting clothes,
of which we each had several, all the fine clothes in the world
could never make it otherwise than scrubby and insignificant;
but Sir Henry looked what he is, a magnificent man in his nearly
new tweed suit, gaiters, and boots. Alphonse also got himself
up to kill, giving an extra turn to his enormous moustaches.
Even old Umslopogaas, who was not in a general way given to
the vain adorning of his body, took some oil out of the lantern
and a bit of tow, and polished up his head-ring with it till
it shone like Good's patent leather boots. Then he put on the
mail shirt Sir Henry had given him and his 'moocha', and, having
cleaned up Inkosi-kaas a little, stood forth complete.

All this while, having hoisted the sail again as soon as we had
finished bathing, we had been progressing steadily for the land,
or, rather, for the mouth of a great river. Presently -- in
all about an hour and a half after the little boat had left us
-- we saw emerging from the river or harbour a large number of
boats, ranging up to ten or twelve tons burden. One of these
was propelled by twenty-four oars, and most of the rest sailed.
Looking through the glass we soon made out that the row-boat
was an official vessel, her crew being all dressed in a sort
of uniform, whilst on the half-deck forward stood an old man
o