Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/zululandOOgrou ZULU-LAND; LIFE AMONG THE ZULU-KAFIES OF NATAL AND ZULU-LAND, SOUTH AFRICA. WITH MAP, AND ILLUSTRATIONS, LAKGELY FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS. BY Rev. LEWIS (JfROUT, FOK FIFTEEN YEARS MISSIONARY OF THE AMERICAN BOARD IN SOUTH AFRICA, AUTHOR OF THE " GRAMMAR OF THE ZULU LANGUAGE," AND CORRESPOND- ING MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY. PHILADELPHIA: PRESBYTEEIAX PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. NEW YORK : A. D. F. RANDOLPH, tVO BROADWAY. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by WM. L. HILDEBURN, Treasurer, in trti8t for the PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 6IEEE0XYPED BT WESXCOTT & THOMSON. CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. PAGE First Experience in Africa 7 CHAPTER 11. Terra Natalis, Christmas Land ; as seen by Early Voyagers. 18 CHAPTER III. Position and Geographical Features of Natal 32 CHAPTER IV. The Seasons and Climate — The Nocturnal Heavens 39 CHAPTER V. First European Settlement at the Cape — Migrations of the Dutch Farmers previous to their arrival in the District of Natal 48 CHAPTER VI. Origin and Relationship op the Zulu-Kafir and other Zingian Tribes 59 CHAPTER VII. Early Accounts op Natal — History op the Rulers — Reign op Chaka 68 3 % i i CHAPTER VIII. t PAG« What the Dutch did and suffered m Natal, and -how the District became a British Colony 79 CHAPTER IX. Appearance and pursuits op the Natives 94 CHAPTER X. Zulu-Kafir Law and Government ; their influence upon the Native Mind 115 CHAPTER XL Superstitious Views and Practices op the People; "Wizards, Priests, and Doctors 132 CHAPTER XIL Matrimonial Affairs in Zulu-land 163 CHAPTER XIIL Character ; — Moulding Agencies ; — Bent and Capacities of the Native Mind 174 CHAPTER XIV. Zulu Language and Literature 187 CHAPTER XV. History of the American Zulu Mission from 1834 to 1843, — The first nine years of its existence 201 CHAPTER XVL History of the American Zulu Mission from 1843 to 1862 213 CHAPTER XVIL History op the Inland American Mission, to TJm^ilikazi and HIS People, at Mosiga 227 CONTENTS. 5 'chapter XVIII. FAGB European Missions to Zulu-land — English "Wesleyan, Norwe- gian, Berlin, Hanoverian, Church op England, and Roman Catholic 238 CHAPTER XIX. The Geological Features of Natal 255 CHAPTER XX. Botanical Productions 270 CHAPTER XXI. The Fauna of Natal — Beasts, 289 CHAPTER XXII. Reptiles 305 CHAPTER XXIII. Insects and Birds - 320 CHAPTER XXIV. European Enterprise in Natal 332 CHAPTER XXV. Present state of affairs in Zulu-land 345 1* ZULU-LAND CHAPTEH I. FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA. Ordained and married, one day, among tlie hills of Vermont, the next brings us to Boston, and the third finds us out on the tossing, briny deep, speeding our course to the south-eastern shores of Africa. Two months' fair sailing shows us the Cape of Good Hope, Africa's great southern land-mark, rising out of the deep blue sea, and makes our hearts leap again to see and feel solid earth. Six weeks we wait here among kind. Christian friends, to find a ship bound direct to Natal ; and then thirty-two days of rough, risky sail- ing brings us to our long desired haven, than which no land had ever looked to us more beautiful. The nautical "Rosebud," must now be exchanged for a Boer's wagon ; the sailing ship for a tented tra- veling house; the horses of Neptune for a Dutchman's nag and a dozen African bullocks. "Now I leave you to take charge of the wagons, while I ride over yonder and make a few purchases. Drive out a little way up the plain, find out a good place in which to outspan for the night. Be diligent 7 8 ZU:.U-LAND. for the rain is coming." So said a brother missionary as we were about leaving the few rude signs of civiliza- tion in Durban, and setting off for a mission station forty miles away to the north. Friends in Natal had furnished us with a wagon, oxen, and all the essential paraphernalia of that interesting and important institu- tion, an African ox-wagon — a leader and driver for the oxen, a chest of food, bedding, native attendants, cooking utensils, and tea dishes — indeed, all that was essential for three or four days' sojourn in the fields or along the coast, wherever a way can be found, over plains, hills and rivers, and among savages, till we reach the station of our missionary companion, who has come to bring us to his home. Just here and now it was that the realities and ro- mance of mission life in a strange land, on a barbarous coast, began to roll up like the rush and mingling of waves about the point where two seas meet. I had al- ready heard something about outspanning,'' — just enough to know that it signified to set the oxen free from their semi-civilized gear, that combination of iron, wood, and thongs cut from the hide of buffalo or other animal, a gear such as nothing but a good deal of Eng- lish ingenuity, Dutchified and Zuluized, could ever de- vise or execute. But to understand all the conditions of a good place in which to " outspan for the night," — to know that such a place ought to be a smooth, open, grassy plat on the lee side of a thick bush, which shall break off the driving wind, perchance the pelting rain, with grass, wood, and water near at hand for man and beast, was a kind of knowledge to which I had not yet attained. Such a spot, however, I was now charged FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA. 9 and expected to find ; and not for myself and family alone, but for that of a veteran, whose practiced eye, the moment he should ride up an hour hence, would see all our defects at a glance, and lead him to wonder how we could be so stupid as to stop for a night just out of reach of all that is desirable. But we must do our best. After some careful cogi- tation along the road, as to how and whither we shall proceed, we conclude to leave the question of a place in which to pitch our rolling tents to the better dis- cretion of our native attendants. Morning breaks upon our encampment. The rains have raised the rivers. The Umgeni is high ; but the tall driver, wading half through, thinks it fordable. The threatening clouds are beginning to pour their tor- rents upon the earth. As the day declines we outspan again ; — no difficulty is there in finding water now ! Amid the falling torrents the fire is to be kindled, by which to prepare our evening repast. This done — we dismiss our attendants to find shelter and lodgings, if they can, among the kraals of their own people, while we close the curtains of the tented wagon and prepare to pass the night in the broad, open fields, ever and anon all shining, as they are, with the lightning's flash, or trembling with the thunder's terrific crash. But we " laid us down and slept, and awoke, for the Lord sus- tained us." The morning is we^^, and cloudy, but we must journey on. We resume our northward course. Stopping for dinner, the rains keep us till night, and then till morn- ing dawns. \Ye have now learned several important lessons, one 10 ZULU-LAXD. of which is, that a leaky wagon is only fit for fair wea- ther ; and anothei is, that it is easier to go without tea than to gather wood, kindle a fire, and make it in the rain. The next day is fine, fresh, sweet ; everything is pleasant and inviting, except the slippery roads and swollen streams. Waiting a day for the Umtongati to subside, we venture in and pass over, though the water comes up some six or eight inches into the body of the wagon. Delayed by rains and rivers, we reach the Umhlali on Saturday, the sun fast setting in the west. Our food is all gone ; the river is higher than any we have crossed, and lies withal, right in the way of the station we seek. And besides, there is an alligator here ; we know there is, for he was found basking in the sun by the river side as we drove up. To spend the Sabbath where we are, within two hours' drive of the home we seek, — and nothing but sugar and salt to eat — how can we ? Leave our wagon here in the field, with all the heavier luggage ; put the two teams, twenty- four oxen, together ; put the trunks of clothing upon the bedstead, itself on a level with the top-rail of the wagon body ; put the bedding on the trunks, and the women and children on the bed, in the roof of the wa- gon. Now put the man who is to lead the oxen on a horse that can swim ; choose the best of the two drivers and give him the best whip. Such is the plan — these the orders. ''All ready— Start !" Crash Stop ! what's that?" The bedstead has broken down; — must be raised again, and propped up. All is in order. "Ready— Start!— Stop!" The front oxen have pulled away from the leader and returned to the shore. " Send FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA. 11 Another leader to his help ; straighten the team." The orders are obeyed. " All right again. Now, go ahead !" We enter the stream, — down, down goes the wagon — up, up comes the water. The oxen are swimming — the water rushes over the top of the wagon body, fills it full. But our brave oxen go forward and we soon as- cend the opposite bank in safety. In about two hours more, as the silent shades of Sa- turday evening come stealing over us, we find ourselves safely arrived at the station we were seeking in the beautiful valley of the Umvoti. Weeks pass away. The native language occupies the most of my thoughts. How to speak it as they speak it — this, for the present, is the great object of study. At length there comes a chieftain — Umusi is his name — and says he wants a missionary. We go to find out his abode, the locality of his people, and select a place for a station. The journey is made on horse- back. The first day brings us to the station of the Rev. Daniel Lindley, who is to be our exploring com- panion. Towards the close of the second day we come up from our windings along the banks of the Umhloti. Fairly at the top of the steep ascent, on the margin of a broad, high table land, there we stand, enveloped in a dense fog, and giving a bewildered, prying gaze at the three paths into which the one we had followed thus far, now divides. Hoping to be directed in our course, at this point, by the sight of a high hill at the base of which the chieftain had his abode, we had left our na- tive guide to fall in the rear and take a nearer foot- path, which our horses could not follow. We must de- cide for ourselves which of the three paths before us 12 ZULU-LAND. may be the right one. AYe take the wrong, and journey on. The path promises well at first ; but presently we begin to feel that this is not the course we ought to pursue. Still, it may be the right path, and we jour- ney on. We presently begin to wonder if we are not almost there. How long the road is, and nobody to be seen on the way. "VVe are probably in the wrong, but how shall we get right ? We cannot go back ; night would be upon us before we could reach any shelter. In fact it is already upon us ; nor is there always light enough for us to tell whether we are in the path or out of it, except as we judge by the sound of the foot-falling of the beasts we are riding. Nor can we rid ourselves of the impression, now and then, that we are passing along the edge of some fearful precipice. The dense fog we encountered an hour ago has changed, first into a thick mist, next, into a drizzly rain. In a strange place, a new, wild country ; knowing that the hyena, or prairie wolf, often follows the horseman, sometimes in packs, to pick him up and take care of him, should he or his horse meet with any mishap ; knowing too that the leopard may be lurking in any dark ravine or bushy nook through which we pass, the sign of anything human, the cry of a child, of a sheep or goat, cow or dog — anything to tell us that we are not far from a human habitation, be it never so humble and rude, would be music in our ears. But look ! Hark ! There is a light in the distance ; and do you not hear voices ? We reach the spot, and find that a company of natives have just selected this as the site of their new house. We ask for corn to FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA. 13 ^ive our hungry horses, and a hut for ourselves. They say they have neither, and they seem to tell the truth. Offering to lead us over a plain and beyond a hill, to a large, flourishing hraal^ with assurance that, once there, we can get all we want, we ride on for another hour. Wet, tired, hungry, we are glad to find in a Zulu hut a shelter from the rain, though we must come down upon all fours to enter, the door, like all doors to these rude African houses, being only about two feet high and eighteen inches wide. In the absence of anything like a chair, we take our seat upon a piece of wood, a short, crooked pole which marks off a part of the house as an apartment for calves. Soon the people have gathered about us in great numbers, old men and young, mothers and maidens, boys and girls, an astonished, motley group, glad we have come, wondering what brought us thither, and not a little pleased and surprised that we can talk with them in their own tongue. They give us the best they have, though it be but a calabash of milk and a basket of boiled maize. It is late, and time to retire. The most of the people withdraw ; some re- main, between whom and ourselves, together with the calves, a dog or two, an army of rats and mice, the one- roomed, smoky hut is to be shared. Commending our- selves to the care of that kind Providence whose pre- sence may be found in all places, and recounting be- tween ourselves the events and labors of the day, the mat our host has brought is spread upon the ground. With our blankets spread upon the mat, we get sleep enough to be ready to greet refreshed the morning's dawn. And now, as the birds begin their joyous carol, ming- 2 14 ZULU-LAND. ling their sweet music with the song of the merry brook that flows at the foot of the hillock on which we have encamped, from the dark, low hut we emerge into the bright light. We think that our eyes have seldom ' fallen upon a landscape of more native beauty. Look- ing along the hills and valleys that stretch out, up and down the country, covered as they now are with flowers of various hue and shape and grass of richest green, fragrant withal as a rose, we fancy we have found some- thing like another Paradise, where "only man is vile." Admiring the prospect before us and turning his eyes to a green, oval field, across the brook, half a mile away, my friend Lindley said, If we can only find a peren- nial spring in that region, you cannot have a better place for a station." We passed over, found the spring we required, and fixed upon it as a place of future abode and labor, calling it after the name of the brook upon whose sources it is situated, Umsunduzi. Returning to Umlazi, where, of late, I had been making my abode, I procure a wagon and oxen, en- gage a driver and leader, pack up such tools and other efiects as I shall require to erect a house in the wild open fields, far from all the helps of civilized life — axe and spade, saw and auger, hammer and chisel, glass and nails, grindstone and vise, food and clothing, bedding and books, a large wagon well filled, and prepare to start. My oxen are fresh — some of them not more than half trained. The driver and leader with Zulu boys engaged to aid in the enterprise before us are well nigh as wild, and quite as uncivilized as the wildest of the oxen. Having "inspanned" and brought the oxen and wagon into all due traveling relations after the or- FIRST EXPERIENCE IN /.ERICA. 15 dinary Dutcli and Zulu fashion, the driver takes his stand on the front of the wagon, gives his mammoth whip a crack, shouts to the leader, in Zulu, "Hamba;" to the oxen in Dutch, ''Loop;" and the whole establish- ment begins at once to 'Hrek.'' After advancing a few rods, we must descend a long, steep hill ; the driver has forgotten to stop and chain the wheel ; the wagon begins to crowd heavy upon the wheel oxen, and they upon the next in front ; now all are on the trot, then all on the gallop; soon some have taken fright at the rattle of the wagon, and begin to bellow, and presently all are racing down-hill at the top of their speed, and the wagon follows ; driver and leader meantime shouting to their team, now in Dutch, now in Zulu, and now in something else, to stop and go steady; while the anxious proprietor attracted by the tumult to the top of the hill, stands watching the pro- gress of the lively operation, and expecting every mo- ment to see the wagon and all in it dashed to pieces. But driver and leader, finding it impossible to stay the downward, rushing course of events, give themselves up wisely, to keeping the team straight, and finally fetch up in the plain below, the oxen all on their legs, the wagon on its wheels, and with only a few articles broken beyond repair. The contemplated station is fifty miles distant, and the road for a great part of the way must be found or made as w^e go. Three days of toil and travel, now to hunt up lost oxen, now to boggle in some river's deep sand and water, now to find a wagon road through some ravine, with an occasional surprise from the startled uprising and flight of buck or buffalo that might be 16 ZULU-LAXD. lying in tlie tall grass of the fields we traverse, bring us to the site of our new home. In a note-book kept in those days, I find a memo- randum made on the day of our arrival, September 30, 1847, — "Written at the close of day in my wagon, while the rain is falling in torrents, amid dazzling flashes of lightning and almost deafening roar of thunder." The Zulu boys make the oxen fast by the wagon for the night, and go to seek lodgings at a neighboring kraal ; the curtains of the wagon are closed and made fast fore and aft, the light extinguished, and the lone occupant of the premises is beginning to lose all con- sciousness of time, place and circumstance, when a pack of prowling hyenas set up one of the most hideous cries that ever entered the ear of man. They seem to be passing along and approaching us, just down under the hill only a few rods from our encampment. I had never heard them before, though I had heard of them. The doleful, hideous cry sends a chill through my veins, raises the oxen from their recumbent posture, and sets them all a-stir. I strike a light, open the tent, set up a counter shout. They stop their cry, and move off in another direction. ^ ;Jt ^ 5}; 4= * " Hail ! king ! white man ! teacher ! Where is thy Book ? How does it look, what does it say, what will it do? let us see it, hear it, have it, learn it." Such was the salutation