“The Zulus about here have a strange story of a white girl who inDingaan’s day was supposed to ‘hold the spirit’ of somelegendary goddess of theirs who is also white. This girl, they say, was verybeautiful and brave, and had great power in the land before the battle of theBlood River, which they fought with the emigrant Boers. Her title was Lady ofthe Zulus, or more shortly, Zoola, which means Heaven.
“She seems to have been the daughter of a wandering, pioneer missionary,but the king, I mean Dingaan, murdered her parents, of whom he was jealous,after which she went mad and cursed the nation, and it is to this curse thatthey still attribute the death of Dingaan, and their defeats and othermisfortunes of that time.
“Ultimately, it appears, in order to be rid of this girl and her evileye, they sold her to the doctors of a dwarf people, who lived far away in aforest and worshipped trees, since when nothing more has been heard of her. Butaccording to them the curse stopped behind.
“If I can find out anything more of this curious story I will let youknow, but I doubt if I shall be able to do so. Although fifteen years or sohave passed since Dingaan’s death in 1840 the Kaffirs are very shy oftalking about this poor lady, and, I think, only did so to me because I amneither an official nor a missionary, but one