CHAPTER V

INEZ

We had sighted the house from far away shortly after sunrise and by
midday we were there. As we approached I saw that it stood almost
immediately beneath two great baobab trees, babyan trees we call them in
South Africa, perhaps because monkeys eat their fruit. It was a thatched
house with whitewashed walls and a stoep or veranda round it, apparently
of the ordinary Dutch type. Moreover, beyond it, at a little distance
were other houses or rather shanties with waggon sheds, etc., and
beyond and mixed up with these a number of native huts. Further on were
considerable fields green with springing corn; also we saw herds of
cattle grazing on the slopes. Evidently our white man was rich.

Umslopogaas surveyed the place with a soldier's eye and said to me,

"This must be a peaceful country, Macumazahn, where no attack is feared,
since of defences I see none."

"Yes," I answered, "why not, with a wilderness behind it and bush-veld
and a great river in front?"

"Men can cross rivers and travel through bush-veld," he answered, and
was silent.

Up to this time we had seen no one, although it might have been presumed
that a waggon trekking towards the house was a sufficiently unusual