Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1890 — ALLAN QUATERMAN. [ARTICLE]

ALLAN QUATERMAN.

A Record of Remarkable Adventures and Discoveries.

BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.

CHAPTER Xlll— Continued. The population of this favored land is comparatively speaking, dense, numbering at a rough estimate from twelve to fifteen millions. It is almost purely agricultural in its habits, and divided into great classes as in civilized countries. There is a territorial nobility, a considerable middle class, formed principally of merchants, officers of the army, etc.; but the great bulk of the people are well-to-do peasants who live' upon the lands of the lords, from whom they hold under a species of feudal tenure. The best bred people in the country are, as I 'think I have said, pure whites with a somewhat southern cast Of countenance; but do not show any negro or African characteristic. As to their descent, I can give no certain information. Their written records, which extend back for about a thousand years, give no hint of it One very ancient chronicler does indeed, in alluding to some old tradition that existed in his day, talk of it as having probably orignally “come down with the people from the coast, ” but that may mean little or nothing. In short, the origin of the Zu-Vendis is lost in the mists of lime. Whence they came or of what race they are no man knows. Their architecture and some of their sculptures suggest an Egyptian or possibly an Assyrian origin; but it is well known that their present remarkable style of building has only sprung up within the last eight hundred years, and they certainly retain no traces of Egyptian theology or customs. Again, their appearance and some of their habits are rather Jewish; but here again it seems hardly conceivable that they should have utterly lost all traces of the Jewish religion. Still, for aught I know, they may be one of the lost tribes whom people are so fond of discovering all over the world, or they may not. Ido not know, and so can only describe them as I find them, and leave wise]' heads than mine to make what they can out of it if, indeed, this account Should ever be read at all, which is exceedingly doubtful.

And now after I have said all (his I am, after all, going to hazard a theory of my own, though it is only a very little one, as the young lady said in mitigation of her baby. The theory is founded on a legend which I have heard among the Arabs on the east coast, which is to the effect that “more than two thousand years ago there were troubles in the country which was known as Babylonia, and that thereon a vast horde of Persians came down to Bushire, where they took ship and were driven by the north-east monsoon to the east coast of Africa, where, according to the legend, • ‘the sun and fire worshippers” fell iDto conflict with the belt of Arab settlers who even then were settled on the east coast, and finally broke their way through them, and, vanishing into (he interior, were no more seen. Now, I ask, is it not at least possible that the Zu-Vendi people are the descendants of these “sun and fire worshippers” and vanished? As a matter of fact there is a good deal in their character and customs that tallies with the somewhat vague ideas that I have of the Persians. Of course we have no books of reference here,

but Sir Henry says that if his memory docs not fail hrm, was a tremendous revolt in Babylon about 500 whereon a vast multitude were expelled from the city. Anyhow, it is a well established fact that there have been many separate emigrations of Persians from the Persian Gulf to the east coast of Africa up to as late as seven hundred years ago. There are Persian tombs at Kilwa, on the east coast, still in good repair, which bear dates showing them to be just seven hundred years old. In addition to being an. agricultural people, the Zu-Vendi are, oddly enough, excessively warlike; and as they can not, from the exigencies of their position, make war upon other nations, they fight among each other like the famed Kilkenny cats, with the happy result that the population never outgrows the power of the country to support it. This habit of theirs is largely fostered by the political condition of the country. The monarchy is nominally an absolute one, save in so far as it is tempered by the power of the priests and the informal council of the great lords; but, as in many other such institutions, the king’s writ does not run unquestioned throughout the length a«d breadth of the land. In short the whole system is a purely feudal one (though absolute serfdom or slavery are unknown), all the great lords holding nominally ffom the throne, but a number of them being practically independent, having the power of life and death, waging war against and making peace with their neighbors as the whim or their interests lead them, and even on occasion

rising in.open rebellion Against their royal master or mistress, and safely shut up in their castles and fenced cities, far from the seat of government, successfully defying them for years. Zu-Vendis has had its king-makers as well as England, a fact that will be appreciated when I state that eight different dynasties have sat upon the throne during the last one thousand years, every one of whioh took its rise from some noble family that succeeded in grasping the purple after a sanguinary struggle. At the date of our arrival in the country things were a little better than , they, had hoanforsoma centuries, the last king, the father of Nyleptha and borais, having been an exceptionally

able and vigorous ruler, and, as a consequence, kept down the power of the priests and hobles. On his death, two years before we reached Zu-Vendis, the twin sisters, his children, were, following an ancient precedent, called to the throne, since an attempt to exclude either would instantly have provoked a sanguinary civil war; but it was generally l felt in the country that this measure was a most unsatisfactory one, and could hardly be said to be permanent. Indeed, as it was, the various intrigues that were set on foot by ambitious nobles to obtain the hands of one or other of the queens in marriage had disquieted the country, and the general opinion was that there would be bloodshed before long.

