Gardiner was very near entering by the wrong gate, in which case all his escort would have been put to death.

A hut was assigned to him, a sort of beehive of grass and mud, with a hole to enter by.

His own lines, strung together in his many unoccupied moments for his children's benefit, are so good a description of the Kaffir huts that form a kraal or village, as to be worth inserting:-- "I see them now, those four low props That held the haystack o'er my head, The dusky framework from their tops Like a large mouse-trap round me spread.
To stand erect I never tried, For reasons you may guess: Full fourteen feet my hut was wide, Its height was nine feet less.
My furniture, a scanty store, On saddle-bags beside me laid, A hurdle, used to close the door, Raised upon stones, my table made." There he received a bundle of the native sugar-cane, a bowl of maize beer from Dingarn, and was invited to his palace.
This was surrounded by a fence, outside which the Captain was desired to sit down.

Presently a black head and very stout pair of shoulders appeared above it, and a keen sable visage eyed the visitor fixedly for some time, in silence, which was only broken by these words, while indicating an ox, "There is the beast I give you to slaughter." His black majesty then vanished, but presently to reappear from beneath the gateway dressed in a long blue cloak, with a white collar, and devices at the back.

After directing the distribution of some heaps of freshly slain oxen that lay around, he stood like a statue till a seat was brought him, and then entered into conversation.