So they repeated the words, speaking with one voice.
“Your answer, O Macumazana,” he said when they had spoken.
“O King, I have told you that I will go–though I do not like war–and I will keep my promise,” I replied.
“Then make ready, Macumazahn, and be back here within an hour, for the regiment marches ere noon.”
So I went up to my wagons and handed them over to the care of some men whom Panda had sent to take charge of them. Also Scowl and I saddled our horses, for this faithful fellow insisted upon accompanying me, although I advised him to stay behind, and got out our rifles and as much ammunition as we could possibly need, and with them a few other necessaries. These things done, we rode back to the gathering-place, taking farewell of the wagons with a sad heart, since I, for one, never expected to see them again.
As we went I saw that the regiment of the Amawombe, picked men every one of them, all fifty years of age or over, nearly four thousand strong, was marshalled on the dancing-ground, where they stood company by company. A magnificent sight they were, with their white fighting-shields, their gleaming spears, their otter-skin caps, their kilts and armlets of white bulls’ tails, and the snowy egret plumes which they wore upon their brows. We rode to the head of them, where I saw Maputa, and as I came they greeted me with a cheer of welcome, for in those days a white man was a power in the land. Moreover, as I have said, the Zulus knew and liked me well. Also the fact that I was to watch, or perchance to fight with them, put a good heart into the Amawombe.
There we stood until the lads, several hundreds of them, who bore the mats and cooking vessels and drove the cattle that were to be our commissariat, had wended away in a long line. Then suddenly Panda appeared out of his hut, accompanied by a few servants, and seemed to utter some kind of prayer, as he did so throwing dust or powdered medicine towards us, though what this ceremony meant I did not understand.
When he had finished Maputa raised a spear, whereon the whole regiment, in perfect time, shouted out the royal salute, “Bayete”, with a sound like that of thunder. Thrice they repeated this tremendous and impressive salute, and then were silent. Again Maputa raised his spear, and all the four thousand voices broke out into the Ingoma, or national chant, to which deep, awe-inspiring music we began our march. As I do not think it has ever been written down, I will quote the words. They ran thus:
“Ba ya m’zonda, Ba ya m’loyisa, Izizwe zonke, Ba zond’, Inkoosi.”*
[*–Literally translated, this famous chant, now, I think, published for the first time, which, I suppose, will never again pass the lips of a Zulu impi, means:
“They [i.e. the enemy] bear him [i.e. the King) hatred, They call down curses on his head, All of them throughout this land Abhor our King.”
The Ingoma when sung by twenty or thirty thousand men rushing down to battle must, indeed, have been a song to hear. –EDITOR.]
The spirit of this fierce Ingoma, conveyed by sound, gesture and inflection of voice, not the exact words, remember, which are very rude and simple, leaving much to the imagination, may perhaps be rendered somewhat as follows. An exact translation into English verse is almost impossible–at any rate, to me:
“Loud on their lips is lying, Red are their eyes with hate; Rebels their King defying. Lo! where our impis wait There shall be dead and dying, Vengeance insatiate!” It was early on the morning of the 2nd of December, a cold, miserable morning that came with wind and driving mist, that I found myself with the Amawombe at the place known as Endondakusuka, a plain with some kopjes in it that lies within six miles of the Natal border, from which it is separated by the Tugela river.
As the orders of the Amawombe were to keep out of the fray if that were possible, we had taken up a position about a mile to the right of what proved to be the actual battlefield, choosing as our camping ground a rising knoll that looked like a huge tumulus, and was fronted at a distance of about five hundred yards by another smaller knoll. Behind us stretched bushland, or rather broken land, where mimosa thorns grew in scattered groups, sloping down to the banks of the Tugela about four miles away.