'Ah, well,' he said, 'that is where Solomon really had his mines, his diamond mines, I mean.'
"'How do you know that?' I asked.
"'Know it! why what is "Suliman" but a corruption of Solomon?[1] And, besides, an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across those mountains were a "branch" of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu, but finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great wizards, who had learned their art from white men when "all the world was dark," and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of "bright stones."'
"Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me, for the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went off and was killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of the matter. However, just twenty years afterwards—and that is a long time, gentleman; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty years at his business—I heard something more definite about Suliman's Mountains and the country which lies behind them. I was up beyond the Manica country, at a place called Sitanda's Kraal, and a miserable place it was, for a man could get nothing to eat, and there was but little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was in a bad way generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single companion—a half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well. There is no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a different type of man to the mean fellows whom I have been accustomed to meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more
- ↑ Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.—Editor.
