South Africa and the Transvaal War Volume I Part 3

After this period, when, as stated before, small but promising quant.i.ties of gold had been unearthed, it was no longer possible to prevent parties of miners and speculators from trickling into the Transvaal, to the annoyance of its inhabitants. Outside, too, there were troubles, disputes, and skirmishes with the Zulus, and further north was waged a fierce fight between the Boers and the chief of the Bapedi, one Sekukuni, whose father had signed away his independence to the Boers, and who refused in his turn to abide by the conditions of the compact. In this fight Sekukuni was successful, and the Boers, worsted and discontented, and believing that the Almighty was displeased with them and with their President, Mr. Burgers, retired from the campaign. At the same time, in the south, Cetchwayo was itching to be on the warpath, and the general state of affairs suggested a possible annihilation of the Transvaal by an uncontrollable horde of natives. Things went from bad to worse, and in October 1876 Lord Carnarvon remonstrated with the President of the South African Republic regarding the unprovoked barbarity of the Sekukuni war, which had again been renewed. The reason for the interference of Lord Carnarvon is to be found in the following despatch, forwarded by Sir Henry Barkly, the then Governor of the Cape:--

"As Von Schlickman has since fallen fighting bravely, it is not without reluctance that I join in affixing this dark stain on his memory, but truth compels me to add the following extract from a letter which I have since received from one whose name (which I communicate to your lordship privately) forbids disbelief:--

"'There is no longer the slightest doubt as to the murder of the two women and the child at Steelpoort by the direct order of Schlickman, and in the attack on the kraal near which these women were captured (or some attack about that period) he ordered his men to cut the throats of all the wounded! This is no mere report; it is positively true." And in a subsequent letter the same writer informs me that the statements are based on the evidence, not alone of Kaffirs, but of whites who were present.

"'As regards the even more serious accusations brought against Abel Erasmus' (the Kruger's Post field-cornet), 'as specially alluded to in my letter to President Burgers, on the 28th ult.' (viz. of treacherously killing forty or fifty friendly natives, men and women, and carrying off the children), I beg to invite your lordship's attention to an account derived, I am a.s.sured, from a respectable Boer who accompanied the expedition, and protested against the slaughter and robbery of friendly Kaffirs, committed by order of the above-named field-cornet.

"'Should I not shortly receive such a reply from the President to my letters of last month, as to convince me that his Honour has taken effectual steps to check such outrages and punish the perpetrators, I will enter another protest, if only for form's sake.

"'Seeing, however, that Aylward, who is said to boast, whether truly or not, that he took part with his brother Fenians in the murder of the police constable at Manchester, as well as in the attempt to blow up the Clerkenwell prison, had succeeded Schlickman in the command of the Steelpoort Volunteers, I question whether the Government of the South African Republic has the power, even supposing it to have the will, to put a stop to further atrocities on the part of this band of "Filibusters," as they are commonly styled in the newspapers.

"'In my opinion it will be requisite to call in the aid of British troops before this can be done, and I am not without hope that one of the results of the mission on which Sir T. Shepstone is about to start, will be a pet.i.tion from persons of education and property throughout the country for such an intervention on the part of her Majesty's Government as will terminate this wanton and useless bloodshed, and prevent the recurrence of the scenes of injustice, cruelty, and rapine, which abundant evidence is every day forthcoming to prove, have rarely ceased to disgrace the Republics beyond the Vaal ever since they first sprang into existence.'"

Von Schlickman was an ex-Russian officer, commanding a force of filibusters which had been engaged by the Transvaal Government, and his men being unpaid, were allowed to reimburse themselves by cattle or land seized from the natives.

As a natural consequence, the war a.s.sumed a character of unrestrained ferocity. On receiving this information Lord Carnarvon wrote that his Government "could not view pa.s.sively, and with indifference, the engagement of the Republic in foreign military operations the object or the necessity of which had not been made apparent."