I will now pass on to the question of the Zulu-Vendi religion, which is nothing more or less than sun-worship of a pronounced and developed character. Around this sun-worship is grouped the entire social system of the Zu-Ven-di. It sends its roots through every institution and custom of the land. From the cradleto the grave the ZuVendi follows the sun in every sense of the word. As an infant he is solemly held up in its light and dedicated to “the symbol of good, the impression of power, and the hope of eternity,” the ceremony answering to our baptism. While et a tiny child, his parents points out the glorious orb as the presence of a visible and beneficient God, and he worships it at its uprising and down-setting. 31§|f| when quite small, he goes, holding fast to the pendant end of his mother’s “kaf” (toga), up to the temple of the sun of the nearest city, and there, when at midday the bright beams strike down upon the golden central altar and beats back the fire that burns thereon, he hears the whiterobed priests raise their solemn chant of praise and sees the people fall down to adore, and then, amidst the blowing of the golden trumpets, watches the sacrifice thrown into the fiery furnace beneath the altar. Here he comes again to be declared “a man” by the priests, consecrated to the war and to good works; here before the solemn altar he leads his bride, and here, too, if differences shall unhappily arise, he divorces her. And so on, down life’s long pathway till the last mile is traveled, and he comes again armed, and indeed with dignity, but no longer a man. Here they bear him dead and lay his bier upon the falling brazen doors before the altar, and when the last ray from the setting sun falls upon his poor white face the bolts are drawn, and he vanishes into the raging furnace beneath, and is ended.

The priests of the sun do not marry, but are recruited by young men specially devoted to the work byjtheir parents and supported by the State. The nomination to the higher officers of the priesthood lies in the Crown, but once appointed, the nominees cannot be disposessed, and it is scarcely too much to say that they really rule the land. To begin with, they are a united body sworn to obedience and secrecy, so that an order issued by the high-priest at Milosis will be instantly and unhesitatingly acted upon by the resident priest of a little country town three or four hundred miles off. They are the judges of the land, criminal and civil, an appeal lying only to the lord paramount of the district, and from him to the king; and they have, of course, practically unlimited jurisdiction over religious and moral offences, together with a right of excommunion, which,.... as in the faiths of more highly civilized lands, is a very effective weapon. Indeed, their rights and powers are almost unlimited; but [ may as well state here that the priests of the sun are wise in their generation, and do not push things too far. [t is but very seldom that they go to extremes against anybody, being very inclined to exercise the prerogative of mercy than run the risk of exasperating the powerful and vigorous minded people on whose neck they have set their yoke, lest it should rise and break it off altogether.

Another source of their power is their practical monopoly of learning, and their very considerable astronomical knoweledge, which enables them to keep a hold on the popular mind by predicting eclipses and even comets. In Zu-Vendis only a few of the upper classes can read and write, but nearly all the 'priests have this power, and are therefore looked upon as learned men.

The law of the country is, on the whole, mild and just, but differs in many respects from our civilized law. For instance, the law of England is much more severe upon offenses against property than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money/ A man may kick his wife to death or inflict horrible sufferings upon his children at a much cheaper rate of punishment than he can compound for the theft of an old pair of boots. In Zu-Vendis this is not so, for they rightly or wrongly look upon the person as of more consequence than goods and chattels, and not, as in England. as a sort of necessary appendage to the latter. For murder the punishment is death; for treason, death; for defrauding the orphan and the widow, for sacrilege, and for attempting to quit the country (which is looked or as a sacrilege), death. In each case the method of execution is the same, a rather awful one. The culprit is thrown alive into the fiery furnace beneath one of the altars to the sun. For all other offenses, including the offense of idleness, the punishment is forced labor upon the vast national buildings which are always going on in some part of the Country, with or without periodical floggings, according to the crime. The social system of ..the Zu-Yendi allows considerable liberty to the individual,provided be does not offend against the laws and customs of the country. They are polygamous in