and welcome which a company of boys gave us the next day. They had heard of cm- coming, had seen the white wagon outspanned in the field ; and now, leaving their herds of cattle on the hills, they had come down to see us, make us welcome, • FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA. 17 and ask to read the Book which they had understood it to be our object in coming there to teach them. " Si za kwenza njani na ? What shall we do ?" was the reply. "No house to live in. We were just starting for the bush to cut some poles and put up a shelter for our heads. But you shall see the Book and be taught to read it." So bringing out a copy, we commenced teaching them the alphabet. The next day we had a still larger class, more boys, and a few girls. Some of the latter, being nurses, brought their infant brothers and sisters with them, having them bound, a-la Zulu, on their backs with goat skins ; so that now, the second day, we have three classes, a class of boys, a class of girls, and an infant class. Meantime our own boys, as we were accustomed to call our native helpers, are cutting timber in the bush, and hauling it home for a house. Setting posts in the ground, weaving in wattles between them, plastering up and down, inside and out, with a kind of clay found there, putting on the frame of a roof and covering it with thatch, washing the walls with white clay found in the neighborhood, making also here and there a door and window, we have a house of two rooms, each ten by twelve feet, of w^hich we think, perhaps, as much as Queen Victoria of her palace. Our work is now begun, at our first station, Umsun- DUZI. 2 * ✓ 18 ZULU-LAND. CHAPTER 11. TERRA NATALIS, CHRISTMAS LAND; AS SEEN BY EARLY VOYAGERS. From deserts -vrild and many a pathless wood Of savage climes where I have wandered lon^, Whose hills and streams are yet ungraced by song, I bring, illustrious friend, this garland rude. The offering, though uncouth, in kindly mood Thou wilt regard, if haply there should be 'Mong meaner things, the flower simplicity, Fresh from coy Nature's virgin solitude. Pringle. It was about the middle of December, 1497, that Vasco de Gama passed the last beacon, a cross which his pioneer predecessor, Bartholomew Diaz, had set up about two hundred leagues to the east of the " Stormy cape." Putting out now more to sea, he sailed to the north-east till the 25th of December, when he made land again. As this was Christmas day, in honor of our Saviour's birth, the country was called Tierra de Natal, or land of the Nativity. "This day God came by human birth. Atoned himself for all on earth : Thou beauteous land this love recall. And be for ever sweet Natal." Such was the discovery and naming of this land of Natal, from and about which I write. But Vasco de Gama CHRISTMAc-LAND. 19 was not tlie first voyager to these distant shores. The earliest history bearing upon the subject, dates from the diluvian age, and the realms of Ararat. It gives us a glimpse at movements made then and there for the peo- pling of this whole continent. In the 10th chapter of Genesis, we find that Africa fell to Ham and his sons. The second of his sons, Mizraim, is generally supposed to have planted himself first in Egypt, and to have spread from thence over the neighboring regions. Pos- sibly some son of his, some grandson, or great grand- son pushed ofi" towards the south, and gave birth to some tribe which wandered on till it reached the south- ern point of the continent, and finally gave origin to the clans now known as the Hottentots and Bushmen. But in respect to the tribes that inhabit the land of Na- tal and adjacent districts, I may have more to say in other pages. About six hundred years before the Christian era, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, he who fought Josiah, king of Judah, and slew him at Megiddo,* fitted out an expedition and sent it by sea to learn the form and limits of Libya, — as this land of the sun was then called. The habits and prejudices of his own people, the ancient Egyptians, not being such as to fit them for the navigator's life, Necho procured sailors from among the Phoenicians. The fleet seems to have been large, and the voyage long. Nor is this strange, when we con- sider how rude must have been their vessels, and how many the obstacles with which they had to contend. Sailing down the Red Sea, they entered the Indian ocean, and thence pursued a plodding course along * 2 Kings xxiii. 20 ZUL ;-LAXD. Africa's eastern coast. On wliatsoever part of the coast they might be when the rainy season set in, it was the practice of these patient mariners to hiy up their ships, go ashore, dig and sow the land, reap the grain, and then put to sea again, and pass on. Having spent two years in this way, the third brought them round to the Pillars of Hercules, (the Straits of Gibraltar,) into the Mediterranean Sea, and so back to Egypt. Since it is scarcely possible that a fleet creeping thus along the coast, should have passed a splendid harbor, without entering and landing for a season, must we not suppose that Pharaoh Necho's Phoenician navigators, could they come up from the graves in which they have slept more than two thousand years, would lay a just claim to the credit of being the first foreigners to set their eyes and plant their feet on these enticing shores ? After two or three years' travel and tossing in such new far-off land and water, they went home, no doubt — "Full of new and strange adventures, Marvels many and many wonders." The Phoenicians ie'mg men of letters, the first to in- vent and develop alphabetical writing, of course the Admiral of the fleet kept a Journal of their experience and observations ; and, if Necho had no newspaper, nor press of any kind, in which to have it printed, who can question that he got the gallant admiral to deliver the substance of it as a course of lectures in the City Hall, the Park, or Academy ? But were the people prepared to credit the weather-beaten mariner's wonderful tale ? It would seem not. As in the case of the "young man" in the days of Hiawatha, so it seems to have been with the old navigator in the days of Necho. CLRISTMAS-LAND. 21 ''From his wanderings far to eastward, From the regions of the morning, From the shining land of Wabun, Homeward now returned lagoo — The great traveler, the great boaster, Full of new and strange adventures. Marvels many and many wonders. And the people of the village Listened to him as he told them Of his marvelous adventures, Laughing, answered him in this wise : ' Ugh ! it is indeed lagoo ! No one else beholds such wonders.' ''He had seen, he said, a water Bigger than the Big-Sea-Water, Broader than the Gitche Gumee, Bitter, so that none could drink it ! At each other looked the warriors, Looked the women at each other. Smiled, and said, 'It cannot be so ! Kaw !' they said, ' It cannot be so V " Even the much-traveled Herodotus found- some things in the navigators' story which he could neither compre- hend nor credit. Thus, they related that, in the course of the voyage, while they were passing the most south- ern coast of Africa, they were surprised to find that tliey had the sun on their right hand, that is, to the north of them. Repeating this part of their story, and handing it down for our perusal, the learned " father of history" adds, "but, for my part, I do not believe the assertion, though others may." We are indebted to the historian's doubts for the notice of an incident which confirms our faith. To men of our day, who know more than Herodotus did about the shape of the earth and its relation to the sun, the navigators' "as- sertion" not only presents no difficulty, but really 22 ZULU-LAND. affords a strong proof that tliej made the voyage as- cribed to them, and gave a correct account of it. The sun continued to run his daily, yearly course, nations to rise, and kings to reign ; but for two thou- sand years after the days of Necho, little more was known to the foreigner about the distant south-land of which we speak. Indeed, all that was ever known seems to have been forgotten. To all beyond the pale of its own tribes, this extreme of the African continent was as though it had never been. Discovering, at length, the mysterious powers of the magnet, the mariner was inspired with courage to strike out more boldly into the open sea, and go in search of new lands, or new routes to those already known. In the year "J 486, Bartholomew Diaz was fitted out by the king of Portugal with three ships, to find a new way to the East Indies. For nearly a hundred years the Portuguese had been gradually extending their dis- coveries and their trade along the western coast of Africa. "And now, stout Diaz, hugging well the shore, Has passed each spot where vessel came before, — New lands and scenes their aching eyes define, And on, and further still, extends the line." Diaz succeeded in passing the Cape of Good Hope, though in a storm, and at so great a distance that he did not see it. Reaching Algoa Bay they were glad to set their feet on solid earth, and rest awhile. Here they made a wooden cross, and setting it up, celebrated the mass. But on this African shore they saw and heard nothing of India, and the crew were now bent on re- turning home. Diaz persuaded them to go on three CHRIST MAS-LAND. 23 days longer. This brought them to the mouth of a river which they named Del Infanta, now the Great Fish River. But the people here could tell him nothing about India, or of the way thither. Able to proceed no farther, he now planted a cross in honor of St. Philip and wept that he must go back without a sight of the land of which he was in search. On his return, Diaz discovered the famous Cape, the southern point of Africa ; to which, annoyed and dis- tressed as he was by the mutinous spirit of his crew, appalled also by the stormy sky, and by the roar and swell of the oceans that meet and rage there, he gave the name of Cabo Tormentoso, or stormy cape ; and forthwith set off with his shattered barks for Lisbon. But his sovereign, John II., took a more favorable view of the j^oint. Hailing the captain's report as a prelude to success, — seeing in it, as he believed, a fair prospect that one great end of their many maritime expeditions, a grand highway to the Indies, was about to be attained, — he thought the place deserving of a better name ; and so called it Cabo de Buena Esperanza, or the Cape of Good Hope. " Cape of storms, thy spectre fled, See, the angel Hope, instead. Lights from heaven upon thy head ; "And where Table-Mountain stands, Barbarous hordes from desert sands, Bless the sight with lifted hands." Ten years having elapsed, Emanuel the Fortunate essayed to complete tte project which his predecessor, John II., had undertaken. The chief command of the royal squadron, which was fitted out for this purpose, 24 ZULU-LAND. was entrusted to Yasco de Gama. Keceiving his charge and a richly embroidered flag from the king, he set off from Lisbon for India, by way of the Lion of the Sea," as the Cape which Diaz had discovered was sometimes called. This was in July, 1497, five years after the discovery of America by Columbus. Reach- ing the vicinity of the Cape, and meeting most fear- ful tempests, the sailors' courage failed them, and they tried to induce the captain to put back. But the stout heart and fixed purpose of de Gama were not to be moved. At length, the sound of trumpets, made known that they had triumphed over the difiiculties and dangers, had reached the Cape, and anchored in the Bay. Looking shoreward the adventurous voyagers saw cattle feeding in the fields along the coast. At a greater distance, the eye was greeted with the sight of villages; the houses of which were covered with straw. The people are described as small of stature, of a brownish yellow color, having an ugly appearance, and clothed with the skins of animals, — doubtless the ancestors of the Hottentot of the present day. Sticks, hardened in the fire, and pointed with the horns of animals, served them as weapons of war. Roots and herbs, antelopes and pigeons, seals and whales, furnished them with food. They had dogs, and spoke a language the sound of which was thought to resemble groaning. In the gold, spices, and pearls, which de Gama showed them, they took little or no interest, but were much pleased with the little bells and pewter rings which he gave them. Bidding adieu to the Cape, Yasco de Gama sailed two hundred miles eastward, and landed at San Bias (Mos- CIIRISTMAS-LAND. 25 sel Bay,) wliere he erected a pillar bearing the arms of Portugal, and a cross. Sailing thence, he discovered and christened the land of Natal, whence the renowned navigator bore away to India, the object of his bold ambition. By early navigators, and largely at the present day, the natives of South Eastern Africa, are called Kafirs, and their land Kafirland, or Kafraria. The term (Ka- fir, Caffer, or Caphar) is derived from the Arabic, and is used to signify an unbeliever^ that is, one who rejects the Mohammedan faith. Why they were so called, how wide the application of the term at first, as also some- thing about the country and people, may be learned from the writings of one Samuel Purchas, an English clergyman, who was born 1577, and took pains to pick up and put on record all that was then known, or re- ported of South Africa, as of other countries new to that age. In his work, " The Pilgrimage ; or Rela- tions of the Worldy and the Religions observed in all Ages,'' he says : — "Caphraria, or the land of the Caphars, is next to be considered, which Maginus boundeth between Rio de Spi- rito Sancto and Cape Negro, extending to the Cape of Good Hope southwards. Why hee should call this part the Caphars, I know not : for the Arabians, of whom this word is borrowed, give that name to all the Heathen people in Africa : yea, both the Arabians and all of their religion call all such as will not receive their su- perstition, Caphars, even Christians also, as Master Jenkinson long since told us. And, for the Heathens in Africa, Barrius affirmeth that it is by the Moores given to them all: signifying without law, or lawless 3 26 ZULU-LAND. people. Zanguebar is in this respect called Cafraria. It should seeme it is appropriated to these, the South- erliest nations of Africa, from want of other the more true proper names, which were unknowne." " With the names of the capes and other places of note, Master Pory hath already acquainted his English reader. Onelj that notable and famous Cape of Good Hope, (so named by John the Second, king of Portugall, for that hope which hee conceived of a way to the In- dies, when it was first discovered,) deserveth some men- tion. * * * The waves there, saith Linschoten, strike against a shippe, as if they stroke against a hill, that if it were of stone it would at last be broken. Heere Captaine Lancaster traded with the people, and for two knives bought an ox : for one a sheepe, &c., in good quantitie. Their sheep are great, with great tailes, but hairy, not wooled. Tlie captaine killed there an ante- lope as bigge as a colt. There were diuers great beastes unknowne to them. * * * The Hollanders in the yeare 1595, trafficked with the Cafres, which were valiant, but base in apparell, covered with oxe or sheepe skines wrapped about their shoulders with the hairy side inwards in forme of a man- tle. But now we see it made a daily matter to the Por- tugal, English and Dutch, so capable of hope of good, that the Cape of Good Hope is nothing feared : al- though at home many have no good Hope of publicke good, and wish they would carry out of Europe less money and bring home more men. For my part, I wish so well to Navigation and Discoveries, that I would wish such complaints to be but calumnies, and to be the kna- vigations of false discoverers." CHRISTMAS-LAXD. 27 " I cannot omit that upon the toppe of tins Promon- tory, Nature hath as it were framed herselfe a delight- full bower, heere to sit and contemplate the great seas, which from the South, West, and East, beat upon this shore ; and therefore hath heere formed a great Plaine, pleasant in situation, which with the fragrant herbes, varietie of flowers, and flourishing verdure of all things seemes a Terrestrial Paradise. It is called the table of the Cape." * * * The Hollanders at the Cape of Good Hope, had of the inhabitants two kine for two rustic knives, and one much greater for a new one : two fat bulls and three sheepe for a bar of iron, weighing three-score and ten pounds. The people make much account of iron : they are of short stature : darkish colour : their armes are adorned w^th copper and ivory, their fingers with rings of gold, and with beads of bone and wood. They brand their bodies with divers markes. And because they allways annoint themselves with grease and fat, they yeeld a ranke smell. At their feasts they would seeth a Beast in his hide, fastened on four sticks with fire underneath. They lived miserably, yet for gallantry wore bones and pieces of dried flesh about their neckes." To the celebrated English navigator, Dampier, we are indebted for a very full and interesting notice of this country and its inhabitants as seen by Captain Rogers, Dampier's friend, about the year 1684, or nearly two centuries ago, with a few abridged extracts from which we bring this chapter to a close. "The country of Natal," says Dampier, "lies open to the Indian sea on the east, but how far back it runs %o the westward is not yet known. That part of the 28 ZULU-LAXD. country Tvliich respects the sea is plain, champaign, and woody; but within land it appears more uneven, by reason of many hills, which rise in unequal heights above each other. Yet it is interlaced with pleasant valleys and large plains, and it is checkered with natu- ral groves and savannahs. Neither is there any want of water, for every hill affords little brooks, which glide down several ways ; some of which, after several turn- ings and windings, meet by degrees, and make up the river of Natal, which dischargeth itself into the East Indian ocean, in lat. 30° south. There it opens pretty wide, and is deep enough for small vessels. But at the mouth of the river [Bay] is a bar, which has not above ten or eleven feet of water on it in a spring tide, though within there is water enough. This river is the prin- cipal of the country of Natal, and has been lately (1684) frequented by some of our English ships, particularly by a small vessel that Captain Rogers commanded." " The land animals of this country are lions, tigers, elephants, buffaloes, bullocks, deer, hogs, cows, &c. Here are also abundance of sea-horses. Buffaloes and bullocks