They also take along a native, Umbopa, who seems more regal and well-spoken than most porters of his class, but who is anxious to join the party. Travelling by oxcart, they reach the edge of a desert, but not before a hunt in which a wounded elephant claims the life of a servant.

They meet a tall mysterious native, Umbopa, who joins them. When they finally reach the region where the mines are believed to be, they are met by people who resemble him. They discover that their companion is royalty; he has returned to attempt to dethrone the evil usurper King Twala.

Umbopa is a native who is hired by Allan Quartermain to help on the expedition to King Solomon's Mines. Umbopa later reveals his true identity as Ignosi the rightful king of the Kukuanas. Read More. Infadoos is an elder Kukuana man and half brother to King Twala. He helps Ignosi claim his rightful place on the throne. Read More.

The man first known as Umbopa to Quatermain and the others turns out to be Ignosi, son of the rightful king of the Kukuanas, who has been displaced from his throne through the machinations of Gagool and Twala. Ignosi is repeatedly described as dignified, of …

Quatermain talks to an African man who has been seen following them throughout the whole journey, and he introduces himself as Umbopa, saying he can be of help and has crossed the great desert before. They agree for him to travel with the group.

There are the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries, down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush, growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of home...

It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come to Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape.

Umbopa did so, at the same time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a necklace of lions' claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man; I never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was broad in proportion, and very shapely.

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.”

Umbopa has all of the necessary qualities of a great king. He displays his great leadership in the speech that he gives after successfully throwing out the old king, telling “all the land [to] rejoice in that the tyranny us trodden down, in that [he] is the king” (158).