The Kaffir wars.
The history of the Cape Colony, till within the last few years, was one of comparatively slow development and of frequent Kaffir wars. No less than eight such struggles with the natives are recorded between 1815 and 1881, some of them of considerable length and difficulty.
The diamond mines.—Kimberley.
Each led to an annexation, till at last all the country south of the Orange River had passed into the hands of the settlers, though large reserved tracts were set aside for the native tribes. Meanwhile the Dutch and English colonists held apart, and have always remained more or less estranged. The first rapid development of the settlement began in 1867, when the discovery of diamond-mines in Griqualand West, beyond the Orange River, led to the northward extension of the British boundary, to the grave discontent of the Boers of the Orange Free State (1872). The great mining town of Kimberley has arisen as the centre of this arid but busy district.
Annexation of the Transvaal.
The most formidable difficulty which the English have met in South Africa came from the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. The Boers of that republic having engaged themselves in dangerous wars with the natives, Lord Beaconsfield's government resolved to place them under British rule. This was done, and, as heirs to the Boers' quarrels, we fought out the sanguinary Zulu war of 1879.
The Zulu war.
The Zulus, an immigrant tribe from the north, had built up a military monarchy over their neighbours under a despot named Chaka, who had disciplined them and formed them into regiments in imitation of European organization. We made war on his grandson Cetewayo, and incurred, on our first meeting with the formidable Zulu army, the disaster of Isandula, where a whole British battalion and 1000 native auxiliaries were exterminated to the last man. It required the dispatch of 10,000 men from England under Sir Garnet Wolseley, and three sharp battles at Ekowe, Kambula, and Ulundi to break Cetewayo's army and restore the prestige of the British arms.
Hardly was the Zulu war over when the Boers of the Transvaal revolted, and defeated the small British force in Natal at Laing's Neck and Majuba Hill. We have related elsewhere how the Gladstone government thereupon made peace, and gave the Boers their independence. [71]