only are kept tame, but the rest are wild. Ele- phants are so plentiful here that they feed together in great troops, one hundred or one hundred and fifty in company. Mornings and evenings they are seen graz- ing in the savannahs, but in the heat of the day they retire to the woods ; and they are very peaceable if not molested. Deer are very numerous here also. They feed quietly in the savannahs, among the tame cattle, for they are seldom disturbed by the natives. Here are fowls of divers sorts ; some such as we have in Eng- land, viz. — duck and teal, both tame and wild, and CHRISTMAS-LAND 29 plenty of cocks and hens ; besides abundance of wild birds wholly unknown to us. Here are a sort of large fowls, as big as a peacock, which have very fine colored feathers. They are very rare and shy. There are others like curlews, but bigger. The flesh of these is black, yet sweet and wholesome meat." ^' The natives of this country are but of middle sta- ture, yet have very good limbs ; the color of their skin is black, their hair crisped ; they are oval visaged, their noses neither flat nor high, but very well proportioned ; their teeth are white ; and their aspect altogether grace- ful. They are nimble people, but very lazy, which probably is for want of commerce. Their chief em- ployment is husbandry. They have a great many bulls and cows, which they carefully look after ; for every man knows his own, though they run all promiscuously together in the savannahs ; yet they have pens near their own houses, where they make them gentle and bring them to the pail. They have guinea corn, which is their bread ; and a small sort of grain, no bigger than a mustard seed, with which they make their drink. The common subsistence of this people is bread made of guinea corn, beer, fish, milk, ducks, hens, eggs, &c. They also drink milk often to quench their thirst, and this sometimes when it is sweet, but commonly they let it get sour first. Besides milk, which is the common drink, they make a sort of beer from the guinea corn, purposely to be merry with ; and when they meet on such occaidons, the men make themselves extraordinary fine, with feathers stuck in their cap very thick. They make use of the long feathers of cocks' tails, and none else. 3 * 30 ZULU-LAND. " Here are no arts or trades professed hj them, but every one makes for himself such necessaries as they need or ornament requires ; the men keeping to their employment, and the women to theirs. The men build houses, hunt, plant, and do what is to be done abroad ; and the women milk the cows, dress the victuals, kc, and manage all matters within doors. [If Rogers or Dampier be correct in what he says here about " plant- ing" and "milking," these labors have certainly changed hands since that day, as I may show at another time.] Their houses are not great or richly furnished, but they are made close and well thatched, that neither winds nor weather can hurt them. They wear but few clothes, and these extraordinary mean. The men go in a manner naked, their only garb being a small piece of cloth, made with silk grass or moho rind, and wrought in form of a small apron. At the upper corners it has two straps to tie round their waists, and the lower end being finely fringed with the same, hangs down to their knees. The women have only short petticoats, which reach from the waist to the knee. When it rains they cover their bodies with a simple cow's hide thrown over their shoulders like a blanket. "Every man may have as many wives as he can pur- chase and maintain ; and without buying there are none to be had ; neither is there any other commodity to be bought or sold but women. Young virgins are disposed of by their fathers, brothers, or other nearest male relations. The price is according to the beauty of the damsel. They have no money in this country, but give cows in exchange for wives ; and therefore he is the richest man that has most daughters or sisters, as he is sure to get CHRISTMAS-LAND. 31 cattle enough. Thej make merry when they take their wives ; but the bride cries all her wedding-day. They live together in small villages, and the oldest man go- verns the rest ; for all that live together in one village are a-kin, and therefore willingly submit to his govern- ment. They are very just and extraordinarily civil to strangers. This was remarkably experienced by two English seamen that lived among them five years : their ship was cast away on the coast, and the rest of their consorts marched to the river of Delasor ; but they staid here till Captain Rogers came hither and took them away with him; they had gained the language of the country ; and the natives freely gave them wives and cows too. They were beloved by all the people, and so much reverenced, that their words were taken as laws. And when they came away, many of the boys cried because they would not take them with them." 32 ZULU-LAND. CHAPTER III. POSITION AND GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES OF NATAL. A LOOK at the map will show the District of Natal to be situated in the south-eastern border of Africa, on that part of the Indian Ocean which lies chiefly be- tween the 29th and 31st parallels of latitude, being walled off from the interior regions by the Drakensberg, or Kwahlamba Mountains. To the north-east, and be- yond the Tugela River, is the district commonly called Zulu-land, stretching away to the Portuguese settlement at Delagoa Bay. On the west we have the Swazi tribes and Dutch Boers in the Orange River Free State. The Umzimkulu River has heretofore separated Natal from Kafraria on the south-west ; but the prospect is that the limits of the Natal Colony may be pushed on soon to the Umzimvubu. Nor is it at all unlikely that the whole of Kafirland may soon be subject to British rule. The land is pre-eminent for the beauty of its land- scapes, the fertility of its soil, and the healthiness of its climate. My delight in looking at the scenery of South Africa commenced with my first sight of it from the sea, and increased with acquaintance. The moun- tains are rather tabular than conical in shape ; and when viewed from the sea, they rise, table above table, as they GEOGrwlPIIICAL FEATURES. 33 recede in the distance, having their summits and sides, with the intervening plains, covered with verdant groves, thick shrubbery, or wide fields of green grass. Add to this, that the whole picture is diversified with here and there a river, or a dark and deep ravine, with fields of Indian corn, or gardens of indigenous grain and fruit, and the reader will agree with me that it may well excite the most pleasing emotions in the lover of nature. The Christian's heart it inspires vfith the prayer that a new moral creation may be efi*ected among the inhabi- tants, with which, for beauty and glory, even "the for- mer shall not be remembered nor come into mind." To one accustomed to think of new lands as abound- ing in forests of tall trees, it will seem strange, for a time, that none of these things are to be seen in Natal. Knowing, as I did on my arrival that there were very few whites in Natal, and that those few had been there a short time, to me it seemed a marked feature of the country that a large portion of it had the appearance of being "cleared," as an American would say, and prepared for tillage, mowing, and pasturage. Along the coast, these open, unfenced, grassy fields, with here and there a mimosa or other bushy tree, give you the idea of so many large, irregular, half-neglected or- chards. Hillocks covered with bushes, ravines filled with groves, rivers and rivulets skirted with evergreen trees of a goodly size and quality, I have often seen in Na- tal ; but nothing that could be called a forest, nor even a large tree, in the American sense of these terms. In some parts of the country, I have traveled all day, and not seen ^recn, growing wood enough to make a whip 3-i ZULr-LAXD. Stick, nor enough of tlie dry to ''cook the kettle," and yet the Tvhole country wouki be covered with the most luxuriant grass. This grass, dry and parched as it must become in the winter season, is sure to be burnt off, and with it every little twig of a tree that would grow there ; thus the soil is impoverished, and parched by the sun and wind ; and forests and large trees are few and far between. The terraced character of this country is a fea- ture which strikes the attention at once. From the sea-coast to the foot of the Kwahlamba range, we have a curious succession of steppes, or tiers of table- land. Beginning with the coast, we have a most beautifully variegated ribbon of country, ten or fifteen miles wide. This lies but little above the level of the sea, and forms a kind of mosaic ground-floor for the rest. Then, ris- ing a thousand feet, we find another strip of table-land, of about the same width. Passing this, we ascend an- other step of a thousand feet, and come to what is termed the central or midland terrace. This is broader than the one below, being about twenty miles wide. We have now begun to traverse a region whose broad, open, undulating fields could hardly fail to remind you of some of Bryant's beautiful lines : — '' These are the gardens of the desert, these The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, For which the speech of England has no name — The prairies. I behold them for the first. And my heart swells, while the dilated sight Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo ! they stretch In airy undulations, far away, As if the ocean, in his gcutlcst swell, GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES. 35 Stood still, Tvith all his rounded billows fixed, And motionless for ever." Having advanced fifty miles from the sea, we come to still another terrace, which, with an elevation of three or four thousand feet above the level of the sea, stretches away for fifty or a hundred miles to the zig-zag range called by the Dutch the "Drakensberg," or Dragon's Mountain. This magnificent rocj^y range, boldly sloped and buttressed at the base, then beautifully built up, — like the steep sides of all our great Table mountains, — in pillars and walls of bare rock, with a perpendicular face of several hundred feet, forms a limit to the colony in that direction ; while it also gives you another step of some two thousand feet, counting from the base to the summit. Having now raised you six thousand feet above the sea, it opens still another terrace, which stretches ofi* in its turn towards the interior of the con- tinent. But let it not be supposed that these terraces are laid out with regularity, or that they present each a smooth, unbroken surface; as an English writer (Dr. Mann) well observes: — ''Nature does not work like the mason because her object is an altogether different one. The traveler who climbs these steps can hardly make out the facts of their general plan by the eye-glance. He has to deduce the notion from a series of iso- lated positions and reflections. The land has been dis- turbed again and again, and the terraced steps have been heaved this way and that ; they are consequently now battered and bent, traversed by cracks and notched by deep gorges through which the insinuating water finds its way, carving rugged channels for itself among 36 ZULU-LAND. the fragments of rock, and ever and anon making some bold leap to gain the lower level. Water-falls in Na- tal are almost as plentiful as blackberries. Even where the streams hold the more quiet tenor of their way across the floor of the steppes, they flow with great force and rapidity, surging along stony ground through a wilder- ness of half-worn boulders." The sides of the ravines, or ' kloofs' (clefts) as they are provincially termed, are for the most part clothed with dense masses of foliage, from the midst of which lofty evergreens rear their heads. The edges of the terraces are also more or less lipped, or turned up ; the ascending traveler goes down into shallow valleys after he has mounted steep hills. The more open slopes are invariably covered by a coarse pasture, and here and there are dotted over by dwarf flat-topped bushes of the thorny mimosa. This pasture, in the early spring is emerald green, and variegated by the white and gaily colored blossoms of the aloes, amaryllids, and other bul- bous plants. In the autumn the hill-sides and valleys are russet brown, and in places look almost like English corn-fields at the approach of harvest, in consequence of the abundant crops which they bear of the tall tam- boti grass, — the staple resource of the thatcher. In the dry months of winter, they are hieroglyphiced at night by the flame-characters of the fires which are con- tinually set going at that season to do the work of the scythe in the removal of the coarse growth ; and by day they are mottled with the resulting sable, which adds to, rather than detracts from the picturesqueness of the scenery, by the ever-varying diversity of its shades and tints." GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES. 3T " Then fly to the prairie ! in wonder there gaze, As sweeps o'er the grass the magnificent blaze, The land is o'erwhelm'd in an ocean of light. Whose flame-surges break in the breeze of the night." As aridity characterizes so large a part of South Africa, the goodly number of fountains, rivulets, and rivers, with which Natal abounds, is a noticeable fea- ture. Journeying along its hundred and fifty miles of coast between the Tugela and Umzimkulu, you cross more than twenty streams which pour themselves into the sea. The two just named, together with the Umkomazi, have their sources in the Kwahlamba Mountains. The Um- voti, Umgeni, and Umlazi take their rise in the upland terrace. The rest are short. Yet both the short and the long, the small and great, are often swollen, some- times suddenly, to a fearful height. At the time of the flood four years ago, when twenty-seven inches of rain fell at Durban in three days, the Umgeni rose, near its mouth, to the height of twenty-eight feet above its usual level ; the Umtongati rose thirty feet ; and many other streams in like manner. It should be remarked, how- ever, that ordinarily in the winter season, that is, from April to September, even the largest of the Natal rivers may be forded without difficulty on horseback. Of course, from streams like these, so rapid and varia- ble, navigation can have little or nothing to expect ; not so with salubrity, pasturage, agriculture. But to discuss the value of one or tw^o large sluggish streams as a means of transport, in a land like this, as compared with the numberless precious blessings which are poured forth daily for man and beast in the many springs, rivulets, 4 88 ZULU-LAND. and rivers, wliich burst from under every hill, and go sparkling, leaping, purling, each its own way, from the - mountain to the sea, would be foreign to my present purpose. All have their time and place, their uses, and their beauties. SEASONS AND CLIMATE. 39 CHAPTER IV. THE SEASONS AND CLIMATE — THE NOCTURNAL HEAVENS. Coming from a land of civilization, and from a cold, northern climate, new things are seen in this far-off land, and old things in a new light. You find men, animals, trees, flowers, grasses, differing from those of the coun- try you have left, and see stars which are not to be seen in your northern home. You have the same sun, but on the north side of you, and more vertical than there. With this change of our position in relation to the sun, having it on the north at noon, there comes, of course, a change in all the seasons, the South African winter coming in June, July, and August. But a win- ter in Natal is not the same cold, sharp, shivery season which goes by that name in New England. Thus, while I write, at midday, the thermometer stands at 68° in the shade, — just a pleasant temperature without any fire; and yet the season corresponds to the northern Christmas. The seasons in Natal, especially upon the coast, are by no means well defined. The face of the country is not more diversified and peculiar than is its climate. Now and then, in mid- winter, we have a day as warm as those of summer ; and then, in summer, one as cold as 40 ZULU-LAXD. some in winter. Nay more, we sometimes have a single day, the first half extremely hot, the last, cold and chilly, — the thermometer falling ten or fifteen degrees in an hour, and occasionally tliirty or forty degrees in half a day. Of course such extreme and sudden changes are not very frequent. They usually occur once or twice a month in August and September, and occasionally at other seasons of the year when the hot, house-burning" wind, as the natives call it, blows for a day or two from the north, and then, as in a moment, a cold, chilly current comes driving up from the south- west, bringing dark clouds and torrents of rain, if not the roar and flash of thunder and lightning with it. On one occasion, in the latter part of September, thinking the morning unusually cold, I looked at the thermometer and found it standing at 47° ; two or three days after, looking again at the thermometer at mid- day, I found it 102° (in the shade.) The wind now changing to the west, the mercury fell half a degree a minute for twenty minutes in succession, or ten degrees in twenty minutes, and continued to fall until, in thirty- six hours, it was ranging from 50° to 55°, with a cold driving rain. Such sudden changes are, of course, exceedingly try- ing to the health. The real amount of cold however, is not great. At my station, fifteen miles from the sea coast, and thirty miles north of Port Natal, in the course of a dozen years I have seen frost a few times in the valleys, though scarcely more than once a year on the hillock on which my house stands ; and such a thing as snow or ice is quite unknown in all this section of the country. But if you go fifty miles inland, you may SEASONS AND CLIMATE. 41 meet with both, every year, tlioiigh not in any consider- able quantity, until you come to the Kwahlamba, or Drakensberg mountain. The mean temperature for the summer months, that is, from the beginning of October to the end of March, is about 73° at Durban (the sea- port town,) and about 70° at Maritzburg, the capital of the colony. During the winter months, the average is about 64° at Durban, and 60° at the capital. At my station, the mercury ranges, during the year, in the shade, from 50° to 100°, with an occasional excess of two or three degrees on each extreme. Yet, for seve- ral years in succession we have gone without a fire, ex- cept for cooking, and in a room detached from the dwelling-house. The heat of summer would be far more oppressive were it not the cloudy, rainy season ; and the cold of winter more severe but for the fact that it is the dry, sunny season. We have little or no rain from May to August, and then enough during the summer season to make it all up. The entire rain-fall for the year is about three feet, of which about thirty inches usually fall during the six summer months. The prevailing wind in winter is from the west or north-west, morning and evening ; and from the west, south, or more commonly from the south-east, during the middle of the day. The prevailing winds for the summer seasor are north-east and south-west ; bringing fair weather from the one quarter and foul from the other. The hot north-wind common in the early part of spring is powerful, parching and peculiar. It is a wide, sweeping wave of heated air, moving south- 4-:.