Lobengula's Justice

Only one old tree marks the spot where the king used to sit administering justice to kis subjects. A large part of tbis justice consisted in decreeing death among his indunas or prominent men who had excited his suspicions or whose oattle he desired to appropriate. Sometimes he had then denounced - "smelled out," they called it - by the witch doctors as guilty of praoticing magie against hiiu. Sometimes he dispensed with a pretext and sent a messenger to the hut of thedoomed manto teil him the king wanted hini. The victim, often ignorant of his fate, walked in front, while the executioner, following close behind, suddenly dealt him with the knobkerry, or heavy ended stick, one tremendous blow, which crushed his skull and left hini dead upon tha gronnd. Women, on the other hand,