other in doing
us honour and showering gifts upon us. As for that painful little
incident of the hippopotami it sank into oblivion, where we were
quite content to leave it. Every day deputations and individuals
waited on us to examine our guns and clothing, our chain shirts,
and our instruments, especially our watches, with which they
were much delighted. In short, we became quite the rage, so
much so that some of the fashionable young swells among the Zu-Vendi
began to copy the cut of some of our clothes, notably Sir Henry's
shooting jacket. One day, indeed, a deputation waited on us
and, as usual, Good donned his full-dress uniform for the occasion.
This deputation seemed somehow to be a different class to those
who generally came to visit us. They were little insignificant
men of an excessively polite, not to say servile, demeanour;
and their attention appeared to be chiefly taken up with observing
the details of Good's full-dress uniform, of which they took
copious notes and measurements. Good was much flattered at the
time, not suspecting that he had to deal with the six leading
tailors of Milosis. A fortnight afterwards, however, when on
attending court as usual he had the pleasure of seeing some seven
or eight Zu-Vendi 'mashers' arrayed in all the glory of a very
fair imitation of his full-dress uniform, he changed his mind.
I shall never forget his face of astonishment and disgust.
It was after this, chiefly to avoid remark, and also because
our clothes were wearing out and had to be saved up, that we
resolved to adopt the native dress; and a very comfortable one
we found it, though I am bound to say that I looked sufficiently
ridiculous in it, and as for Alphonse! Only Umslopogaas would
have none of these things; when his moocha was worn out the fierce
old Zulu made him a new one, and went about unconcerned, as grim
and naked as his own battleaxe.

Meanwhile we pursued our study of the language steadily and made
very good progress. On the morning following our adventure in
the temple, three grave and reverend signiors presented themselves
armed with manuscript books, ink-horns and feather pens, and
indicated that they had been sent to teach us. So, with the
exception of Umslopogaas, we all buckled to with a will, doing
four hours a day. As for Umslopogaas, he would have none of
that either. He did not wish to learn that 'woman's talk', not
he; and when one of the teachers advanced on him with a