- 42 ZULU-. AND. ward, from the burning plains of the interior, and hugging the earth as it goes, and blowing hard, harder^ HARDEST, for from six to thirty-six hours ; heat- ing the earth, withering plants, warping timber, and testing alike the joints of tubs and tables, ploughs and pianos, until finally, its blow is all blown out. Then comes a cold west wind, dark clouds, thunder, lightning, and rain. And now no wonder that the careless take cold ; that poor, unprotected cattle die ; that everything which is made of wood and exposed to the weather, — saturated with water, — goes rapidly to ruin. Hail-storms are not uncommon in Natal, though nei- ther so frequent nor so heavy along the coast as in the upper parts of the district. The Uzwati^ or Noodsberg, — that cold, elevated region where the Umhloti and three or four more rivers have their source, — surrounded as it is by deep, hot valleys on the east, south, and west, is a region specially favored by these storms. The Kwahlamba is another. The manner in which jagged masses of ice, as large as your fist or bigger, are sometimes begotten and sent down from the skies of that region, hurled and dashed perchance with the fury of a tornado against the old, gray buttresses and tow- ering walls of that everlasting range, till all the sides of the mountain, from the crest downwards, seem a per- fect cataract, roaring, raging, and foaming, as though the Atlantic had broken its bonds and begun to pour itself down from the upland table, must be counted one of the most sublime exhibitions of nature. Nor seen aright, can such things fail to give us new, yet more exalted views of the glory, might, and majesty of Him — SEASONS AND CLIMATE. 43 "Who covereth himself with light as with a garment: Who stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain : Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters : Who maketh the clouds his chariot: Who walketh upon the wings of the wind : Who maketh his angels spirits ; His ministers a flame of fire : Who laid the foundations of the earth, That it should not be removed for ever. He giveth snow like wool : He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: Who can stand before his cold? Praise the Lord from the earth, Ye dragons and all deeps : Fire and hail, snow and vapors; Stormy winds fulfilling his word ; Mountains and all hills : — ■ Let them praise the name of the Lord : For his name alone is excellent; His glory is above the earth and heaven." Not less grand and more solemn and fearful is the thunder-storm of our Zulu-land. Let it begin far away in the west, and thence come on, in its own dark liver with swelling power. The bursting peals wax louder and more frequent ; perchance each fresh peal breaking in upon its forerunner, prolonging and increasing the reverbera- tion, till you have one continuous roar, lasting for half an hour or more. Magnificent clouds roll up, mean- time, one upon another, until they reach and fill the vault of heaven, the very olackness and darkness of which helps to set ofi" the brilliancy of the lightning with which, ever and anon, they are traversed or set all aglow. Behold this, and you have something to aid your conceptions of the littleness of man, to set forth the sovereign might and glory of Him in whose hands is the breath of our nostrils. 44 ZULU-LAND. During the progress of the storm," as Dr. Mann has carefully observed and well remarked, " the mercury of the barometer rises. The wind is generally from the north or west before the storm, and then becomes south-east during its continuance, and begins to blow with consi- derable violence. The air is not generally very moist at the time of the storm ; the hygrometer for the most part indicates between seventy and eighty degrees of mois- ture, the point of saturation being taken at one hundred degrees. The lightning is extremely vivid, and the track of the discharge appears against the dark cloud as a ribbon of light, rather than as a mathematical line. This track is also commonly seen to quiver, as if it were a successive or interrupted stream of discharges, and to endure in the sky while the observer counts two or three. The forms are of astonishing diversity. Sometimes it is curved, S shaped, or hooked. Very often it is a zig-zag line darting down from the centre of a broad paraboloid bow. Occasionally there are quivering rays starting out from a centre like the lines of fracture when glass is starred. Now and then a com- plete coronal or garland is traced on the dark gray field, and lines of horizontal discharge may be seen ranging to and fro immediately above the flat masses of the table-mountains. The color, too, of the electric track is as varied as the form. Now the light is of a bright rose color ; now it is the, delicate pink hue of the topaz ; now of a light amethyst tint ; now orange ; now pale blue ; now pearly blue white ; and now of a remarkable dead leaden tinge. It is quite impossible that any adequate conception of the gem-like lustre and beauty of tlicse subtropical lightnings should be given by mere SEASONS AND CLIMATE. 45 description. They must be seen before a notion of tlieir character can be realized. To those, however, who have contemplated them, it becomes a much easier thing to believe that modern science is right in considering light- ning to be fire fed by mineral and metallic substances found by the electric agency diffused in the air. These bright-hued lightnings bear a very obvious resemblance to the colored lights which are observed when the dif- ferent metals are burned in intense flame." To the admirer of the starry heavens it is a source of regret that its beautiful winter nights are so often clouded by smoke. For about six months, at this season of the year, the nights are generally cloudless ; but by reason of the smoke which comes from burning grass, the beauty of the heavens is greatly marred. Since the summer abounds in clouds, the enthusiastic South African star-gazer is often sorely baffled. During this season a good star-gazing night once a week is all he can expect. But when such a night does come it is prized. The rains ceasing, the clouds dispersing, you have a brilliancy and magnifi- cence in the nocturnal heavens which makes ample amends for a patient waiting. Directing the eye towards the zenith, you find the entire surface of the otherwise dark vault, thickly studded with silver points, sprinkled broadcast over the vast expanse. " The countless sixth-class stars, of which," according to the testimony of Dr. Mann, "even faint glimpses can but rarely be caught in England, are perfectly within the range of distinct vision, and are seen crowding up the spaces which lie between the more obtrusive twinklers. It is quite true, that as a whole, 46 ZULU-LAND. the heavens of the southern hemisphere do not present so many large and bright stars as the skies of the north. The brilliant luminaries of the Great Bear, Cassiopeia, Perseus Auriga, and the immediate attendants of the Pole-star are missed for themselves as well as for their associations. But these southern vistas of far space have on the other hand compensatory glories and graces of their own. When the Scorpion looks down from a high altitude in the black field, with its venomous red eye, and its star-barbed tail scrolled over its back, a stream of clear light sets from the scattered twinklers of Sagittarius across the reptile's tail, and then flows on past the truly magnificent pair of Centaurus, and past the kite-like rhomb of the so-called Cross, until it only fades in the far horizon among the gleaming points of Argo. On the one side, this phosphorescent track is ornamented, as if by a glittering gem-set pendant, by the broadcast cluster of third class stars, which is known as the Wolf. On the other side it is ornamented by the delicate garland-like tracing of the southern crown. There is nothing in the northern hemisphere which can compare with this southern sweep of the galaxy ; in places it blazes up into all but distinguishable star-clus- ters, and in others it is rent by fissures and gaps of ab- solute blackness, — glimpses of the actual void made almost appalling to the eye by immediate close con- trast with the surrounding weird light. The southern pole is itself a desert tract of blank mystery, where the close observer seeks in vain for some distinguishable pivot on which he may fix the mighty whirl of stars ; and near at hand in this region of obscurity, as if to enhance the weirdness of the mystery, there loom two SEASONS AND CLIMATE. 47 ghostly spectra of far-away star kingdoms, — remote is- lands of the illimitable firmament which are called the * clouds of Magellan,' because their faint forms were first marked by 'he keen sight of that early navigator of the southern £3as." 48 ZULU-LAND. CHAPTER V. FIRST EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT AT THE CAPE — MIGRA- TIONS OF THE DUTCH FARMERS PREVIOUS TO THEIR ARRIVAL IN THE DISTRICT OF NATAL. ^* Away, away o'er the foaming main !" This was the free and joyous strain — ■ There are clearer skies than ours, afar, "We will shape our course by a brighter star ; There are plains whose verdure no foot hath pressed, And whose wealth is all for the first brave guest." Mrs. Hejians. To get a clear view of iJ^atal, its borders, and its tribes, you must come by way of the " Old Colony," at the Cape, and learn something of the origin and migra- tions of the Boers previ )us to the arriA^al of a large party of them in Natal, more than twenty years ago. The Dutchman has had so much to do with the Zulu- Kafir, as to demand notice in this connection. Although the Cape of Good Hope was discovered in the loth century, and was visited from time to time, by Portuguese, Dutch, and English navigators, yet it was not till about the middle of the ITth century that anything like an earnest effort was made to take pos- session and to plant a colony. In April, 1652, Jan van EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS. 49 Kiebeek, who, as surgeon for a fleet belonging to the Dutch East India Company, had recently spent some time at the Cape, being now a merchant and commander of a fleet, came to anchor in Saldanha or Table Bay; and by the Company's authority, began to build a fort, and to take possession of such neighboring lands as they deemed suited to their use, and to that of the Com- pany's ships on their way from Europe to India. In six years, (1658,) the colony contained 360 souls ; among whom were 95 garrison men, 51 free inhabitants, 187 slaves, 20 women and children, and a few convicts. Among the reasons urged by Van Riebeek and others, in memorializing the East India Company to plant a station at the Cape, the religious interests of the abori- ginal race were mentioned. In one of their memorials they say : — " By living upon good terms with them (the natives,) it is probable that children may become useful servants ; and if educated in the Christian faith, should the Almighty grant his blessing, as at Tayona and at Formosa, many souls may be brought to a knowledge of religion, and saved to God. Therefore the formation of the said fort and garden will not only tend to the advantage of the East India Company, but, what is of more consequence, may also be the means of preserving many souls to the praise of God's most holy name, and to the propagation of his holy gospel, for which your undertakings throughout India will, without doubt, be more and more blessed." One of the rules by which they were to be governed, re- quired that ' ' each individual should consider himself called upon in the most impressive manner not to molest the natives, nor take away their cattle ; but on the con- 5 BO ZULU-LAND. trary to gam their confidence bj kind and friendly treat- ment." The settlement prospered, though not Tvithout trials. The natives brought them cattle and sheep ; their gar- den supplied them with turnips, carrots, and cabbages ; the plains gave them game, and the sea, fish. But the Hottentot would sometimes walk ofi" with some of the Company's cattle ; or the leopards and lions would take them : the locusts would come by day, darken the air, and eat the cabbages ; or some of the governor's own white people would sometimes go by night and steal them : the people suffered sometimes from the ravages of an epidemic on land, and sometimes from fear of a hostile fleet in the Bay ; and the directors of the Com- pany at home declared that a country which could not grow its own corn did not deserve to be called a colony. Nor was the white man free from an occasional conflict with the natives. The first seems to have occurred in the immediate vicinity of the Cape, only seven years after the colony was commenced. The task assigned Riebeek, was by no means an easy one. He seems to have kept a copious journal of all his proceedings ; parts of which have been published. " Traduced, on the one hand, as a ruthless and inhuman destroyer of the wretches who owned the land ; by the opposite party, with equally mistaken feeling, extolled as an apostle of Christianity and civilization to the be- nighted heathen; he is now acknowledged," says an able Cape writer of the present day, to have been merely a faithful and intelligent factor for his commer- cial principals, who, by inclination as well as policy, was humane, though his acts led necessarily to the ruin EARLY EUPtOrBAN SETTLEMENTS. 51 and destruction of :he native tribes." The earlier growth of the settlement Avas slow ; yet, having sur- vived a full third of a century, a brighter day dawns upon it. It is an interesting fact that between the years 1685 and 1690, about three hundred French Huguenots, — men, women, and children, of whom France was not worthy — the salt of the earth and light of the world, — found their way to the Cape. Robbed of the " free- dom to worship God" in the land of their birth : — " To this far nook the Christian exiles fled. Each fettering tie of earthly texture breaking ; "Wealth, country, kindred, cheerfully forsaking For that good cause in which their fathers bled. By faith supported and by freedom led, A fruitful field amidst the desert making, They dwelt secure when kings and priests were quaking. And taught the waste to yield them wine and bread." It would be interesting and instructive, could we turn aside here for a time, to study and adore that good Providence which ruleth over all; numbering the very hairs of our head, and suffering not a sparrow to fall unnoticed. Suffice it to say that from these " Pilgrim fathers, noblest blood of sunny France, Broad-browed men of free-born spirit, lighted with the eagle glance," have come some of the most valuable elements of the white race in South Africa. Pity, I must remark, how- ever, that, while these good men were encouraged and aided to come and settle here, the notoriously illiberal and restrictive policy of the Dutch company was far from giving proper scope to the industry, enterprise, and influence which they were prepared to exert, and 52 ZULU-LAND. which the highest welfare of all parties, both immediate and future, required. As the colony advanced in age, and the government in strength, the Dutch gradually gained control over the native population, reduced some of them to the con- dition of serfs or slaves, drove others back into the de- serts and beyond the mountains, and step by step en- croached upon the surrounding country. In the course of a century, their jurisdiction extended northward to about the line of 32° south latitude, and to the Keis- kamma on the east, and covered an area of more than 100,000 square miles. Near the close of the eighteenth century, (1795,) the English captured the Cape, and in 1802, they restored it again to the Dutch. In 1806, the English took it again ; and from that time to the present, it has remained in their possession. Meanwhile, the boundaries of the colony have been extended from time to time, now reach- ing the Orange Kiver on the north, and the Kei on the east. The population of the colony, which amounts to more than two hundred thousand, has had a very diver- sified origin. The white, or European portion, came primarily from Holland, France, England, Scotland, and Germany; while the colored portion, which is sup- posed to be quite equal to the white in numbers, must be traced to the Hottentot, the Malay, the Kafir, and the remnants of other tribes, or to a cross between some of these and the white race. Among the reasons originally urged for occupying the Cape, was the hope of thereby doing something to- wards the conversion of the natives to Christianity. But, so far as we can learn, little or nothing of the kind EARLY EUROPE \N SETTLEMETTS. 