which are all the same colour, these animals ranged in colour from black to dark brown, from red to white. Many of them were either brown-and-white, black-and-white, or had brown bodies and white bellies. All had horns that were totally unlike anything Marimba had seen before.
‘What are they, my son?’
‘I do not know for sure, mother, but from what I gathered from the survivors of the people who brought them here, they are known as tame animals, mother.’
‘Tame animals? They look dangerous enough to me.’
‘They are quite docile, mother, and there is something about them one does not find amongst wild beasts.’
‘How did you find them, my son?’
‘Mpushu and I had been out on a hunt, mother. We saw these strange animals from where we are standing now. At first we thought they were a kind of antelope and we decided to hunt them. But, strangely, they did not run when they saw us, neither did they charge us as buffaloes would. Then Mpushu noticed that there were people with the strange creatures and we went down to investigate. We found that all but one of these people were lying in the tall grass and dying of some sort of epidemic. We saw that there were ten men and three women, and all the men were either dead or dying fast, and that of the women, one was still alive. And she does not seem to be suffering from the malady at all.’
‘Whence come these people, my son?’
‘I do not know, mother. The surviving woman is too frightened of us to talk clearly. But when she does talk, it is a pleasure to listen.’
The surviving woman was hardly more than a girl, a pretty little thing with rather prominent front teeth, and with a skin that was as black as pure ebony. She wore her hair plaited into numerous tiny plaits that hung down her forehead and down her back. She wore an ankle-length skirt of leopard skin and a necklace of strange shining beads and sea shells. Broad bracelets of bronze blazed upon her arms and forearms. She looked up as Marimba came and stood facing her. Under the curious gaze of the immortal woman the strange girl lowered her eyes selfconsciously.
‘Tell me, child,’ said Marimba at last, ‘where do you come from?’
It took some time for the strange girl to answer. ‘From Nuba . . . we come . . .’
‘Where is Nuba?’
‘Away – far, far, far.’
‘What are those animals you have brought with you?’
‘Meat animals – we eat. Also milk – we drink.’
‘You eat the meat of those animals, and drink their milk?’
‘So – so we do.’
Then Kahawa asked the girl what had killed those people with whom she had been. In her strange halting way she explained that her father and his servants, and her mother, had eaten mushrooms cooked and served by the other female servant, who had also eaten some. The girl had been saved by the fact that at the time of the eating she had been suffering from a bad headache and had no appetite at all.
Marimba asked the girl what her father had been doing so far away from his native land. Her answer shocked Kahawa and brought tears into the eyes of Marimba. The girl said it was a belief among their people that if one travelled southward long enough one will eventually reach the Land of Peace. Her father had been a priest in their native land and a firm believer in this myth. He had taken all his wealth and wife, daughter and servants and had set out southwards in search of the Land of Peace.
Abruptly the little stranger girl threw herself into the arms of Marimba and begged for protection, as she now had no parents. It was customary in their land for orphans to be adopted, even by complete strangers, and would Marimba please adopt her and protect her? As for the cattle, would Marimba please take them?
As Kahawa and Mpushu rounded up the two thousand beasts and drove them towards the High Village of the Wakambi, Marimba asked the girl what her name was and the girl answered: ‘Rarati . . . it is this one . . . my name . . . respected Ma-Rimba.’
‘Rarati,’ said the princess Marimba, ‘your name shall never be forgotten. Future generations shall hail you as the one who brought the secret of cattle-keeping into the Land of the Tribes. I greet you, Oh Rarati, my daughter.’
The beautiful queen of the Wakambi, the peerless Marimba, was walking through the forest with her handmaidens on her way to the riverside to bathe her body in the cool waters. Birds sang in the trees overhead and the forest was heavy with the scent of thousands of flowering shrubs. Myriads of butterflies and colourful insects were fluttering in clouds of white, blue and brown among the wild flowers and the buzzing song of nyoshi, the bee, was clearly heard in the blinding sunlight. Timid hares galloped through the long grass and the cooing voice of le-iba, the turtle dove, added yet more enchantment to an already enchanting day.
The sky was the purest of blue. Only a few clouds were to be seen in the eternal expanse of the heavens and these were as soft as wool and as delicate as the body of a Sun-maiden.
As the queen went through the forest, her great eyes were as alive as moon crystal. From the enchanting woodland scene she drank in inspiration as the grateful grass drinks the morning dew. Where the ordinary man sees only the trees, she saw them in their dignity and superb beauty; and where the ordinary man hears only the rustling of the breeze through the branches of the trees, and the senseless twittering of the numerous birds, she heard the soul-stirring verses of the Song of Creation.
She was not very far from the river when she saw a number of young boys gathered together above something that lay in the tall grass. The boys were talking and gesticulating excitedly and were all patting one amongst them on the back in obvious congratulation. Their voices floated through the scented air into the keen ears of Marimba and, as one might expect from this great woman, she left her retinue and went to investigate. What she saw there filled her with anger and disgust, and tears sprang unbidden into her eyes. One of these boys had invented a particularly vicious and cowardly kind of snare with which to catch young antelopes. He had tried it out and it had worked all too well. Lying on the ground with a cruel noose around her lifeless neck was a young steenbuck ewe which had fallen a victim of this fiendish trap, and the poor animal had only a few days to go before it produced young.
‘Which of you sons of night-howling, splay-footed, green-bellied hyaenas invented this thing?’ demanded Marimba hotly.
The boys made no reply. They just stared at their dusty feet in very frightened silence. Two of them wetted their loinskins at the same time, much to the amusement of the royal handmaidens.
‘I asked you a question, you mud-wallowing tadpoles!’ cried Marimba.
At last one of them said in a voice that was hardly a whisper: ‘I . . . I did, Oh Great One.’
‘You did, did you?’ cried Marimba in a burst of ecstatic fury. ‘Now indeed, you are going to suffer for your deed!’
‘Mercy please, Oh Great One,’ whispered the boy.
‘Marimba has no mercy for bloodthirsty little idiots of your kind,’ said the angry queen coldly. ‘Breathe into the nostrils of that animal and bring it back to life.’
The
