Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/113

Rh numbering from twenty to two hundred troopers, armed with assegai, dagger, and shield, and carrying a waterskin and dried meat for a three days' ride, sufficient to scour the length of the low land. The honest fellows are not so anxious to plunder as to ennoble themselves by taking life: every man hangs to his saddle bow an ostrich feather—emblem of truth—and the moment his javelin has drawn blood, he sticks it into his tufty poll with as much satisfaction as we feel when attaching a medal to our shell-jackets. It is by no means necessary to slay the foe in fair combat: Spartan-like, treachery is preferred to stand-up fighting; and you may measure their ideas of honour, by the fact that women are murdered in cold-blood, as by the Amazulus, with the hope that the unborn child may prove a male. The hero carries home the trophy of his prowess, and