theory, though most of them have only one wife on account of the expense. By law a man is bound to provide a separate establishment lor. each wife. The first wife also is the legal wife, and her children are said to be “of the house of the father.” The children of the other wives are of the houses of their respective mothers, i This does not however, imply any slur upon either mother or children. Again, a first wife can, on entering into the married state, make a bargain that her husband shall marry no other wife. This, however is very rarely done, as the women are the great upholders of polygamy, which not only provides for their surplus numbers, but gives greater importance to the first wife, who is thus practically the head of several households. Marriage is looked upon as primarily a civil contract, and, subject to certain conditions and to a proper provision for children, is dissoluble at the will of both contracting parties, the divorce, Or * ‘unloosing, ” being formally accomplished by going through certain portions of the marriage ceremony backward.

The Zu-Vendi are, on the whole, a very kindly, pleasant and light hearted people. They are not great traders and care little ■about money, only working to earn enough to support themselves in that class of life in which they are born. They are exceedingly conservative, and look with disfavor on changes. Their legal tender is silver, cut into little squares of different weights; gold is the baser coin, and is about of the same value as our silver. It is, however, much prized for its beauty, and largely used for ornaments and decorative purposes. Most of the trade, however, is carried on by means of sale and barter, payment being made in kind. Agriculture is the great business of the country, and is really well understood and carried out, nearly the whole available surface being under cultivation. Great attention is also given to the breeding of cattle and horses, the latter being unsurpassed by any I have overseen, either in Europe or Africa. The land belongs theoretically to the Crown, and under the Crown to the great lords, who again divide it among the smaller lords, and so on down to the little peasant farmer who works his forty “reestu” (acres) on a system of half-profits with his immediate lord. In fact the whole system is, as I have said, distinctly feudal, and it interested us much to meet with such an old friend far in the unknown heart of Africa.

The taxes are very heavy. The state takes a third of a man’s total earnings, and the priesthood about five per cent, of the remainder. But, on the other hand, if a man through any cause falls into bona fide misfortune the state supports him in the position of life to which he belongs. If he is idle, however, he is sent to work on the government undertakings, and the state looks after his wives and children. The state also makes all the roads and builds all town houses, about which great care is shown, letting them out, to families at a small rent. It also keeps up a standing army of about twenty thousand men, jand provides watchmen, etc. In return for their five per cent, the priests attend to the service of the temples, carry out all religious ceremonies, and keep schools, where they teach whatever they think desirable, which is not very much. Some of the temples also possess private property, but priests as individuals can not hold property. And now comes a question which I find some difficulty in answering. Are the Zu-Vendi a civilized or a barbarous people? Sometimes I think the one, sometimes the other. In some branches of art they have attained the very highest proficiency. Take for instance their buildings and their statuary. I do not think that the latter can be equaled either in beauty or imaginative power anywhere in the world, and as for the former it may have been rivaled in ancient Egypt, but I am sure that it has never been since. But, on the other hand, they are totally ignorant of many other arts. Till Sir Henry, who happened to know something about it, showed them how to do it by mixing silica and lime, they could not make a piece of glass, and their crockery is rather primitive. A water clock is their nearest approach to a watch; indeed, ours delighted them exceedingly. They know nothing about steam, electricity or gunpowder, and mercifully for themselves nothing about printing or the penny post. Thus they are spared many evils, for of a truth our age has learned the wisdom of the old world saying, “He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.”

As regards their religion, it is a natural one for imaginative people who know no better, and might therefor be expected to turn to the sun and worship him as the all-Father, but it cannot justly be called elevating or spiritual. It is true that they do sometimes speak of the sun as the “garment of the Spirit, ” but it is a vague term, and what they really adore is the firey orb himself. They also call him the hope of eternity, but here again the meaning is vague, and I doubt if the phrase conveys any very dear impression to their minds. Some of them do indeed believe in a future life for the good— I know that Nyleptha does firmly—but it is a private faith arising from the promptings of the spirit, not an essential of their creed. So on the whole I cannot say that I consider this sunworship as a religion indicative of a civilized people, however magnificent and imposing its ritual, or however moral and high-sounding the maxims of its priests, many of whom, I am sure, have their own opinions on the whole subject; though of course they have nothing but praise for a system whioh provides them with so many of the good things of this world. There are now only two more mat-