53 was attempted for many years. Indeed, shortly after the colony was founded, it would seem to have been the ophiion of many, that this was impossible. Mr. Kolb^, the Dutch Historian of the Cape, says they would not receive the gospel, in proof of which he records the fol- lowing circumstance : The Governor, Simon Yan der Stell, took a Hotten- tot youth whose name was Pegu^ for the purpose of training, whom he clothed in a military dress, and sup- plied with a wig, and a hat bordered with gold. He gave him a pair of silk stockings, a sword to hang by his side ; and thus equipped, Pegu was sent to school, where he learnt the Dutch, Portuguese, and other lan- guages, which he could speak with fluency. In 1685 he went to India with the Commissioner Yan Rheede, and continued with him till his death. Pegu then re- turned to the Cape, but would no longer remain in civilized life. He therefore took his fine clothing, and putting it into a chest, threw his carosse (skin-robe) over his shoulders, and went to the governor, saying : " Hoort Myn Heer !" Hearken, your honor ! I must no longer wear clothing, much less be a Christian. Let me go to my own people, and live as they do. My clothing is in the chest ; I take nothing but this sword and cravat with me ! Having thus spoken, he departed to his peo- ple, and returned no more. He afterwards became a chief among them ; and Kolb^ says that he had seen and conversed with him repeatedly. It is hardly necessary to remark that it takes some- thin cr more than fine clothes and a forei2;n tonc;ue to make a true Christian. The experience and most truthful remarks of the de- 54 ZULU-LAND. voted Bryant, onee our fellow-laborer among the natives of Natal, are worth repeating in this connection : ''Of fourteen young men who have left my employ within two years," he writes in 1849, "one has since been con- verted at another station, and of course clothes himself ; thirteen have returned to their heathen friends, and go as naked as ever. Some of these young men had re- mained with me only one or two months, and some had remained more than a year. These are painful facts, and I mention them to show how utterly futile is the attempt to civilize these people without first converting them. Wash a pig, shut him up in a parlor, and you may perhaps keep him clean for a while ; but as soon as he is free, he will return to his wallowing in the mire. Change him into a lamb and he will at once abandon some of his filthy habits. To think of civilizing the heathen without converting them, seems to me about as wise as to think of transforming a drove of swine into lambs, merely by washing them and putting on a fleece of wool. If, in twelve months, a young man will not become civilized enough to clothe himself, how long will it take to civilize a nation ? The gospel being the grand remedy devised by God for the elevation and sal- vation of the degraded, the attempt to find a better way is a virtual impeachment of his wisdom ; and, never will he endorse with his blessing any scheme of social or moral elevation which dishonors his gospel and him- self." In 1737, fifty years after Van der Stell's experiment with his Hottentot, the earnest, courageous Moravian, George Schmidt, arrived at the Cape, — having had a free passage granted him by the Dutch East India Com- EAELl EUROPEaIt SETTLEMENTS. 55 pany, — with the design of laboring as a missionary among the Hottentots. He commenced his labors at G-enadendal, (the Vale of Grace), a place before known as Bavian's (Baboon's) Kloof. His efforts began to be greatly blessed ; but through the interference of the Colonial Government he was obliged to desist. Re- pairing to Europe with the hope of having these ob- stacles removed, he was grieved beyond measure to find that the Dutch Company, actuated by fear that teach- ing the Hottentot would interfere with the interests of the colony, would not allow him to return to the country again. Another half century having elapsed, other laborers came, searched out the garden which Schmidt had planted, and found a little fruit still remaining. Among the rest, was an old Hottentot woman, with her Bible, which he had taught her to read. These men also met with much opposition from the Dutch Farmers. But they persevered ; and, as the colony soon came into the hands of the English, they found, under that govern- ment, the protection which they required. About this time, 1799, Dr. Yanderkemp and others came out under the auspices of the London Society, and commenced missionary labor among the Kafirs and other tribes. But I must pass to another topic, lest we reach the proper limits of our chapter before arriving at Natal via the Cape and in company with the Dutch. Not long after the Cape Colony came fully and per- manently into the hands of the English, the Dutch Farmers, or Boers, began to push their way more inland, beyond the limits of Europeak power and possession. The causes of this movement were various. At first 56 ZULl^LAND. some went in searcl of fresh and unlimited pasturage for their cattle, designing to return when the dry season had passed. But becoming presently enamored with their free, migrating life, " While on from plain to plain they led their flocks, In search of clearer spring, and fresher field, little by little they forgot to return, and began to fix their abode on the north of the Orange River, or rather between the two great branches of that river, the Nu Gariep and the Ky Gariep, in that part of the Bechu- ana country which is now called the Orange River Free- State. In 1832, about two hundred of this class had located themselves in that region. Some, doubtless, went there from a love of roving ; some, to free themselves from taxation and the restraints of law. Some complained that they were not duly compensated for the losses which they suffered in Kafir wars ; and some, that the Hottentot would leave them and their service for a mis- sion station. The last and chief cause of the migration of the Boers is found in the efforts which the British Government made to correct the abuses and finally to effect the abolition of slavery. In 1833, when a law was passed to give the slaves their liberty at the end of five years (Decem- ber, 1838,) the number of this class of persons amounted to something more than thirty-five thousand ; of these some were estimated by their owners to be worth X500 ; though the average estimate was about X85. As a compensation, in part, for the loss which the masters were to suffer, the British Government made a grant of EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS. 57 .£1,200,000 ; which gave an award of about <£35 for each slave. The freeing of the shaves and the small compensation made to the master, gave the Eoers great offence. So unpopular was the whole affair, that some of the farmers threw up their claim, and left the money in the hands of the British Government. The Boers now began to leave the colony in large numbers. An exploring party of fourteen families came with their wagons to Natal, in 1834. Two or three years later, hundreds went beyond the Nu Grariep into the Bechuana country. Some pushed farther on, until they reached the Ky Gariep, orYaal river, and came eventually in contact with the Matebele under Umzilikazi ; a people among whom missionaries from America were just then trying to plant a station and to declare the gospel. One party turned more to the east, all but two of whom perished in the sickly region of Delagoa Bay. The Cape government and many of the clergy begged the farmers to consider, and be dissuaded from the course upon which they were bent ; but their counsel had little permanent effect. Having made a successful attack upon Umzilikazi and returned to the south of the Yaal, into what is now called the Free State, clannish feelings, rivalry, and disunion began to be developed among the Boers. Some wished to settle on the Vaal; some would go further east, towards Delagoa Bay, others, at the head of whom was Pieter Retief, began to shape their course towards Natal. Breaking up their encampment on the Sand river, a branch of the Yaal, Retief and some of his pcoi)le crossed the Drakensberg, or Kwalihnnba range, and 58 ZULU-LAND. reached Port Natal on the 20th of October, 1837 ; and before the close of that year it was estimated that not less than a thousand wagons — (and a Boer's wagon is a big thing, drawn usually by no less than a dozen oxen,) — came down the slope of that mountain into this dis- trict. Other wagons, to the number of about five hun- dred, remained for the present on the other side of the range. The host of people connected with these fifteen hundred w^agons was not probably less than fifteen thou- sand ; all entering Natal, or halting on her border at that time. The Boers found half a dozen or more missionaries in the field ; a part of them laboring some miles to the west of the Bay, and the rest to the north of the Tu- gela, in Zulu-land. Besides these, they also found fif- teen or twenty other white people, mostly Englishmen, who had come to Natal at difi*erent times and for vari- ous purposes, in previous years. These men were living for the most part, in the neighborhood of the Port ; and from them Retief and his company received a hearty welcome to new homes and broad fields. ORIGIN OF THE ZINGIAN RACE. 59 CHAPTER VI. ORIGIN AND RELATIONSHIP OF THE ZULU-KAFIR AND OTHER ZINGIAN TRIBES. Language furnishes one of the safest guides to the origin and relationship of the nations of our globe. Taking this for our guide we conclude, in the first place, that all the aboriginal inhabitants of Southern Africa, save the Hottentot and Bushman, belong to one variety, and have a common origin. This variety, extending as it does from the vicinity of the Orange River in the south and south-west, and from the Kei in the south- east, to the so-called mountains of the moon, on the north, includes a large number of cognate clans, among which are the Zanguebar and Mozambique tribes on the east ; the Zulu and Kosa, or proper Kafir, in the south-east ; the Becliuana, Bayeye, and kindred tribes in the interior ; and the Ovaherero, Ovampo, Kongo, and Mpongwe, on the west. The general characteristics of the several dialects spoken by the many and widely-scattered tribes here named being essentially the same, proves that they all belong to one group or branch of the human family, and that they had one comimon, subordinate origin. A glance, aloO, at tliLur moral and physical charactci-istics, 60 ZULU-LAND. their religious notions, their mental type, tlieir bodily conformation, color, features, goes to show the same thing ; namely, that the numerous tribes which occupy this broad section of southern and central Africa, that is, from seven or eight degrees north of the equator to half a dozen degrees beyond the tropical regions on the south, all spring from a common stock, and form but a single group in the larger divisions of the African race. For this group no name has yet been definitely adopted by the learned. Some would call it the Kafir, but custom at the present day limits that term to a small district on the east coast between Natal and the Cape Colony. The term Qhuana, the root of Becliuana and Sechuana, is for several reasons less objectionable, and has been already used to some extent by able writers. Zingian, from Zingis, the old name for Zanguebar, is another term which some of the learned have used, and Bantu an- other by which to designate the race. None of these names satisfies me, but of them all Zingian seems to be the best. The geographical position of the Hottentot, from the time he was first known to the European, situated as he was at the southern extreme of the African continent, and flanked from sea to sea on his north or inland side by a broad belt of people of a very different language and appearance, would seem to indicate that any search for his pedigree and ancestry, provided the present be not his original home, must be made in regions far re- moved in respect to both time and place. Happily, within the last few years, a careful study of his lan- guage and a comparison of this with the old Egyptian ORIGIN OF THE ZINGIAN RACE. 61 and Coptic tongue, have given us a clew to liis ancient abode. If we may credit some of the most learned and acute philologists of the present day, and those who have had the best opportunities for studying the Hot- tentot and Bushman, together with other African dia- lects, this Gariepine tongue of the southern extreme belongs to the same family as the old Egyptian and Coptic, the Berber, Haussa, and Ethiopic, in the far- thest north of the continent, and what is also highly interesting and important, this southern branch of the family is found to surpass all the rest in the integrity with which it has preserved the more essential charac- teristics of the original stock. Admitting the correctness of these views, we can have no doubt as to the earlier ancestry of our neigh- bors of the Hottentot and Bushman class, including the Koranna and Namaqua, and that their origin is the same as that of the nations of northern Africa, the old Egyptian and kindred tribes ; including, perhaps, the Tuarick or Berber and the Guanches on the one hand, and the Semitic or Amharic and Galla on the other. This conclusion is supported by other considerations. The appearance, manners, and customs of the Hotten- tots are all markedly different from those of the Zin- gian race, whilst they afford grounds for classing them with the old Egyptian and other north African nations. The antiquities of Egypt give us impressions and pic- tures which some of the learned at the Cape take to be so very like the Hottentot as to make it pretty certain that persons of this class must have formed the original of these representations. Some of the earliest Euro- pean observers and historians in south Africa tell us 6 62 ZULU-LAND. that the Hottentot of olden times worshiped the moon, an idea to which some of the traditions which he has brought down to the present day, would give at least some color of support ; and from ancient history it is evident that siderial worship was once common among some of the nations of northern Africa, as also among some of their nearer neighbors in the west of Asia; whereas of all this we find no trace among any of the Zingian or Kafir tribes. The AmaJilozi, or shades of the heroic dead, the gods of the Zulu, are all regarded as having their homes beneath and never above. The Gariepine or Hottentot race makes use of the bow and arrow, in which respect it differs also from the Zingian, (Kafir and Zulu,) but agrees with many a nation of olden time at the north. But of all the points wherein the Hottentot difi*ers from the Zingian, that of language is the most important and decisive. On the likeness of this most permanent and marked feature of the Hot- tentot family to that of the old Egyptian, we rely chiefly for proof that the Gariepine race and the old Egyptian or Coptio are in origin the same. But, it will be asked, what has all this to do with the origin of the Zulu, the Kafir, and kindred tribes ? Though there are yet points on which we need more light, from what has been said, is it not evident that the great Zingian race coming in from abroad at a very early age, must have cut the old Egyptian or Coptic family asunder ; and, shaping its course to the south, have carried a large portion of the sundered family be- fore it, till it eventually found itself located in the angle which two oceans make at the other extreme of the continent ? But you will ask, whence came the in- THE ORIGIN OF THE ZD GIAN RACE. 63 trusive race, the sundering wedge, into Egypt ? — from the south, the west, or the east ? We can scarcely sup- pose it to have come from the south ; it may have come from the west ; but most probably from the* east. Ir- ruptions from that quarter, in those ages, were not un- common. The history of the Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, is a noted instance. As the families of the earth multiplied, and nations increased, there was, evidently, a general pressure of people from the north-east to the south-west — from the Euphrates into Egypt — from all parts of western Asia into the north-east of Africa. To what great family, tribe, or nation, then, did this incursive, immigrating body, the original stock of the Zingian race belong ? Doubtless to some branch of the Hamitic. If, in the sweep by which it took up a group of Egyptians and set them down at this end of the continent, it came in from the west, — and some sup- pose the intrusive, transporting clan or race came from that direction, — it may have belonged to the line of Phut, the third son of Ham, who is reckoned to have settled in Mauritania. But I think the more likely supposition is, that it came from the east ; having had its origin, perhaps, in some branch of the family of Cush, the eldest of the sons of Ham. The descendants of this line were numerous ; and some of them settled in Asia. Thus, Nimrod, the mighty hunter, who was one of the sons of Cush, built several large towns in Baby- lonia and Mesopotamia, among which was Babel, the me- tropolis of his dominion ; and some suppose he invaded Assur, or Assyria, east of the Tigris, and there built Nineveh and several other towns. It would seem also, that other branches of the family of Cush settled, for a 64 ZULU-LAXD. time at least, in Asia, more especially in tlie district of Arabia ; doubtless the greater part A^'ent at an early period to Africa, and settled to the south of Egypt, along the Kile and its branches, especially about Meroe. According to the English Cyclopsedia (on Ethiopia,) Herodotus speaks of two classes, or groups of Ethiopi- ans — one in Africa, the other in Asia. This latter class formed a part of the great army of Xerxes ; but their locality is not easily determined. "The historian hoAYCver observes that the Asiatic Ethiopians were black, like those of Libya, but differed from them in language, and had straight hair ; whereas those of Libya had very curly hair, by which term some modern writers have somewhat hastily concluded that the woolly hair of the negro is intended." Now between the Zingian tribes, of which we are speaking, and the proper negro race, there is, for sub- stance, at the present day, just that kind of difference which the great historian Herodotus remarked, more than two thousand years ago, between the Asiatic Ethiopian and his namesake in Africa. This remark holds to some extent, even in respect to the hair ; for, though that of the Zulu, or Kafir, is now woolly, yet it is admitted to be less so than that of the negro. And, in respect to language, — that most fixed, decisive mark of natural unity and difference, — so far as our present knowledge extends, there is reason to believe that there is a broad distinction between the Zingian, on the south of the Equator, and the real negro of Soudan, and neighboring dialects in the north. It may here be further remarked, that, according to one mode of classifying the languages of men, that THE OKIGIN OF THE ZINGIAN RACE. 65 which is spoken bj the Zingian family, and called the alliterative, prefixional, or reflective, and by some, the agglutinate, or by others synthetic, belongs to the same class as that vhich is spoken throughout central and northern Asia, the agglutinate character of which is particularly exemplified in the Turkish, Georgian, and all the great Tartar family. Those who adopt this clas- sification, some of them at least, would reduce all lan- guages to three classes, — the monosyllabic, the agglu- tinate, and the inflective. In the so-called agglutinate family, they find three varieties ; — the agglutinate by insertion, as in the Indian dialects of America ; by in- corporation, as in the Turkish and Tartar tongues of Asia ; and the agglutinate by assimilation