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This was to his face, but behind his back they called him Inkunzi, which means bull, and in order to keep up the idea, designated poor Dorcas Isidanda, that being interpreted signified a gentle-natured cow. To Tabitha they gave a prettier name, calling her Imba or Little Flower.

At first Dorcas was quite pleased with her title, which sounded nice, but when she came to learn what it meant it was otherwise.

“How can you expect me, Thomas, to live among a people who call me ‘a mild cow’?” she asked indignantly.

“Never mind, my dear,” he answered. “In their symbolical way they are only signifying that you will feed them with the milk of human kindness,” a reply which did not soothe her at all. In fact, of the three the child alone was pleased, because she said that “Opening Flower” was a prettier name than Tabbie, which reminded her of cats.

Thenceforward, following a track, for it could not be called a road, they advanced slowly, first over a mountain pass on the farther side of which the wagon nearly upset, and then across a great bush-clad plain where there was much game and the lions roared round them at night, necessitating great fires to frighten them away. These lions terrified Dorcas, a town-bred woman who had never seen one of them except in the Zoo, so much that she could scarcely sleep, but oddly enough Tabitha was not disturbed by them.

“God will not let us be eaten by a lion, will He, Father?” she asked in her simple faith.

“Certainly not,” he answered, “and if the brute tries to do so I shall shoot it.”

“I’d rather trust to God, Father, because you know you can never hit anything,” replied Tabitha.

Fortunately, however, it never became necessary for Thomas to show his skill as a marksman, for when they got through the bushveld there were no more lions.

On the fourth day after they left the river they found themselves upon gentle sloping veld that by degrees led them upwards to high land where it was cold and healthy and there were no mosquitoes. For two days they trekked over these high lands, which seemed to be quite uninhabited save by herds of feeding buck, till at length they attained their crest, and below them saw a beautiful mimosa-clad plain which the guides told them was the Sisa Country.

“The Promised Land at last! It makes me feel like another Moses,” said Thomas, waving his arm.

“Oh, isn’t it lovely!” exclaimed Tabitha.

“Yes, dear,” answered her mother, “but–but I don’t see any town.”

This indeed was the case because there was none, the Sisa kraal, for it could not be dignified by any other name, being round a projecting ridge and out of sight. For the rest the prospect was very fair, being park-like in character, with dotted clumps of trees among which ran, or rather wound, a silver stream that seemed to issue from between two rocky koppies in the distance.

These koppies, the guides told them, were the gates of Sisa Town. They neglected to add that it lay in a hot and unhealthy hill-ringed hollow beyond them, the site having originally been chosen because it was difficult to attack, being only approachable through certain passes. Therefore it was a very suitable place in which to kraal the cattle of the Zulu kings in times of danger. That day they travelled down the declivity into the plain, where they camped. By the following afternoon they came to the koppies through which the river ran, and asked its name. The answer was Ukufa.

“Ukufa?” said Thomas. “Why, that means Death.”

“Yes,” was the reply, “because in the old days this river was the River of Death where evil-doers were sent to be slain.”

“How horrible!” said Dorcas, for unfortunately she had overheard and understood this conversation.

By the side of the river was a kind of shelf of rock that was used as a road, and over this they bumped in their wagon, till presently they were past the koppies and could see their future home beyond. It was a plain some miles across, and entirely surrounded by precipitous hills, the river entering it through a gorge to the north. In the centre of this plain was another large koppie of which the river Ukufa, or Death, washed one side. Around this koppie, amid a certain area of cultivated land, stood the “town” of the Christian branch of the Sisa. It consisted of groups of huts, ten or a dozen groups in all, set on low ground near the river, which suggested that the population might number anything between seven hundred and a thousand souls.