Saturday, September 18, 2010

Umbopa

...

Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.

“It is a far journey, Incubu,” he put in, and I translated his remark.

“Yes,” answered Sir Henry, “it is far. But there is no journey upon this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him, and he holds his life in his hand counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or to lose it as Providence may order.”

- King Solomon’s Mines, by H. Rider Haggard, chapter V.


Notes

(i) Umbopa is my name in Zulu.

(ii) Sir Henry is the greatest mentor I never had.

(iii) One of these statements is false, one is true, and the third unprovable.


Regularly scheduled programming to resume tomorrow.

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