Gripping in his pincers the iron hoe that
was now red-hot, Mackay hammered it into shape and then plunged it all
hissing into the bath of water that stood by him.
Hardly had the cloud of steam risen from the bath, when Mackay once
more gripped the hoe, and moving to his grindstone placed his foot on
the pedal and set the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone.
The sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda chiefs who stood
around.
"It is witchcraft," they said to one another. "It is witchcraft by
which Mazunga-wa-Kazi makes the hard iron tenfold harder in the water.
It is witchcraft by which he sends the wheels round and makes our hoes
sharp. Surely he is the great wizard."
Mackay caught the sound of the new name that they had given
him--Mazunga-wa-Kazi--the White-Man-at-Work. They called him by this
name because to them it was very strange that any man should work with
his own hands.
"Women are for work," said the chiefs. "Men go to talk with the King,
and to fight and eat."
Mackay paused in his work and turned on them.
"No," he said, "you are wrong. God made man with one stomach and with
two hands in order that he may work twice as much as he eats." And
Mackay held out before them his own hands blackened with the work of
the smithy, rough with the handling of hammer and saw, the file and
lathe.
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