As subsequent events proved, whatever counsel The
Zulu imparted was wasted upon his youthful friend. But let us turn for a
moment to The Zulu himself.
He could not, of course, write any language whatever. Two words of French
he knew: they were _fromage_ and _chapeau_. The former he pronounced
"grumidge." In English his vocabulary was even more simple, consisting of
the single word "po-lees-man." Neither B. nor myself understood a
syllable of Polish (tho' we subsequently learned _Jin-dobri_,
_nima-Zatz_, _zampni-pisk_ and _shimay pisk_, and used to delight The
Zulu hugely by giving him
"_Jin-dobri, pan_"
every morning, also by asking him if he had a "_papierosa_");
consequently in that direction the path of communication was to all
intents shut. And withal--I say this not to astonish my reader but merely
in the interests of truth--I have never in my life so perfectly
understood (even to the most exquisite nuances) whatever idea another
human being desired at any moment to communicate to me, as I have in the
case of The Zulu. And if I had one-third the command over the written
word that he had over the unwritten and the unspoken--not merely that;
over the unspeakable and the unwritable--God knows this history would
rank with the deepest art of all time.
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