The quarrel with the chief had originated, as stated, in a Boer claim to his land, and the Boer President in replying urged the natural right of the Boers to all the land of the Transvaal. The chief magistrate at that time was President Burgers, a man who, if report may be believed, was far superior to those with whom he a.s.sociated. This man, a Cape Dutchman, and sometime minister of the Reformed Church, had been called to the onerous post of President of the South African Republic in 1872. He was bent on the advancement of his nation, and his intelligence was remarkable. He was a man of sterling character, fanciful, enthusiastic, an idealist even, with a horror of slaveholding, and a hankering for the pure life of the humanist. In a measure he was too much in advance of the people with whom he was connected. To them he was something of a Freethinker, a man too ready to judge for himself while the Gospel was at hand to judge for him. Such liberal views were not in accord with peasant limitations. His desire to raise his country to the level of other nations, to bring commerce and railways within touch of his people, savoured of heresy. The appreciation for civilisation was so strong within him that he is even said to have carried it to extremes, to have favoured the prompt and regular payment of taxes, and to have executed an elaborate design for an international coat-of-arms! Now this reformer, like most reformers, was not appreciated among his own people. He had no police to support him, no means of putting pressure on those who should have served his cause. The Conservative party, with Mr. Kruger at their head, did their best to circ.u.mvent every innovation and to save themselves and the country from what they believed to be the dangerous inorthodoxy of their President.

Mr. Burgers in his posthumous "Vindication" outlines some strange hints regarding the character of his compatriots, which outlines may now be readily filled in by personal experience. He therein a.s.serts that had he chosen to publish to the world a faithful description of the Transvaal Boers, they would have forfeited the appreciation gained from the Liberal party in Europe. Mr. Burgers' reserve is much to be regretted, as a few sidelights thrown on the Boer character at that period might have helped to educate the Liberal party of whom he spoke, and thereby saved much of the vacillation of policy for which the country now has to suffer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SERGEANT-MAJOR of the 2nd DRAGOONS.

(ROYAL SCOTS GREYS.)

Photo by Gregory & Co., London.]

THE POLITICAL WEB

Before going further, we must examine the situation between the Governor of the Cape, the President of the South African Republic, and the Home Government.

When we look back at Boer history, we find the details of annexation and restoration repeating themselves with the consistency of the chorus of a nursery rhyme. What the Government of the Cape accomplished the Government at home proceeded promptly to undo, till the problems connected with Boer liberty and British rights became so tangled and so intricate that they could only be solved by the sword.

It may be remembered that in 1854 Sir George Grey, the then Governor of the Cape, applied himself to the puzzle. He started with the best hopes. He saw before him a vista of labour, of argument, of contradiction, but the tangles, he believed, could eventually be smoothed out. In the anxiety to avoid trouble and responsibility, and possibly in an amiable desire to conciliate the parties at home, the Imperial Government had conceded territories and alienated subjects without having made an effort to discover the wishes of the people, or to try a free form of government suited to South Africa.

He was in favour of a Federal Union wherein the separate Colonies and States, each with its local government and legislature, should be combined under one general representative legislature, led by a responsible Ministry, specially charged with the duty of providing for common defence. This plan of Federal Union seemed to appeal to the Burghers of the Orange Free State, for the Volksraad decided that "a union of alliance with the Cape Colony, either on the plan of federation or otherwise, is desirable." Sir George Grey was not permitted to pursue his policy, for the British Government decided against the resumption of British sovereignty over the Orange Free State. The same forward and backward movement, the same sort of political _chase et croise_, was again carried on from 1876 and 1877 to 1881. It was decided that a Federal Union should be created between such African Colonies as were willing to join. To further this scheme Sir Bartle Frere, after a long and arduous career in India, was appointed Governor and High Commissioner by Lord Carnarvon, the then Colonial Secretary. But Sir Bartle was too late.

Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had been sent out to the Transvaal on Special Commission to confer with the President on the question of Confederation, had already annexed the Transvaal. The reasons for the annexation were many and excellent. Firstly, the Transvaal Republic, vulgarly speaking, was out at elbows. It was bankrupt, helpless, languishing. The sorry sum of 12s. 6d. represented the entire wealth of the Treasury. The Zulu chief Cetchwayo was waiting to "eat up" the Boers, and the Boers were unceasing in their efforts to encroach on Zulu territory. But the deplorable state of affairs is better described by quoting Sir T. Shepstone's letter on the subject.

