When the amaNdukhanya impi finally brought the amaMatile captives and cattle—along with the four amaZungu, the New People—to their home territory, the outlanders could not have been faulted if
they believed they were entering a country of ghosts. Long before they came
within sight of the amaNdukhanyas’ dwellings, they could hear a sustained,
ululating wail that reverberated through the hills that surrounded them. That
doleful sound contrasted sharply with the beauty of the amaThaba country.

The hills rolled like green waves in all directions, and the path the procession followed took them up gentle slopes and down shallow valleys, through which clear streams flowed. Colorful wildflowers
and small copses of trees festooned the hills like multicolored tiaras.
However, as the procession moved deeper into the lands the amaNdukhanya
claimed, the castaways soon realized that the main feature of the hills was the
kraal.

The amaNdukhanya lived in family compounds of beehive-shaped huts that the newcomers had already learned were called indlus. Conical granaries stored the harvest from fields of millet and sorghum,
and pens fenced by thornbushes held the herds of lean, long-horned cattle that
were the pride and wealth of the amaNdukhanya, as with all other amaThaba
tribes.

                Now the people of Ndukhanya swarmed the hillsides. The warriors who had not been part of the impi that had gone on the raid against the amaMatile were
outnumbered by the women, children, and elders of the tribe. All were
participating in a welcome that seemed more sad than joyous.