and repeti- tion, as in the Chuana, Zulu, Kafir, and other dialects of the Zingian tribes in Africa. Now, taking all these facts, thoughts, and hints to- gether, would it not seem that the Zingian race had its origin in central or western Asia, perhaps even in Arme- nia, — more likely, farther south, possibly on the Eu- phrates ; and that, in process of time, being straitened for room, it broke away from its original seat, or was driven out, the whole or a part, and led to shape its course to the south-west ; either carried along by a ge- neral movement, or drawn by the attractions of kindred, in that direction, until they came to Mizraim in the land of the Nile ? Finding the valley of that river already too full, they pass on, though not without driving a portion of the people before them, — a portion, perhaps, already removed of their own accord, or crowded out into the more open country, in search of a new home in a wider field. The northern coast already occupied, 6* 66 ZULU-LAND. they natiiralj turn to the south, ascend the Nile, or move gradually along the eastern coast, until, at length, they reach the country and condition in which we find them. Of course, in passing through so many new lands, and so many ages of being, and coming in contact with other races, the original character and speech of this Zingian race would be considerably modified. Their progress being slow, they would naturally intermarry with neigh- boring tribes ; and be fashioned, physically, mentally, and morally, to some extent by the people, the country, the climate, the customs, and other molding influences to which they were exposed. In this way, whether originally a branch of the real negro stock or not, it is easy to account for both the agreement and the differ- ence which we find to exist at the present day between the two families. The Zingian race cradled in Asia, — as our speculations incline us to believe, — the genuine negro or Ethiopic in Africa ; the one living for ages perhaps, without the tropic in the east, while the other hasted to its more sunny home in the great peninsula ; the former, perchance, long associated with Japhetic or Shemitic nations, and much traveled withal ; while the latter doubtless came into being, and passed both the plastic season of its youth and its maturer age, in the same secluded, sandy region where it is now found : it is easy to see why the Kafir, the Zulu, and all their kin, though they spring from a common stock, should be found at this day more robust, taller, of a lighter color, , with hair less woolly, with a nose more elevated, of a much greater facial angle, a higher forehead, and alto- gether of a more intelligent, Caucasian look, than their THE OniGIN OF THE ZINGIAN EACE. 67 Kigritian neighbors of the Ethiopia or Negro stamp. At the same time we see in these Zulu and Kafir tribes, in the whole Zingian race, so much of the true negro type, so much of dark color in the skin, of curling and woolliness in the hair, of breadth in the nostrils, of thickness in the lips, so much of likeness in the eyes and in other respects to the other race, — the tribes which now flank this northern domain, — that we must come to the conclusion, that if the Zingian family had an origin either more ancient or more modern, or in any wise other than the Negroes of Nigritia, it mingled with these in its formative days, on its migratory way through the Ethiopia regions, till it was largely imbued with their spirit, and fashioned after their type. 68 ZULU-LAND. CHAPTER yil. EARLY ACCOUNTS OF NATAL. — HISTORY OF THE RUL- ERS. REIGN OP CHAKA. Between the years 1684 and 1690, several vessels came to Port Natal, doubtless in search of slaves. The accounts which these voyagers have given to the world, show that the people of this district were numerous at that time, and their character and customs much the same as we now find them. At about the same period, nearly two hundred years ago, the Cape government (the Dutch East India Com- pany,) collected some facts respecting this country and people, from shipwrecked seamen who reached Cape Town, — some coming across the country, others by sea; also from agents who came here in behalf of that com- pany, for trade, exploration, and other purposes. These men, they tell us, " found the country of Natal very fruitful and populous, and the natives friendly, oblig- ing, strong, and ingenious ; armed with only one as- segai ; obedient and submissive to their king, or chief ; living in communities, in huts made of branches wrought through with rushes and long grass, and roofed like haystacks in Holland. In manners, dress, and beha- viour, they are much more orderly than the Cape Hotten- HISTORICAL. 69 tots. The women attend to cultivation ; the men herd and milk the cows. They do not eat poultry, because these feed on filth ; still less do they eat eggs. From their corn they make very well-tasted and nourishing bread, and brew beer, both small and strong, which is not unpleasant to the taste, and which they keep in earthen vessels. They have tobacco and smoke it. The country is populous and fertile, abounding in oxen, cows, and goats, as also in elephants, buffaloes, har- tebeests, and other tame and wild beasts. The inhabi- tants are obliging ; and for a copper bracelet they will not refuse to carry a weight of fifty or a hundred pounds, a distance of three or four days' journey over hill and dale." Coming down to a later date, — a period of more defi- nite history, within the memory of the present inhabi- tants, — we find that Natal was visited by several white people about a third of a century since. They came here, some for exploration, some for commerce, and some for other reasons, — such as the miscarrying of fortune, of character, or of some ship upon the Indian sea. When Captain King, Lieutenant Farewell, and others arrived in 1823, to explore the coast and harbor and engage also in trade, it was said that, at that time, no vessel or white man had been here within the me- mory of the oldest inhabitants. These men, with a few others, some of whom had been wrecked upon this coast, took up their abode among the natives, soon after the above date. Being joined from time to time, by one and another, in 1835, their number had increased to eighteen or twenty. On their arrival, they found the whole country from 70 ZULU-LAND. Umzimvubu to Delagoa Bay, and inland to the Kwali- lamba range, the boundary of Basutuland, in possession of the Zulu chieftain Chaka, and his people, who had conquered the tribes that dwelt here in former days, incorporating them with his own nation, and adding the district to his own ancestral domain. The authority and dominion of this chief, Chaka, and then of his successor, Dingan, over all this vast region, were fully acknowledged by the white men during the period above named, as well as by the native tribes. It was by the consent or sufferance of these chiefs, first Chaka, then Dingan, that the foreigners remained in safety for many years, — some till their death, and others till the arrival of the Dutch emigrants in 1838, and the dis- turbances consequent upon that influx. When Captain Gardiner arrived here from England, and several mis- sionaries from America, to labor among the heathen, they all looked to the great Zulu chieftain as the arbi- ter of the land. In respect to the infancy and rise of the Amazulu as a nation, if we go back only so far as the memory of the oldest inhabitants of the land extends, we find the Zulus at that time a comparai^ively small tribe, living on the Imfolosi and Umhlatusi rivers, mostly between 28° and 29° South Latitude, and between the sea and 31° East Longitude. They are reported to have come down at some former period from a more inland region on the north-west. The line of Zulu chiefs, (as remarked in the Intro- duction" to my '''■Zulu Grammar,'") so far as we can now ascertain, is the present incumbent Umpande, who succeeded his brother Dingan, who succeeded his bro- HISTORICAL. ther Chaka, who succeeded his father Usenzangacona, who was the son of Jama, who was the son of Umakeba, who was the son of Upunga. Some, however, give Um- buzi, in place of Umakeba, as father of Jama. Chaka was born about the year 1787. His father, Usenzangacona, was rich in wives and children ; hav- ing twenty-five or thirty of the former, and no one knows how many of the latter. Between him and one of his wives, Umnandi (the sweet one,) the mother of Chaka, there arose some cause of bitterness, which is common, actually inevitable, in a social state of which polygamy is the basis. In consequence of this difficulty between husband and wife, which increased with the father's jealousy of the precocious and aspiring youth, the mother took the boy Chaka, and fled, first to the Amaqwabe, and then to the Amatetwa or Umtetwa, whose chief at that time was Udingiswayo. The Ama- tetwa, reported to have come down the coast from the north-east, at a former period, were now a powerful tribe, and neighbors to the Amazulu ; probably the same with those who are spoken of in some books of an ancient date under the name of Vatwa or Batwa. Udingiswayo gave Chaka and his mother to the care of Ungomana, an induna, or chief counselor of his tribe. Here the young prince passed most of his youth, and received all the training which he had for royalty. On the death of his father, he was sent back by Udin- gisAvayo, at the age of about thirty, to take possession of the kingdom. Arriving at home, he found his fa- ther's place already filled by another son, Usigujana, said by some to have been the rightful successor. Chaka, however, soon succeeded in deposing and destroying • 72 ZULU-LAND. his brother, and in taking the power into his own hands. No sooner had he ascended the throne of his father, and fairly asserted his authority over the Amazulu, than a large portion of the Amatetwa joined him, and asked his aid against another tribe with whom they were at war. At the head of a tribe whose very name (from izulu^ heaven) is equivalent to the celestials, now increased in numbers, in strength, in courage, by the voluntary al- liance of another powerful tribe ; himself an ambitious man, of royal blood, in the prime of life, already adored as of more than human origin, panting for forays, vic- tory, and plunder, Chaka sallied forth in person at the head of his warriors, soon conquered the tribe against which his aid was sought, took many of them captives, and added them to his own nation. Cruel and bloody as this mighty African conqueror is reputed to have been, or as he really became in the progress of his tri- umphs, his policy, especially at first, was not so much the utter destruction of the neighboring tribes, as to subdue, and incorporate them with his own. Pursuing this policy, he conquered one tribe after another, located them here and there among his own people, taking care so to distribute, guard, and govern them, as to hold them in the most complete awe and subordination to himself. In this way he seems to have gone on, five or six years, without much interruption, increasing the number of his subjects and tributaries, the strength of his army, and the extent of his dominions ; so that, in 1822, his conquering power was felt from the Umzim- vubu, or St. John's, on the south-west, to Inhambane HISTORICAL. 73 on the north-east, and from the sea coast inland across at least half the continent of Africa. It is said that Chaka kept twelve or fifteen thousand warriors, in constant readiness for any expedition or emergency, in which he might deem their services requi- site. The first great law of his military code was, conquer or die. Unsuccessful troops had little to hope from him. If they would not die rather than fly, they must die for flying. "Elephant hides," "panther catchers," "the tra- velers," "the victors," "the bees," are a sample of the names by which his regiments were designated. The nu- merous force which he was accustomed to keep in readi- ness for service at a moment's warning, and the still greater number of fighting men which he ever had in reserve, all go to show that he must have had an immense population at his command. Remembering that the Zulu tribe proper was small when he came to the throne, we judge that, careless of life as he was, his leading policy in war was not so much to annihilate the neighboring tribes, as to subjugate and incorporate them with his own. Among his royal towns, — of which he had as many as he had regiments of soldiers, — Isiklepe, Nobamba, Bulawayo, Umbelebele, and Utukusa, may be named as some of the more important. Utukusa was built on the Umvoti after he had subdued this district. Here he passed much of his time during the latter part of his life, praised and worshiped, by his soldiers and all the people, as "the tiger, the lion, the elephant, the great mountain, the mighty black prince, king of kings, the immortal only one." One of the songs which his sol- diers used to sing to his praise, turned into English, runs thus : 7 74 ZULU-LAND. Thou didst finish, finish the nations ; Where wiL you go to battle now ? Hey! where will you go to battle now ? Thou didst conquer the kings, Where do you go to battle now ? Thou didst finish, finish the nations, Where do you go to battle now? Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah ! Where do you go to battle now? But during the last few years of his life, while the country was enjoying a season of comparative peace, his own mind seems not to have been at rest. Some of the last expeditions which he planned and prosecuted give plausibility to the report which was circulated con- cerning him, that he was entertaining the mighty pro- ject of sweeping the coast from Natal to the Cape of Good Hope with the besom of destruction ; nor would he leave an unsubdued nation to the north or north-east of his own domain. In 1828, alleging that a brother had robbed him of some of his cattle, and fled with them to the West, and that he must go in pursuit of the ofi'ender and of the stolen property, he not only marshalled his own forces, but also called the European residents at Natal, with their muskets and men, and pushed on to the West, at the head of a grand army. He led his forces in person till they reached the Umzimkulu. Here his majesty re- mained, reserving one regiment for his own protection, while he sent the remainder, including those who were armed with muskets, on a plundering expedition into distant regions beyond. It would seem that the Amam- pondo people had not recovered sufficiently from former fieecings to make it an object with Chaka to plunder HISTORICAL. 75 them again at present ; or, at any rate, as lie had now both force and time enough to go farther, he would not suffer his army to touch them or their cattle until it should return from a foray farther on. Hence, leaving Faku and his people unmolested in the forests to which they had resorted as a refuge from the storm, the Zulus passed on beyond the Umzimvubu to the Umtata re- gion ; coming within two days' march of Hinza's people on the west of the Bashee, or St. John's River. The terror of the bloody chief spread through all the tribes, down to the very borders of the Cape Colony ; so that a company of English troops, together with a volunteer corps of the Colonists, deemed it necessary to go out to meet and turn them back. These Colonial forces did great execution ; but their bullets and blows were directed against the wrong party, — some of the unoffending people of Kafirland, instead of the ravaging Zulus ; these having turned back long before the white man had begun to approach them. Having fallen upon three or four tribes and taken ten thousand head of cattle, these swift-footed foes from the North-East were far away on their homeward march, exulting in their success, ere the Colonial forces came down upon the poor, unfortunate tribe of Amangwana under Umati- wane, on the Umtata, some of whom they shot, and from whom, with the help of an auxiliary force of five thousand Kafirs, they are said to have taken twenty thousand head of cattle, which they delivered over to a neighboring tribe, the Tembus, and then returned home in great triumph. Returning from this expedition to the South-"VYest, the Zulu monarch sent off his men at once to the North- 76 ZULU-LAND. East, to make a plundering attack upon Usosliengane, "who was now living somewhere beyond Delagoa Bay, whither he had retired with the hope of escaping the hands of the mighty marauder, from whom he had suf- fered not a little on former occasions. It was during the absence of his army on this north- ern expedition that Chaka, who remained at home at his great Kraal Utukusa on the Umvoti, was slain. The deed was committed in open day, on or about the 23d of September, 1828. Chief among the conspirators were two of the king's brothers, Dingan and Umhlan- gane ; also Umbopa, one of his servants, by whose hand, as many allege, the fatal stab which laid the king in the dust, was given. It would be wrong, however, to suppose that the two or three who planned and executed this deed were the only parties who were interested in it or approved of it. No doubt they felt assured that many would rejoice to see the tyrannical reign of this ruler at an end. Some of Chaka's great men, chief counselors, who might be feared as adherents to the cause of the king, were slain the same day ; and, on the next, the two brothers fought hand to hand for the vacant throne, the soil beneath their feet still wet with the blood which but yesterday they were united in spilling. Dingan pre- vailed, slew Umhlangane, assumed the government, and sent messengers to inform the army of what had been done, and to say that all was done for the good of the nation, — for the peace and safety of soldier and citizen. After two months the army returned from one of the most fruitless forays in which it was ever engaged, having been not only decimated in battle, but also HISTOEICAL. 