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CHAPTER 13

Thursday brings the trip to Ezenzeleni. The colony amazes Kumalo. English-speaking and Afrikaansspeaking whites actually work together to teach blind blacks how to make useful crafts. The white superintendent courteously leads Kumalo to a pleasant hillside, where he reflects for hours-especially about his son and Ndotsheni. Finally he accepts the fact that the old tribal ways are gone forever, but he also glimpses the possibility of building something new, through the schools. Then sadness again overwhelms him, until Msimangu preaches. Kumalo feels touched and healed, as if the beautiful words are for him alone. God will lead the blind by new ways, from darkness into light.

NOTE: MSIMANGU AND THE BARBARIAN CHIEF Msimangu differs from speakers mentioned so far-John Kumalo, Dubula, Tomlinson-because he combines a stirring voice with profound goodness. The government is relieved that he doesn't use his power to stir up rebellion, and some whites marvel that a man from the "barbarian tribe" that produced "the most terrible chief of all" can speak so beautifully. They mean the Zulu chief Dingaan, who led a massacre in the Kaffir Wars. The Boers, led by Pretorius, retaliated in a slaughter at Blood River on December 16, 1838. The date became "Dingaan's Day," a Boer holiday celebrating the triumph of "civilization over barbarism."

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