Sandilli was a chief of wide influence, and as yet had not quite taken to the new order of native administration.  When the Governor walked into his kraal, a full-rigged dance was in progress.  Sandilli himself was leading it, and he stopped for a minute in order to welcome the visitor.  ’Then he went on, more merrily than ever,’ Sir George described, ’in order that I might witness how well he could dance.  He wished to impress me, to show me that here was a chief, strong, agile, graceful, a Kaffir of true kingly parts.  The natives were grouped in a great circle, and the ground almost shook while they danced.  They sang as they leapt about, and what they sang was “It burns!  It burns!  It burns!” until you could almost feel the glow of fire about you.  They were, in imagination, burning the kraals of some other tribe with whom they had a quarrel.  “It burns!  It burns!  It burns!” I can hear them still, and realise how easily, in such a condition, they could have been led to do anything.  It was fanaticism a-brew.’

The dance over, there followed business with Sandilli.  He made certain requests, with which the Governor was not able to agree.  It was necessary to reserve them, but this must be done in such a manner that Sandilli would not be offended.

‘You know,’ Sir George enjoined him, ’that a child born into the world is long before it can distinguish its parents from other persons, and longer still before it can distinguish friends from foes.  As yet, I am almost a new-born child in this country, and can answer no matter hurriedly.  Hence, let all affairs be submitted to me in writing, and no mistakes can possibly arise.

Sandilli and his headmen were disappointed, for they liked quick results in their diplomacy.  Noting this, the Governor whipped the talk to thoughts agreeable to them.  He carried them off in a happy flight, and their faces changed from gloom to mirth.  When he had ridden from the kraal, and they could reflect, it was perhaps in the sense, ’We cannot quarrel with that Governor whatever may happen.  He gives us no chance, but, on the contrary, entertains us.’

While Sir George Grey was King of the Cape, Moselekatsi was King of the Matabele, and the two exchanged greetings and gifts.  ‘Moselekatsi,’ Sir George remarked, ’had left the Zulus, and set up a new nation.  We never met personally, but we were on very good terms.  In those days there was a great hunter in South Africa, an Englishman who had come from India, and he presented Moselekatsi with a coveted uniform.  It was of the old-fashioned kind, with bulky epaulettes on the shoulders; and what must Moselekatsi do, but remove them from there and add them to the tails!  A humorous picture he must have made, in his distorted white man’s finery.’