, or
sometimes in a melee. I think he considered the punch a neater
and more sportsmanlike tool, and it was from his habit of pecking
at his enemy with it that he got his name of 'Woodpecker'. Certainly
in his hands it was a terribly efficient one.

Such was Umslopogaas' axe, Inkosi-kaas, the most remarkable and
fatal hand-to-hand weapon that I ever saw, and one which he cherished
as much as his own life. It scarcely ever left his hand except
when he was eating, and then he always sat with it under his
leg.

Just as I returned his axe to Umslopogaas, Miss Flossie came
up and took me off to see her collection of flowers, African
liliums, and blooming shrubs, some of which are very beautiful,
many of the varieties being quite unknown to me and also, I believe,
to botanical science. I asked her if she had ever seen or heard
of the 'Goya' lily, which Central African explorers have told
me they have occasionally met with and whose wonderful loveliness
has filled them with astonishment. This lily, which the natives
say blooms only once in ten years, flourishes in the most arid
soil. Compared to the size of the bloom, the bulb is small,
generally weighing about four pounds. As for the flower itself
(which I afterwards saw under circumstances likely to impress
its appearance fixedly in my mind), I know not how to describe
its beauty and splendour, or the indescribable sweetness of its
perfume. The flower -- for it has only one bloom -- rises from
the crown of the bulb on a thick fleshy and flat-sided stem,
the specimen that I saw measured fourteen inches in diameter,
and is somewhat trumpet-shaped like the bloom of an ordinary
'longiflorum' set vertically. First there is the green sheath,
which in its early stage is not unlike that of a water-lily,
but which as the bloom opens splits into four portions and curls
back gracefully towards the stem. Then comes the bloom itself,
a single dazzling arch of white enclosing another cup of richest
velvety crimson, from the heart of which rises a golden-coloured
pistil. I have never seen anything to equal this bloom in beauty
or fragrance, and as I believe it is but little known, I take
the liberty to describe it at length. Looking at it for the
first time I well remember that I realized how even in a flower
there dwells something of the majesty of its Maker. To my great
delight Miss Flossie told me that she knew the flower well and
had tried to grow it in her garden, bu