Black Heart and White Heart: A Zulu Idyll

From the opening

CHAPTER I. PHILIP HADDEN AND KING CETYWAYO CHAPTER II. THE BEE PROPHESIES CHAPTER III. THE END OF THE HUNT CHAPTER IV. NANEA CHAPTER V. THE DOOM POOL CHAPTER VI. THE GHOST OF THE DEAD

who “bound all to her” and, while her father cut his way through the hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war at Buluwayo on 19th May, 1896, I dedicate these tales—and more particularly the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and death.

Of the three stories that comprise this volume[*], one, “The Wizard,” a tale of victorious faith, first appeared some years ago as a Christmas Annual. Another, “Elissa,” is an attempt, difficult enough owing to the scantiness of the material left to us by time, to recreate the life of the ancient Phoenician Zimbabwe, whose ruins still stand in Rhodesia, and, with the addition of the necessary love story, to suggest circumstances such as might have brought about or accompanied its fall at the hands of the surrounding savage tribes. The third, “Black Heart and White Heart,” is a story of the courtship, trials and final union of a pair of Zulu lovers in the time of King Cetywayo.

[*] This text was prepared from a volume published in 1900 titled “Black Heart and White Heart, and Other Stories.”— JB.

At the date of our introduction to him, Philip Hadden was a transport-rider and trader in “the Zulu.” Still on the right side of forty, in appearance he was singularly handsome; tall, dark, upright, with keen eyes, short-pointed beard, curling hair and clear-cut features. His life had been varied, and there were passages in it which he did not narrate even to his most intimate friends. He was of gentle birth, however, and it was said that he had received a public school and university education in England.

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