"It was patent to every observer," writes Sir T. Shepstone, "that the Government (of the Transvaal) was powerless to control either its white citizens or its native subjects; that it was incapable of enforcing its laws or of collecting its taxes; that the Treasury was empty; that the salaries of officials had been and are months in arrear; that sums payable for the ordinary and necessary expenditure of government cannot be had, and that such services as postal contracts were long and hopelessly overdue; that the white inhabitants had become split into factions; that the large native populations within the boundaries of the State ignore its authority and laws; and that the powerful Zulu king, Cetchwayo, is anxious to seize upon the first opportunity of attacking a country the conduct of whose warriors has convinced him that it can be easily conquered by his clamouring regiments." He again writes: "I think it necessary to explain, more at length than I was able to do in my last despatch, the circ.u.mstances which seem to me to forbid all hope that the Transvaal Republic is capable of maintaining the show even of independent existence any longer, which induced me to consider it my duty to a.s.sume this position in my communications with the President and Executive Council, and which have convinced me that, if I were to leave the country in its present condition, I should but expose the inhabitants to anarchy among themselves, and to attack from the natives, that would prove not only fatal to the Republic, but in the highest degree dangerous to her Majesty's possessions and subjects in South Africa."

The proclamation of the annexation of the Transvaal was issued on the 12th of April 1876, and on the previous day Sir T. Shepstone wrote: "There will be a protest against my act of annexation issued by the Government, but they will at the same time call upon the people to submit quietly, pending the issue. You need not be disquieted by such action, because it is taken merely to save appearances, and the members of the Government from the violence of a faction that seems for years to have held Pretoria in terror when any act of the Government displeased it. You will better understand this when I tell you privately that the President has from the first fully acquiesced in the necessity for the change, and that most of the members of the Government have expressed themselves anxious for it--but none of them have had the courage openly to express their opinions, so I have had to act apparently against them, and this I felt bound to do, knowing the state and danger of the country, and that three-fourths of the people will be thankful for the change when once it is made."

As a matter of fact the annexation was received with rejoicing all over the country. "G.o.d save the Queen" was sung, and special thanksgiving services were held in many of the churches. The Union Jack was run up, the Republican flag hauled down without a dissentient voice. The arrival of British troops--the first battalion of the 13th Regiment--was hailed with curiosity and pleasure, the Boers with their women and children turning out to meet it and hear the band play. The financial effects of the new departure were magical. Credit and commerce were at once restored.

Valueless railway bonds rose to par, and the price of landed property was nearly doubled. On the Queen's birthday, the first after the annexation, the 24th of May 1877, the native chiefs were invited to attend, and the Union Jack was formally hoisted to the strains of the National Anthem. This same flag was within a few years ign.o.bly hauled down during the signing of the Convention at Pretoria, and formally buried by a party of Englishmen and loyal natives. But for the time being all seemed pleased with the new state of affairs. As Mr. Haggard says, it is difficult to reconcile the enthusiasm of a great number of the inhabitants of the Transvaal for English rule and the quiet acquiescence of the remainder at this time, with the decidedly antagonistic att.i.tude subsequently a.s.sumed.

His description of the situation in "The Last Boer War" seems to be more near the truth than any forthcoming: "The Transvaal, when we annexed it, was in the position of a man with a knife at his throat, who is suddenly rescued by some one stronger than he, on certain conditions which at the time he gladly accepts, but afterwards, when the danger is pa.s.sed, wishes to repudiate. In the same way the inhabitants of the South African Republic were in the time of need very thankful for our aid, but after a while, when the recollection of their difficulties had grown faint, when their debts had been paid and their enemies had been defeated, they began to think that they would like to get rid of us again, and start fresh on their own account with a clean sheet."

In the management of affairs it appears that Mr. Burgers began to set an example of the policy which Mr. Kruger has since followed: the policy of trying to sit on either side of the fence. Mr. Kruger has struggled more and more violently to accomplish this feat as the years advance and he advances in years. He has tried to grab the advantages attendant upon the possession of gold mines and schemed to acquire a great financial status, and yet at the same time to keep up his affectation of piety and to maintain his pristine condition of bucolic irresponsibility. Brought face to face with Sir T. Shepstone's scheme for annexation, Mr. Burger privately encouraged the proposed action of the Government--he and his colleagues even stipulating for pension and office--while publicly he lifted up his protest against the innovation.

The Boer, with his usual craft, had decided that the British Government should set him financially on his feet, which feet he meant promptly to use for running away from his responsibilities.

Some declare that the policy of Sir T. Shepstone was premature, that he should have waited until the Boer had soaked further in the slough of insolvency into which he was fast sinking. But Sekukuni was threatening, and on the south-eastern frontier Cetchwayo, with a force some thirty thousand strong, was waiting his opportunity. The promise of the future was a general holocaust, in which Boer men, women, and children, farms and flocks would be annihilated. Sir T.

