Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/360

352 and another, fall down into a kind of stupor which they describe as an ecstasy of joy. The weed is a deadly poison, and its continued use soon ends both dancing and joy. Bantu tribes smoke it, but not in connection with their dances. Few Europeans would care to make exhaustive experiments with it, and the results of tentative trials are not worth recording.

When men gather round the hut-fire in the evening, the story-teller is always in requisition. He may relate his own exploits, his deeds of daring, his loves, his thefts, and feats of strength or endurance, and from these wander into a region of fable and legend to wile the weary hours away. With some, story-telling is reduced to one of the fine arts, I had almost said, exact sciences.

I once had a camp-follower who was an adept at relating incidents, in which he himself was made to figure as one of the principal actors. I remember his relating a story which is largely legendary, founded upon events which happened five generations before he was born, and winding up by asking, with an air of innocent veracity: "Did the master never hear I was one of Guluwe's companions?"

The story was this: Guluwe was a renowned hunter and warrior. He and two companions killed an eland while hunting in the Amatole forests, and as they proceeded to clean the beast, they found themselves surrounded by an army of Bushmen. Between the Bushmen and the Bantu there was mortal enmity: war to the knife. Guluwe promised his captors a large quantity of dara if they spared his life, and offered to send his companions for the coveted weed. To this they agreed. Guluwe, knowing their treachery, directed his companions not to return.

The following day the Bushmen all slept, being overcome with their feasting on the flesh of the eland, while waiting for the messengers. The prisoner watched his opportunity, and slew them one by one till he came to their captain, whom he awoke, and said, "Guluwe's two