I wonder whether many people understand, as I do, how entirely distinct and how variable are these moods which sway us, or at any rate some of us, at sundry periods of our lives.  As I think I have already suggested, at one time we are all spiritual; at another all physical; at one time we are sure that our lives here are as a dream and a shadow and that the real existence lies elsewhere; at another that these brief days of ours are the only business with which we have to do and that of it we must make the best.  At one time we think our loves much more immortal than the stars; at another that they are mere shadows cast by the baleful sun of desire upon the shallow and fleeting water we call Life which seems to flow out of nowhere into nowhere.  At one time we are full of faith, at another all such hopes are blotted out by a black wall of Nothingness, and so on ad infinitum.  Only very stupid people, or humbugs, are or pretend to be, always consistent and unchanging.

To return, I determined not only that I would not travel north to seek that which no living man will ever find, certainty as to the future, but also, to show my independence of Zikali, that I would not visit this chief, Umslopogaas.  So, having traded all my goods and made a fair profit (on paper), I set myself to return to Natal, proposing to rest awhile in my little house at Durban, and told Hans my mind.

“Very good, Baas,” he said.  “I, too, should like to go to Durban.  There are lots of things there that we cannot get here,” and he fixed his roving eye upon a square-faced gin bottle, which as it happened was filled with nothing stronger than water, because all the gin was drunk.  “Yet, Baas, we shall not see the Berea for a long while.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked sharply.

“Oh!  Baas, I don’t know, but you went to visit the Opener-of-Roads, did you not, and he told you to go north and lent you a certain Great Medicine, did he not?”

Here Hands proceeded to light his corncob pipe with an ash from the fire, all the time keeping his beady eyes fixed upon that part of me where he knew the talisman was hung.

“Quite true, Hans, but now I mean to show Zikali that I am not his messenger, for south or north or east or west.  So to-morrow morning we cross the river and trek for Natal.”

“Yes, Baas, but then why not cross it this evening?  There is still light.”

“I have said that we will cross it to-morrow morning,” I answered with that firmness which I have read always indicates a man of character, “and I do not change my word.”

“No, Baas, but sometimes other things change besides words.  Will the Baas have that buck’s leg for supper, or the stuff out of a tin with a dint in it, which we bought at a store two years ago?  The flies have got at the buck’s leg, but I cut out the bits with the maggots on it and ate them myself.”

Hans was right, things do change, especially the weather.  That night, unexpectedly, for when I turned in the sky seemed quite serene, there came a terrible rain long before it was due, which lasted off and on for three whole days and continued intermittently for an indefinite period.  Needless to say the river, which it would have been so easy to cross on this particular evening, by the morning was a raging torrent, and so remained for several weeks.