Shepstone, had he been other than a Briton, might have stayed his hand and waited till the Boers were effectually swept away, but being a Briton he acted as such, doubtless arguing that,

"As we under Heaven are supreme head, So, under him, that great supremacy, Where we do reign, we will alone uphold."

THE WEB THICKENING

It must be remembered that between the Zulus and the Boers no boundary line had ever been fixed, and that for over a dozen years the Zulu chiefs had repeatedly implored the British Governor in Natal for advice and help in their dealings with these aggressors.

It had been part of the Dutch policy--if policy it may be called--to force the Zulu gradually to edge further and further from the rich pasture lands sloping eastward of the Drakensberg Mountains, and spreading to right and left into the north and west of Zululand.

Little notice had been taken of their pet.i.tions, and the Zulus had determined to take the law into their own hands. Cetchwayo, therefore, when the news of our annexation of the Transvaal reached him, was like a wild beast baulked of its prey. He was anxious for an occasion for his young warriors "to wash their spears" in the gore of his enemies, and was naturally disappointed to find them under the protection of the white man. The Natal Government attempted to soothe him--to promote peace. He remained sullen and simmered. He vented his spleen by putting several young women to death for having refused to marry his soldiers. On being remonstrated with by the Natal Government, he expressed himself with engaging candour. His own words, without comment, describe the character with which we had to deal.

"Did I ever tell Mr. Shepstone," his Majesty cried, "that I would not kill? Did Mr. Shepstone tell the white people I made such an arrangement? Because if he did he deceived them. I do kill; but I do not consider that I have done anything yet in the way of killing.

Why do the white people start at nothing? I have not yet begun. I have yet to kill. It is the custom of our nation, and I will not depart from it. Why does the Governor of Natal speak to me about my laws? I shall not agree to any laws or rules from Natal, and by so doing throw the large kraal which I govern into the water. My people will not listen unless they are killed, and while wishing to be friends with the English I do not agree to give my people over to be governed by laws sent to me by them. Have I not asked the English to allow me to wash my spears since the death of my father, Upandi, and they have kept playing with me all the time, treating me as a child?" ... A good deal more followed in this strain. Since his accession the gallant Cetchwayo had decided to "wash his spears" in the blood of his neighbours, and whatever the British might have to say in the matter, wash them he would. It was obvious, therefore, that a ruffian of this kind, backed by a bloodthirsty following, was a permanent danger to our Colony of Natal and to its white inhabitants. Something must be done to remove the disquiet caused by the utterances of the savage. Sir Henry Bulwer (the Governor of Natal)--to conciliate the king and to allay his fears lest his territory, like that of the Boers, should be annexed--proposed that a commission should investigate the rival claims of Boers and Zulus on border questions, and settle them by arbitration. But what Sir H.

Bulwer proposed Sir Bartle Frere, High Commissioner in South Africa, disapproved. He felt that Cetchwayo and his host would be a standing menace to the borders of Natal. Nevertheless he agreed to a discussion of the vexed boundary question between Boer and Zulu, in which the commissioners declared unanimously against the claims of the former. Certain land only to west of the Blood River, held by the Boers and unchallenged by the Zulus, was confirmed to the Dutch settlers in their occupation of the same. But to this decision Sir Bartle Frere considered it expedient to add some saving clauses.

These demanded, first, that Cetchwayo should adhere to the guarantees he had given and not permit indiscriminate shedding of blood; second, that he should inst.i.tute from his existing military system the form of tribal quotas; third, that he should accept the presence of a British Resident; fourth, that he should protect the missionaries and their converts; and lastly, that he should surrender certain criminals and pay certain fines. His Zulu Majesty was given thirty days to consider the subject. Instead of considering he flouted it. The result was war.

THE ZULU WAR

According to the opinion of Sir Bartle Frere there was, and for a long time had been, a growing desire on the part of the great chiefs to make this war into a simultaneous rising of Kaffirdom against white civilisation. A spirit of mutiny had been in the air since the terrible events in India in 1857, and there was a general conviction among the native tribes that the authority of Great Britain would eventually be overthrown. Now the most powerful of all the native tribes in South Africa were the Zulus, whose military organisation had long been celebrated, and who had earned a great reputation since the days of Gaika, and more especially in the time that followed when Chaka, who was a born warrior, brought the gigantic army into a state of marvellous efficiency.