ters to which I “need allude, namely, the language and the system of caligraphy. As for the former, it is soft sounding, and very rich and flexible. Sir Henry says that it sounds something like modem Greek, but of course it has no connection with it. It is easy to acquire, being simple in its construction, and a peculiar quality about it is its euphony, and the way in which the sound of the words adapts itself to the meaning to be expressed. Long “before we mastered the language, we could frequently make out what was meant by the ring of the sentence. It is on this account that the language lends itself so well to poetical declamation, of which these remarkable people are very fond. The Zu-Vendi style of caligraphy is at once extremely simple and extremely cumbersome, and consists of a succession of small circles or letter o’s, with dots placed at different points of the circle. As can be easily imagined, this system of caligraphy is a sufficiently awkward one, and until the eye gets thoroughly accustomed to the position of the dots it is perfectly maddening to read. But as the people of Zu-Vendis are not given to the writing of novels, or of anything except business documents and records of the briefest character, it answers their purpose well enough.

CHAPTER XIV. THE TLOWER TEMPLE. It was half past eight by my watch when I woke on the morning following our arrival at Milosis, having slept almost exactly twelve hours, and I must say that I did indeed feel better Ah, what a blessed thing is sleep! and what a difference twelve hours of it or so makes to us after days and nights of toil and danger. It is like going to bed one man and getting up another. I sat up upon my silken couch— never had I slept upon such a bed before —and the first thing that lT BftW was Good’s eyeglass fixed on me from th recesses of his silken couch. There was nothing else of him to be seen except his eyeglass, but I knew from the look of it that he was awake, and waiting till I woke up to begin. ‘‘l say, Quatermain, ” he commenced sure enough, “did you observe her skin? It is as smooth as the back of an ivory hair-brush.” “Now, look here, Good,” I remonstrated, when there came a knocking, at the door, which, on being opened, admitted a functionary, who signified by signs that he was there to lead us to the bath. We gladly consented, and were conducted to a delightful marble chamber, with a pool of running crystal water in the center of it, into which we gayly plunged. When we had bathed, we returned to our apartment and dressed, and then went into the central room whore wo had supped on the previous evening, to find a morning meal already prepared for us, and a capital meal it was, though I should be puzzled to describe the dishes. After breakfast we lounged round and admired thte tapestries and carpets and some pieces of statuary that were placed about, wondering the while what was going to happen next. Indeed, by this time our minds were in such a state of complete bewilderment that wo were, figuratively speaking, reading for anything, from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter. As for our sense of astonishment, it was pretty well obliterated. Whilst we were still thus engaged, our friend the captain of the guard presented himself and with many obeisances signified that we were to follow him, which we did, not without doubts and heartsearchings—for we guessed that the time had come when we should have to settle the bill for those confounded hippopotami with our cold-eyed friend Agon, the high priest. However, there was no help for it, and personally I took great comfort in the promise o the protection of the sister queens, knowing that if ladies have a will they can generally find a way, so off we started as though we liked it. A minute’s walk through a passage and an outer court brought us to the great double gates of the palace that give on to the wide highway which runs up hill through the heart of Milosis to the Temple of the Sun a mile away, and thence down the slope on the further siae of the temple to the outer wall of the city. — ; , These gates are very large and massive, and an extraordinarily beautiful work in metal,. Between them—for one set is placed at the entrance of an interior, and one at that bf the exterior wall—is a fosse, forty-five feet in width. This fosse is filled with water and spanned by a drawbridge, which when lifted makes the palace practically impregnable to anything except seigc guns. ,As we came, one-half of the wide gates were flung open, and we passed over the draw-bridge and presently stood gazing up one of the most imposing, if not the most imposing, roadways in the world. It is a hundred feet from curb to curb, and on either side, not cramped and crowded together, as is our European fashion, but each standing in its own grounds, and built equi-distaut from and in similar style to the rest, are a series of splendid, single-storied mansions, all of red granite. These are the town houses of the nobles of the court, and stretch away in unbroken lines for a mile or more till the eye is arrested by. the glorious vision of the Temple of the Sun that crowns the hill and heads the roadway. TO BX Coim.NUXD.