7T grcatlj 1 sduced hj hunger, fatigue, and exposure, of the severest kind ; so that most of them were twice glad to find an end put to the power of one from whom they had naught but death to expect in case of defeat or ill- success. Nor would you wonder that the stout-hearted Zulu warrior stood in such dread of this mighty, marvelous man, could I find space to give any thing like an ade- quate view of the devastations he wrought in the land. Of the two or three scores of tribes which he broke up and scattered, or the remnants of which he incorporated with his own nation, during the early and more san- guinary days of his reign, about forty have been able to recover more or less of a tribal name and standing in the land since his death. Others, however, shared a worse fate, being able to show only here and there a feeble fragment. Some of those who fled to Kafirland were held and treated as a class of dependents, virtually as slaves, subject to the will of the Kafirs among whom they had taken refuge. Eventually, however, most of them either returned to Natal, or else found their way down to the Old Colony, where, under the name of Fingoes, they remain to this day, some of them labor- ing for the white people at Port Elizabeth. Sanguinary and sad, yet not altogether devoid of in- struction, or at least matter for reflection, are the facts of which so brief an outline is here given. Whilst showing what the Zulus and their neighbors have done and sufiered in times of ignorance ; they also suggest of what these people may be capable under the influence of better mo- tives or better rule, should they ever be brought under the power of Christianity. If "it is a loss to uni- 7 * 78 ZULU-LAND. versal humanity to have the imprint of any phase of human life and experience entirely blotted out," it may be well to preserve some record of such men and things as were seen, known, and felt among the Zulu-Kafirs under the reign of that prodigy of a prince, that African Bonaparte, whose name recurs so often in the preceding pages, whose name, too, will not be forgotten so long as there shall be a Zulu-Kafir to talk of Chaka's great- ness or to swear by the terrors of his memory. BECOMES A BRITISH COLONY. 79 CHAPTER VIII. WHAT THE DUTCH DID AND SUFFERED IN NATAL, AND HOW THE DISTRICT BECAME A BRITISH COLONY. In 1837 tlie Dutch farmers migrated in large num- bers to Natal, coming by way of the old Cape Colony, the Orange River, and the Kwahlamba range. At that time the District of Natal was in the hands of Dingan, chief of the Amazulu, most of whose military towns were beyond the Tugela, on the Umhlatusi and Imfolosi Rivers. As soon, therefore, as the Boers arrived they sent a deputation, chief of whom was Pieter Retief, to confer with Dingan and get permission to settle in Na- tal. The Zulu monarch kept Retief waiting three days before he would give him a hearing, telling him that ho must not be in a hurry, but rest awhile, and give himself up to amusement. Retief describes the king's house as beautiful, of a circular form, with a diameter of twenty feet. It was supported in the interior by twenty-two pillars, which were entirely covered with beads. There were one thousand and seven hundred other huts in the same kraal, or village, each capable of containing twenty sol- diers. Two days were spent in showing Retief the national dances, together with a sample of their militia. 80 ZULU-LAND. The first day was devoted chiefly to the performances of the younger soldiers, of whom there were about two thousand present ; the second, to the veteran warriors, the number of whom then present was about four thou- sand. Retief thought their dances interesting and imposing ; but "their sham fights," says he, "are terrific exhibi- tions. They make a great noise with their shields and kieries, uttering at the same time the most discordant yells and cries. In one dance the people were inter- mingled with one hundred and seventy-six oxen, all without horns and of one color. They have long strips of skin hanging pendant from the forehead, cheeks, shoulders, and under the throat ; these strips being cut from the hide when the animals are calves. These oxen are divided into twos and threes among the whole army, which then dances in companies, each with its attendant oxen. In this way they all in turn approach the king, the oxen turning ofi" into a kraal, and the war- riors moving in a line from the king. It is surprising that the oxen should be so well trained ; for notwith- standing all the shouting and yelling which accompa- nies this dance, yet they never move faster than a slow walking pace. Dingan showed me also, as he said, his smallest herd of oxen, all alike, red with white backs. He allowed two of my people to count them, and the enumeration amounted to two thousand four hundred and twenty-four. I am informed that his herds of red and black oxen consist of three to four thousand each." Dingan treated the Dutch delegation with kindness ; but said they needed to be better acquainted with each other ; he had had many cattle stolen from him of lato LECOMES A BRITISH COLOXY. 81 by people wearing clothes, having horses and guns, and calling themselves Boers ; and his wish was that Retief and his party would prove themselves innocmt by re- covering and returning the cattle, and if possible the thieves, to him ; and he would then grant their request for land. The alleged theft being attributed to Sikony- ela, a Mantatee chief, who was living to the west of Dingan's realm, on the sources of the Caledon, a branch of the Nu Gariep, Retief and his countrymen accepted the wily Zulu's proposal, and set off at once upon an expedition against the poor Mantatee. Obtaining from him about seven hundred head of cattle, sixty horses, and several guns, all without any direct attack or the shedding of blood, was counted a fortunate enterprise. On their return to Natal with the cattle, the Boers were divided as to the manner of delivering them over to Ding^n. Gert Maritz offered to go with them, tak- ing only two or three men with him, arguing that the fewness of their number would be their surest safeguard : "if they were destroyed it would be quite enough." But Retief wished to take a large party of mounted men, thinking this would inspire the Zulu chieftain with respect and awe, and make him more willing to ratify and keep the treaty which the Boers were now proposing to make with him about land. Retief, how- ever, declined issuing any order for parties to accom- pany him, but left it optional for them to go or stay as they might please. It was in the latter part of January, 1838, that Re- tief took his leave of the emigrants' encampment about the Bushman's River, an upland southern branch of the Tugela, to go on his second, his last visit to the great 82 ZULU-LAND. Black King of Zulu-land. He "was accompanied by seventy of his stalwart countrymen, besides thirty Hot- tentot after-riders, or servants, with extra horses. They reached the king's capital, XJmkungunhlovu, the second of February, and delivered over the cattle, with which Dingan is said to have expressed himself highly grati- fied. For the purpose of making a display of their arms, their prowess and power, the Boers got up a sham fight on horseback. Dingan professed to be de- lighted w^ith the exhibition and asked them to fire a hundred rounds. But the thoughtful Boer did not care to waste his powder. Calling together several of his own regiments, the Zulu chieftain for two days kept them "tripping on the light fantastic toe," only chang- ing now and then " from lively to severe," by introduc- ing a few sham exercises of a martial character. At length the great object of the Boers' embassy was taken into consideration, and Dingan was induced to afiix his mark to a paper in which it was stated that he " re- signed to Betief and his countrymen all the land from the Tugela to the Umzimvubu, and from the sea to the north as far as it might be useful and in his possession." The farmers were now ready to depart, and made pre- parations to do so early the next morning. But Dingan had other things in mind. Morning came, — the morn- ing of February 6, 1838. In due time, the king took his seat on his throne, having two of his regiments, — the one composed of veteran warriors, bearing the white shield, and wearing the ring on their heads as a badge of their manliness and bravery ; the other a company of ardent, daring youth, bearing the black shield, — both arranged in their usual order by his side. The farm- BECOMES A BRITISH COLONY. 8B ers, having sent a few of tlieir servants to bring up the horses, came in to bid adieu to the king ; leaving their guns, as on other days, and in accordance with Zuhi- Kafir etiquette, without the gate. Inviting them to be seated — ^Retief beside himself and two of his most no- ble captains, the rest at a little distance, — the king of- fered them native beer, Uhuchwala. While they were partaking freely of this, he asked his troops who had been arrayed in a circle, to favor them with a song and a dance. In the midst of their dance and song, and whilst the Boers were drinking, the king cried out, Bu- lalani 'hatakati! — "Kill ye the wizards !" In a mo- ment, one fierce, fatal rush was made upon the farmers and their attendants, and not a man of them escaped. All were killed ; and their mangled corpses dragged to a hillock, not far away, were left a prey to the vulture, the wolf, and the wasting elements. Of course, the farmers ofi'ered what resistance they could ; but in vain. Several made an attempt to es- cape by flight ; and one, being swift of foot, ran a long way before he was taken ; but the speed of his many pursuers was too much for him. The Zulu chieftain had evidently heard not a little about the Boers before that day of slaughter ; and it is said that Retief and his party would have fallen in this way on their first visit to the capital, had one of the king's captains been prompt to execute the orders Avith which he had been entrusted. Dingan now ordered the heart and liver of the Dutch leader, Retief, to be taken out and brought to him, and then to be deposited in the road by which the Boers had 84 ZULU-LAND. come, that all wlio should attempt a similar approach might be cast down and killed on the road. Knowing full well, that '^when things are once come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to ce- lerity," Dingan did not sleep till he had sent off ten regiments to attack and destroy the rest of the Boers, who were now stopping in their wagons and encamp- ments on the south of the Tugela. Nor did the expe- dition prove a failure. It would seem that the doubts and fears which a majority of the Boers had as to the good faith of Dingan had strangely subsided after their leader had left with the cattle for the capital. The men who remained at home were giving themselves up to the pleasures of the chase ; while the women were all at ease, or only preparing for the return of husband, bro- ther, or friend. The day before the army reached them, there was a vague rumor that all was not well ; and a small patrol was sent out beyond the Tugela, to see if there was any truth in the report that a large party of Zulus had been seen in that neighborhood, al- though the ostensible object of this party was to hunt buffaloes. Advancing towards the spot where the Zulu army was lying stealthily ensconced behind a hill, the patrol was met by an old Zulu, who asked where they were going. On being told that they were in search of buffaloes, he pointed them in another direction, where, he said, they would find plenty. The Boers kept on, however, till the old man went before them, and insisted so hard upon their changing their course, that, to avoid suspicion, they consented to do so, though not till they had come within a few hundred yards of the hidden foe. BECOMES A BRITISH COLONY. 85 Returning to tlieir encampment, they reported that all was right. Meanwhile, the artful Zulu had been sending out spies to learn the exact situation of the farmers, their wagons, tents and families, their flocks and herds. And now, on the second day ere the morn had fairly dawned, their enemy was ready to fall upon them. By dividing themselves into several parties, the Zu- lus managed to attack the two principal encampments of the Boers at the same moment ; one at the Blaauw- kranz River, and the other on the Bushman's,* ten miles distant. The wagons were surrounded, and many of the people slain before they had risen from their beds. The cries of women and children availed nothing. The slaughter was wild, rapid, indiscriminate. So complete was the surprise, that some of the neighboring Boers mistook the first shots fired by their countrymen in self- defence, for a salute to Retief and his company. But as the day came on, they began to see their condition and to rally for defence. Here and there, a party of half a dozen might now be seen, some in the garb of night, laboring to defend themselves and families from the steel of their foe. Even some of the women joined in the struggle, trying to encourage and aid the men by dealing out the ammunition as they required. The Zulus were finally repulsed and the conflict brought to a close. The number of the slain, on the side of the Dutch, including those who died of their wounds, amounted to three hundred and sixty-six white people, besides two hundred and fifty of the colored attendants. * Both affluents of the Tugela River. 8 86 ZULU-LAND. The number of the Zulus that fell, was estimated at five hundred. In the early part of April, the Farmers made out a commando of about four hundred mounted men to take vengeance on Dingan for the evil he had done them. After several days' cautious advance, being within half an hour's ride of the king's great town, they were met and surrounded by the Zulus ; and after a desperate encounter of more than an hour, they were glad to turn back, leaving the king's forces in possession of a hardly earned victory. Never stoops the soaring vulture On his quarry in the desert. On the sick or wounded bison, But another vulture, watching From his high aerial look-out. Sees the downward plunge, and follows ; And a third pursues the second, Coming from the invisible ether, First a speck, and then a vulture, Till the air is dark with pinions." While the Zulu is occupied with the Boer in the up- per part of the District, a few Englishmen at the Port make out a predatory force of about a thousand men, Hottentots, natives, and others, to go up the coast in search for cattle and other Zulu plunder. In about two weeks they return much elated with their success, bring- ing with them three thousand head of cattle, together with a large number of women and children. This ex- pedition succeeded so well that another is made, consist- ing of about three thousand natives, thirty Hottentots, and eighteen Englishmen. Reaching the field of plun- der they are met by the Zulu and nearly all slain. Of BECOMES A BRITISH COLONY. 8T the white men only four or five escape, and only two or three of the Hottentots. Dingan was now prepared to avenge himself for the three thousand head of cattle, the women and children, which the previous English party had taken from him, under pretence of supporting the cause of the Boers. Three or four days found his army fitted out and on the march for Natal. Expecting its speedy arrival, the few white people, including two or three missionaries, (as Owen and Lindley,) who were at the Bay, took refuge on board the " Comet," a brig now lying there, detained beyond its time by the illness of the captain. The na- tives of that neighborhood, having no ship to which they could resort for protection, prepared to hide in the rocks and bushes that skirt the Bluff and Bay. Scarcely had the people about the Bay found hiding- places on ship-board or among clifis and jungles, when, on the 24th of April, they saw Dingan's forces hurry- ing towards them in two large bodies, the black shields and the white, prepared to take or destroy all that should fall in their way. They met with no resistance. So sudden and rapid was their progress that the people to the west of the Bay, on the Umlazi and farther on, knew nothing of their approach till they saw them at hand. The mission-houses at Ifumi were burnt to the ground ; those at Umlazi were left standing, the brand that was stuck in the roof failing to do the work as- signed it. Having swept the country of its cattle, and taken such other property as they counted valuable, after three days of havoc and plunder they returned to the Zulu country. Toward the end of tne year the Boers prepared to 88 ZULU-LAND. resume hostilities against their wily foe. With a force of four hundred and fifty mounted men they start for Zulu-land, taking their wagons with them. After two or three weeks' travel they approach the capital, meet the enemy, and hold their ground. The king sets fire to his great town and retires. The Boers advance, col- lect what cattle and other property they can find, and return home, feeling, however, that the monarch's power is not yet broken. On reaching Natal the Boers found a detachment of British troops come to take military possession of the Bay and country adjacent, and to prevent the aggres- sive operations which the Dutch were now prosecuting. The captain in command signified to all parties, Dutch and Zulu, that they should cease fighting and seek peace. In the early part of 1839 a treaty was formed between Dingan and the farmers, yet neither had confidence in the other, least of all the Boer in the Zulu. It was at this juncture that Umpande, Dingan's bro- ther, revolted, and went over with a large part of the Zulu nation to the side of the white man. The English troops having been recalled, the Boers, in the early part of 1840, made another military expedition against Din- gan, having Umpande with four thousand of his best warriors as an ally. After fighting between Umpande and Dingan, the latter was worsted and driven beyond the confines of his realm. Advancing in pursuit of the conquered and fleeing ' enemy, the Dutch commando reached the Pongolo river on the 8th of February. Here they learned that Din- gan, having with him only about a hundred warriors, some of his heroes, and a few herdsmen, had crossed the BECOMES A BRITISH COLONY. 