A few words regarding the career of this great chieftain may be found interesting, for to him is accorded the credit of the indubitably warlike and brave disposition of his countrymen. This man, who has been at times called the Attila and the Napoleon of South Africa, was born in 1783. He became chief officer to Dingiswayo, a man of remarkable ability, who studied European military systems and modelled on their principle a highly efficient army. Chaka, heir to a chieftainship of the Amazulu tribe (the Zulus proper), took the fancy of Dingiswayo, who elevated him first to a post of high command, and eventually to the vacant Zulu chieftainship. On the death in battle of Dingiswayo, Chaka a.s.sumed the command of both tribes, to which he gave his name. The already excellent army he proceeded to improve till it became one of the most efficient military organisations ever originated in an uncivilised country. The whole kingdom was ordered on a military footing, and expanded so wondrously that the original two tribes at first commanded by Chaka became an hundred, each tribe having been defeated in warfare and incorporated in the Zulu nationality. His policy, unlike that of Cetchwayo later on, was not to destroy but to subdue, and thus he soon ruled with undisputed sway over a complete empire covering the desolated regions of Natal, Zululand, and the modern Boer States. His methods of military training were entirely Spartan; his discipline was a discipline of iron. Disobedience was met with the penalty of death. To tread out a roaring bush-fire, or capture alive a wild beast, were some of the tasks imposed as daily training for his would-be warriors. An order was an order, and this, however dangerous or seemingly impossible, had to be obeyed by individual or regiment on pain of the most horrible forms of death.

It may easily be imagined that this stern regime was calculated to create a military following of the most brave and adventurous order.

Naturally enough, all the other Kaffir tribes looked to the Zulus as their leaders and champions in the contest. Captain Hamilton Parr tells a tale of an old Galeka warrior who said to a native magistrate, "Yes, you have beaten us--you have beaten us well; but there," pointing eastward, "there are the Amazulu warriors. Can you beat them? They say not. Go and try. Don't trouble any more about us, but go and beat _them_ and we shall be quiet enough." This anecdote serves to describe the general sentiment of disdain for British authority which Sir Bartle Frere detected almost immediately after his arrival among the natives, and to account in a measure for what has been declared to be his high-handed policy. He was convinced that we could never expect peace among the chiefs until we had satisfied them who was master. A lesson was necessary to show that the British Government could govern and meant to govern, and that lesson he felt must be taught sooner or later. For a long time Cetchwayo had been instigating rebellion and preparing for war. As may be seen from Lord Carnarvon's letter of the 24th of January 1878 to Sir Bartle Frere, the Government was fully conscious of the existing necessity to protect the Transvaal and to maintain British prestige in South Africa. The despatch runs: "It seems certain that the Zulu king has derived from his messengers the unfortunate idea that the Kaffirs are able to cope with the Colony on more than equal terms, and this belief has, as was inevitable, produced a very threatening change in his language and conduct towards the Transvaal Government. It is only too probable that a savage chief such as Cetchwayo, supported by a powerful army already excited by the recent successes of a neighbouring tribe over the late Government of the Transvaal, may now become fired with the idea of victory over her Majesty's forces, and that a deliberate attempt upon her Majesty's territories may ensue. Should this unfortunately happen, you must understand that at whatever sacrifice it is imperatively necessary that her Majesty's forces in Natal and the Transvaal must be reinforced by the immediate despatch of the military and naval contingents now operating in the Cape, or such portion of them as may be required. This is necessary not only for the safety of the Transvaal, for the defence of which her Majesty's Government are immediately concerned, but also in the interest of the Cape, since a defeat of the Zulu king would act more powerfully than any other means in disheartening the native races of South Africa."

On this subject Sir H. Bulwer wrote: "There has been for the last eight or nine months a danger of collision with the Zulus at any moment." And in November 1878 he said: "The system of government in the Zulu country is so bad that any improvement seems hopeless. We should, if necessary, be justified in deposing Cetchwayo."

Consequently, Sir Bartle Frere was not surprised when all efforts to reduce Cetchwayo to yield to British demand failed. As time went by it became clear that enforcement of these demands must be placed in the hands of Lord Chelmsford and the military authorities, and accordingly, on the 10th of January 1879, the Commander-in-Chief of the forces of South Africa crossed the frontier.

As the frontier extended for some two hundred miles, to a.s.sume a purely defensive att.i.tude would have been impossible. Our forces so placed would not have been sufficiently strong to resist an attack made at their own time and place by a horde of some ten to twenty thousand Zulus. Lord Chelmsford had no alternative, therefore, but to invade Zululand.

ISANDLWANA

The force under Lord Chelmsford's command was divided into four columns.

