They
understood one another.
At length came the blow.
It happened thus. Not far from the borders of Zululand but in the
country that is vaguely known as Portuguese Territory, was a certain
tribe of mixed Zulu and Basuto blood who were called the Ama-Sisa, that
is, the People of the Sisa. Now "Sisa" in the Zulu tongue has a peculiar
meaning which may be translated as "Sent Away." It is said that they
acquired this name because the Zulu kings when they exercised dominion
over all that district were in the habit of despatching large herds of
the royal cattle to be looked after by these people, or in their own
idiom to be _sisa'd_, i.e. agisted, as we say in English of stock that
are entrusted to another to graze at a distance from the owner's home.
Some, however, gave another reason. In the territory of this tribe was
a certain spot of which we shall hear more later, where these same
Zulu kings were in the habit of causing offenders against their law or
customs to be executed. Such also, like the cattle, were "sent away,"
and from one of these two causes, whichever it may have been, or perhaps
from both, the tribe originally derived its name.
It was not a large tribe, perhaps there were three hundred and fifty
heads of families in it, or say something under two thousand souls in
all, descendants, probably, of a mild, peace-loving, industrious Basuto
stock on to which had been grafted a certain number of the dominant,
warlike Zulus who perhaps had killed out the men and possessed
themselves of the Basuto women and their cattle.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172