89 river five days previous. Umpande's chief captain, Nongalaza, was left to watch for the deserted and fugi- tive monarch, who, not long after, was assassinated by warriors of the Amaswazi tribe, and thus closed his career of violence, rapine, and blood. The Boers turned back, bending their steps towards the Black Folosi which they reached on the evening of the 9th. Here they remained till the 14th, and hearing that Nongalaza could learn nothing more about Dingan, and that he had captured and collected all the cattle that he could find, they gave him orders to return. Now, and here, amid the firing of guns, the Boers declare Umpande sole king of the Zulus, and that their own sovereignty shall extend in future from the Black Folosi {Imfolosi Emnyama) to the Umzimvubu, and from the sea to the Drakensberg. After a great "hurrah" they all cried out : " Thanks to the great God, who, by his grace, has given us the victory !" Having arranged for a distribution of the thirty-five or forty thousand head of cattle which were taken on this expedition, the victorious army returned home. But the day of their rejoicing was short. The British government had endeavored from the first to dissuade them from the course they were taking ; nor was it now willing to admit the claim they set up to be acknow- ledged a free and independent people. The manner in which the Boers treated the natives, seizing their chil- dren and binding them out to service, which the Eng- lish regarded as little else than virtual slavery, hastened a collision. Having nothing to fear from the Zulus on the north- east, the Boers turn their attention to the south-west. 8 * 90 ZULU-LAXD. Alleging that Uncapai and his people had assisted some Bushmen to steal their cattle, thej collect a mounted force of about two hundred men, go out against the chieftain, make an attack upon him, kill a hundred and fifty of his men, take three thousand head of his cattle, abduct a company of women and children, and return home. The British government now sent two hundred and twenty men overland from the old colony to resume mili- tary occupation of the port and surrounding country. These arrived in May, 1842, and pitched their camp at Durban, near the Bay. The Boers sent word to the officer in command, Captain Smith, to withdraw from Katal forthwith, or they would drive him away. To this the gallant Captain returned reply that he had or- ders to take the place, but none to leave it. The Boers sent out a party and drove off six hundred head of oxen belonging to the Captain's baggage wagons. The Eng- lish attacked the camp of their foe (May 23) at Kon- gela, but were repulsed with a loss of thirty-four killed, sixty-three wounded, and six missing, leaving two six- pounders in the hands of the enemy. Having despatched a messenger to the Cape of Good Hope, urging the necessity of a reinforcement, the Captain now resolved to concentrate what strength he had, make the bes^ use of his limited stores, and hold out to the last. On the morning of the 31st the be- sieged captain was suddenly saluted with a six-pound shot, which went through the officers' mess-room, send- ing pots and kettles flying in all directions. During the day upwards of a hundred balls were thrown in upon them, with an incessant fire of musketry. The BECOMES A BRITISH COLONY. 91 bombardment was kept up from day to day until the besiegers' ammunition began to grow short. Meantime, their nights were spent in digging approaches to the camp. The bombardment was resisted with courage, and on several occasions parties were sent out by night to destroy the works of the enemy. The want of water was met by a well, which the captain dug within the encampment ; and, to eke out their scanty store of pro- visions the few remaining cattle were killed and the flesh made into biltong, (as the Dutch say,) cut into strips, salted, and dried, and the issue reduced to hjjf a pound a day, with a little biscuit, biscuit-dust, or rice at half allowance. When this failed, the horses were killed and made in like manner into biltong, their forage-corn being ground into meal to take the place of biscuit-dust and rice. The sick and wounded were suffering greatly, being obliged to lie in the trenches dug within the encampment. At length, on the night of the 24th, after a month's siege, the sight of several rockets, sent up from the sea, assured them that help was nigh. On the 26th, Lieut. Col. Cloete landed and relieved them in right gallant style. Having taken possession of the Port, Colonel Cloete followed the enemy to Kongela ; but all, save a small party of scouts, had fled to another encampment ten or twelve miles distant. Protection was now ofiered to all who were disposed to acknowledge allegiance to Her Majesty. The Boers held out for a time ; but on the 15th of July, 1842, they made a solemn declaration of their submission to the Queen and obtained a pardon, — 92 ZULU-LAND. all save four, for whose apprehension a reward of a thou- sand pounds was offered. Among the conditions of the treaty, it was stipulated that the Emigrant Farmers, releasing all prisoners, giving up all cannon, and making a restitution of all public and private property, should be allowed to retain their existing institutions, for the present, subject, of course, to Her Majesty's supremacy. The tenure of their lands was to be left to the adjudication of the English government. The natives, or " Kafirs" as they were called, were to remain, for the present, in the un- molested occupation of lands upon which they were re- siding when Her Majesty's troops arrived, subject to such future arrangements as the government might find it necessary to make for general security. Affairs remained in this state until the whole subject could be referred to the Home government ; when the Queen was pleased to approve the course which her re- presentatives had pursued, and to signify her pleasure to recognize and adopt the District of Natal as a British colony. Accordingly a proclamation to this effect was issued at the Cape, on the 12th of May, 1843, and proper means taken to regulate the affairs of the dis- trict in accordance with the terms on which it was to be made a colony. The chief reason given for adopting Natal as a co- lony was to secure the common good of the people — " the peace, protection, and salutary control of all classes of men settled at and surrounding this important portion of South Africa." Hence the three indispen- sable conditions, on which the Emigrants would be al- lowed to occupy the territory in question were :— BECOMES A BRITISH COLONY. 93 " 1st. That there shall not be, in the eye of the law, any distinction or disqualification whatever, founded on mere distinction of color, origin, language, or creed ; but that the protection of the law, in letter and in sub- stance, shall be extended impartially to all alike. " 2d. That no aggression shall be sanctioned upon the natives residing beyond the limits of the colony, under any plea whatever, by any private person, or any body of men, unless acting under the immediate au- thority and orders of the government. " 3d. That slavery, in any shape, or under any modi- fication, is absolutely unlawful, as in every other portion of Her Majesty's dominions." In 1844, the Queen gave directions to annex Natal to the Cape Colony ; the year following she instituted a separate government over it ; in 1847, it received a Legislative Council ; and in 1856, it was erected into a separate colony under a Lieutenant Governor, and fa- vored with a kind of representative system, — the Legis- lative Council being made to consist of sixteen members, of whom twelve are chosen by the people ; and the rest, to wit, the Secretary to Government, the Secretary for Native Afiairs, the Attorney General, and the Colonial Treasurer, are appointed by the Crown. When Queen Victoria adopted Natal as an English colony, she came into possession of a gem of no ordi- nary value ; nor is it often that a new land makes a surer, steadier advance than this has done, since it came under her firm and benignant rule. 94 ZULU-LAND. CHAPTER IX. APPEARANCE AND PURSUITS OF THE NATIVES. Time was, when clothing, sumptuous or for use. Save their own painted skins, our sires had none. As yet black breeches were not; satin smooth, Or velvet? soft, or plush with shaggy pile : The hardy chief upon the rugged rock Washed by the sea, or on the grav'ly bank Thrown up by wintry torrents roaring loud, Fearless of wrong, reposed his weary strength. Cowper. In respect to the bodily form and carriage of this people, every one is ready to admit that they are well made, of good stature, generally erect, but rather slen- der, especially the men. Their average height, how- ever, is hardly equal to that of the English or Ameri- can ; though, from seeing them in their usual unclad state, one would think them taller than they really are. Their frames are well developed ; their limbs delicate, but well proportioned, — a conformation fitted to make them more agile than strong. Hence one of these black men running on foot is a very good guide for a white man on horseback. And yet many of them, especially the women, will bear a heavy burden on their heads, and carry it a long distance without much difficulty. The color of the Zulu-Kafir varies in diff"erent indi- APPEARANCE AXD PURSUITS OF THE NATIVES. 95 viduals, from a reddish copper color to a jet black ; the prevailing shade is a very dark brown, which, in their estimation, is of all colors the most beautiful. A native of Natal would count it no compliment to be called . light-colored. One of the most common, yet choicest of the titles of honor, with which this people attempt to praise and extol their king, is to say to him, " Thou art black/' Nor will you find any of them, especially among the young, a whit less indifferent than the white man as to their complexion, — not a whit less proud of a clear, deep brown, bordering as close as possible upon a pure black, than any Anglo-Saxon is of the fairest white. Ask any of these dark-colored gentlemen, or ladies, their opinion of complexion, and they will an- swer, that the light does very well for the European ; but for themselves, the most beautiful is just their own, blacTc tvith a little red. Nor, on this point,will I under- take to dispute their judgment. Their eyes also are black, and often sparkle with merry humor. Their teeth are generally well set, and beautifully white. Their countenance bespeaks cheer- fulness and contentment. Looking at the large mouth, thick lip, and flat nose of one, then at the small well- formed mouth, straight lip, and aquiline nose of an- other ; on the one hand, at the woolly hair, and often on the other, at the open face, retiring chin, and square forehead, we see in them a varied configuration, that oscillates through all the extremes of the Negro and the European type On the whole, the Zulus must be pronounced a well-devCiOped, and fine-looking race of men. ! Pass we now from his person to his habitation. 96 ZULU-LAND. In looking out a building spot, the Zulu generally finds it necessary to have an eye to several things, — a fountain or stream from whence to get water, pasturage for his cattle ; a few patches of good soil, where he may dig and raise Kafir or Indian corn, and other articles of food ; and then a site for the kraal, where the water will not lodge in times of rain, where also he may dig pits in the earth to deposit his grain, and where, again, he will not be too much exposed to bleak winds, and cold, driving storms. Under pure native law, a man has no right to build any where, nor at all, until he gets per- mission from his chief to do so ; his first step is to go and ask his chief for a place to build, unless, perchance, his chief may have given him one without his asking. Having selected a site, he goes to the nearest bush, or jungle, for stakes and wattles with which to construct his isibaya^ a cow-pen or fold for his cattle, — a circular enclosure from two to four, or even ten, fifty, or a hun- dred rods in diameter, according to the proposed size of the kraal, and the number of cattle which the OAvner or captain of the kraal may have to provide for. Some of the great king's cattle-pens were made to enclose several acres of land, and so hold immense herds, thou- sands of head. In those sections of the country where little or no wood grows, the pen is built of stones or sods. Having completed the isibaya, so far at least that it will serve to keep his cattle for the present, the next thing is to erect a hut or house, — inhlu, plural izinhlu, one for himself, and one for each wife, mother, or other dependent. These huts, built of wattles, sustained by two or three posts in the central parts, and covered with APPEARANCE AND PURSUITS OF THE NATIVES. 97 thatch, — some kind of coarse grass, — are planted in a circle around the cattle-pen, at the distance of two or three yards from it, and about twice that distance from each other ; his own being at the upper or backside of the establishment, while the rest lead off on each side till the circular fold is enclosed by the two wings, — pro- vided h& has wives and other dependents enough to fill out the circle. In former days, when war or predatory incursions were common, it was more customary than now for several men to unite and build together, all in one kraal, for material aid and security. These huts, being hemispherical in form, and thatched with grass, look very much like so many hay-cocks twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, and so high that a man can generally stand upright in the center, especially if he takes his hat off, and does not mind the cock-roaches, smoke, or soot, in which the roof commonly abounds. A single aperture at the lower side of the hut, arched at the top, only about eighteen inches wide, and two feet high, (measur- ing from the earth up,) serves for both door and win- dows. Of course, all the inhabitants, save the small children, the dogs, the goats, sheep, and calves, must creep in and out on their hands and knees. A small space near the door, on one side of this one-roomed house, is usually laid off for the calves and the other quadrupeds, at night, to keep them from the roaming wolf or leopard, though even here they are not always safe. Firewood, calabashes, and other water-pots, cook- ing utensils, the mill-stone, and the sleeping-mats, fill up the rest of the border of the hut. Near the central pillar, and on the side towards the door, is the firc- 9 98 ZULU-LAND. place, a shallow, basin-like excavation, scooped out in the earth, with an elevated rim of molded clay. This clay, as also that of which the floor is made, is usually brought from some neighboring ant-heap ; when it is properly wet, pounded, and rubbed down with a stone, a very hard, smooth, and durable surface is obtained. In the evening, and through most of the day, if the weather is cold or wet, gathered around this fire-place, their only hearth-stone, all seated on their haunches much like the dogs by their sides, poking the fire or putting up the brands, by grinding and snuffing their snuff, smoking their pipe, cooking and eating their food, cuffing and scolding their dogs, narrating exploits, tell- ing the news, or talking the merest nonsense, the peo- ple pass their hours in what they consider a very plea- sant and comfortable manner. When they are weary with sitting, snuffing, smoking, eating, talking, laugh- ing, if nothing worse, the hour for retiring having ar- rived they spread their bed, a single mat made usually of some kind of rush or flag, and with a block of wood for a pillow, and a coarse blanket or the hide of some animal for a covering, lie down and sleep until a new day dawns upon them. Around the fold for cattle and the huts for the peo- ple, some kind of enclosure is usually erected, a hedge or wattled fence, like that of which the fold is made, and in a like circular form, parallel to the inner enclo- sure ; the gate of each being on the same side, so as to make a straight passage through the two. When the people felt less secure than they now do, this outer fence was made strong, and at night the outer gate was shut with all available strength and care, the way being APPEAKANCE AND PURSUITS OF THE NATIVES. 99 tilled up with stakes and thorny bushes so as to make entrance from without next to impossible. Passing from the Umuzi, or Umzi, plural Imizi^ the village or hamlet, or, as the Dutch say, the Kraal, we come to the Insimu, or garden, plural Amasimu. These may be near the kraal, or far away, according as the people can find patches of land suited to their ideas of fitness for cultivation. Such places may be nooks of made-land along the edges and angles of some stream ; or, they may be the bushy side or the open summit of some hillock. The field having been selected, it is the duty of the men and boys to cut away the brush ; the work erf planting, weeding, and harvesting the crop, being assigned to the women and girls. Sometimes the men run a wattled fence round the garden, to protect it from cattle by day, and from the wild boar by night ; otherwise, the herd-boy must keep a sharp lookout for the cows, calves, and goats, for three months ; and when the corn puts out the ear, the men must guard it vigi- lantly, night after night, rain or no rain, to keep it from the wary, ravenous pig out of the bush. Of course, a new order of things is gradually introduced among those Avho embrace Christianity ; an open, level field, fit for the plow, being preferred to the narrow, stony, or preci- pitous patches, which must be dug by hand. But, in the heathen state of this people, the poor woman, with her pick and basket, must serve as plow and cart, ox and horse. The season for planting having arrived, she takes her babe, if she has one, binds it upon her back by means of a goat-skin, balances a basket of seed on her head, lays her heavy pick on her shoulder, and goes forth to 100 ZULU-LAND. the field for a day's work. Sometimes she has a nurse to care for the child ; sometimes she keeps it bound to her back, or she lays it wrapped in the goat-skin on the ground by her side; while she scatters the seed and goes on to labor, hour after hour, often under a burn- ing sun, swinging her rude pick of eight or ten pounds weight, to mellow the earth and prepare it to bring forth food for the support of her lord, herself, their children, and friends. Her day's work done, she re- turns home, gathering and carrying a bundle of wood by the way ; sends the children to the brook to fill their earthen pots and calabashes with water ; then, as tha sun sinks behind the hill, she prepares to cook theii principal meal. And just now is the best time for us to take a look at her pantry and cupboard, her crockery and kettles, — only you must not suppose the inventory large. There is the great pot in which she cooks her umhila or ama-^ hele, — that is, maize or millet, — standing on a tripod of three rough stones, while the faggots blaze beneath and on every side. Here, too, she boils her vegetables, — greens, pumpkins, or turnips, — and occasionally steams a loaf of bread. The potlid is just another pot of the same size, inverted, fitted lip to lip, one upon the other, its position secured, and the apertures closed by the use of a little uhulongwe from the cattle fold, the same article with which she smears the floor of her house once a week, not to mention sundry other important uses to which the people are wont to put it ; though of its value as a fertilizer, judging from their neglect, they have little idea. These great pots, as also the few bowls from which they eat their crushed corn and thick milk, APPEARANCE AND PURSUITS OF THE 1