These were composed partly of British soldiers, partly of Colonists, and partly of blacks. The first column, under Colonel Pearson, crossed the Lower Tugela; the second, under Lieutenant-Colonel Durnford, R.E., consisting of native troops and Natal Volunteers, was to act in concert with column three; the third, under Colonel Glyn--but directed by the General, who a.s.sumed all responsibility--crossed the Buffalo River; and the fourth, under Colonel Evelyn Wood, entered Zululand from near Newcastle on the north-west. The plan was for the four columns to converge upon Ulundi, in the neighbourhood of the king's kraal, where fighting might be expected to begin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF ZULULAND AND ADJOINING PORTIONS OF NATAL.]

The crossing of the Buffalo River was effected without difficulty or resistance, and ten days after the central column formed a camp at the foot of the hill Isandlwana (the Little Hand). On the morning of the 22nd the Commander-in-Chief advanced at daybreak, for the purpose of attacking a kraal some miles distant. The camp at Isandlwana was left in charge of a force of some eight hundred mixed troops--regulars, volunteers, and natives. Strict orders to defend and not to leave the camp were given, but in spite of these orders portions of the force became detached. Suddenly, un.o.bserved by them, there appeared a dense impi of some twenty thousand Zulus. The savage horde rushed shouting upon the small British detachments, rushed with the swiftness of cavalry, attacked them before they could unite, and swooping down with tremendous velocity, seized the camp and separated the British troops from their reserves of ammunition. In face of this warrior mult.i.tude our troops were defenceless. A few moments of wild despairing energy, a hand-to-hand struggle for life between the white man and the bloodthirsty savage, groans of wounded and yells of victory, and all was over. Of the six companies of the 24th, consisting of more than half the infantry engaged, but six souls escaped. The rest died where they fell, with no kindly hand to give them succour, no British voice to breathe a burial prayer. But some before they dropped managed to cut their way through the ring of Zulu spears. Two gallant fellows, Lieutenants Melvill and Coghill, almost succeeded in saving the colours of the first battalion of the 24th Regiment. They made a bold rush, but merely reached the Natal bank of the Buffalo to be struck down. The colours, wrapped round Melvill's body, were discovered in the river some days afterwards.

The Zulu plan of fighting, in this case so successful, is curious.

The formation of their attacks represents the figure of a beast with horns, chest, and loins. While making a feint with one horn, the other, unperceived in long gra.s.s or bush, swoops round and closes in on the enemy. The chest then advances to attack. The loins are kept at a distance, and simply join in pursuit.

The news of the disaster spread fast. Sir Bartle Frere, on the morning of the 24th, was awakened by the arrival of two almost distraught and wholly unintelligible messengers. Their report, when it could be at last comprehended, seemed too horrible for belief.

That they had escaped some terrible ordeal was evident; that they were members of the company of naval volunteers that formed part of the General's army, their uniform proclaimed. But of the General they could say nothing--he might be dead, he might be missing--all they knew was of their own miraculous escape from a scene of slaughter. Colonel Pulleine they declared was dead, but further news had to be awaited with anxious hearts.

Meanwhile Lord Chelmsford had heard the horrible news. The camp had been seen in the possession of the Zulus. Worn and weary with heavy marching in a baking sun, he and his troops began to retreat. At nightfall, thoroughly jaded, they returned to a grim scene. All around lay the still silent dead--the corpses of the comrades they had parted with but a few hours before. There, amid the pathetic wreckage, were they forced to lay them down to rest!

Fortunately the Zulus, having plundered the camp, had made off, and the British force was able the next day to proceed to the relief of Rorke's Drift. At Rorke's Drift the now world-celebrated defence of Lieutenant Bromhead, of the 24th, and Lieutenant Chard, R.E., took place. These young officers had been left with one hundred and four soldiers to take charge of a small depot of provisions and an hospital, and to keep open the communication with Natal. Some hours after the disaster of Isandlwana their post was attacked by Dabulamanzi (brother of Cetchwayo) and over three thousand of his finest warriors. The little garrison had made for themselves a laager of sacks of maize and biscuit-boxes, and behind these they defended themselves so stubbornly and so heroically throughout the night of the 23rd, that the Zulu chieftain, discomfited and hara.s.sed, eventually retired. For their magnificent pluck the two young officers received the Victoria Cross. Their action had saved Natal from invasion by the enemy. Of the little garrison seventeen fell and ten were wounded. The loss of the Zulus was about three hundred.