"Take that to the captain there with my good wishes, Jerry, and ask
him if he will drink with us," I said.
Jerry, who was a plucky fellow, obeyed. Advancing with the steaming
coffee, he held it under the Captain's nose. Evidently he knew the
man's name, for I heard him say:
"O Babemba, the white lords, Macumazana and Wazela, ask if you will
share their holy drink with them?"
I could perfectly understand the words, for these people spoke a
dialect so akin to Zulu that by now it had no difficulty for me.
"Their holy drink!" exclaimed the old fellow, starting back. "Man, it
is hot red-water. Would these white wizards poison me with /mwavi/?"
Here I should explain that /mwavi/ or /mkasa/, as it is sometimes
called, is the liquor distilled from the inner bark of a sort of
mimosa tree or sometimes from a root of the strychnos tribe, which is
administered by the witch-doctors to persons accused of crime. If it
makes them sick they are declared innocent. If they are thrown into
convulsions or stupor they are clearly guilty and die, either from the
effects of the poison or afterwards by other means.
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