[81] The Zulus, of course, would not have appreciated the convenience of a table and chairs; they had no “documents” to lay upon the former; and their opinion of the comfort of the latter is best expressed by the well-known Zulu saying that, “Only Englishmen and chickens sit upon perches.” The mats provided for them were, therefore, a proper equivalent to the tables and seats placed for the other delegates.
[82] Sir Bartle Frere gives a very unfair account of this matter-of-course fact when he transmits to the Secretary of State the above despatch, “informing me of the incomplete result, in consequence of the attitude of Cetshwayo’s representatives at the Commission of Inquiry.”
[83] The king’s kraal at that time.
[84] The homestead specially spoken of in this case does not appear to have been destroyed or injured till March, 1879, in the midst of the war, nor was any human being, white or black, belonging to these farms, killed by this “savage, unbridled, revengeful nation,” before the war began.
[85] Apparently by Sir T. Shepstone’s orders, as the following phrase appears in one of the Boer protests against arbitration, April 25th, 1873: “The majority of the people have, by order of your Excellency, trekked into laager on December 14th last, and after having remained in laager for nearly five months, we are to go and live on our farms again.”
[86] The married women work in the mealie-gardens, etc., and the little girls carry the babies; but the marriageable young women seem to have an interval of happy freedom from all labour and care.
[87] This was comprehensible during the attempt, which proved so signal a failure, on the part of Sir T. Shepstone, to impose a marriage tax upon the natives. The tax was so extremely unpopular that it was thought advisable to relinquish it, and to make the desired increase in the revenue of the colony by doubling the hut-tax.
[88] Sir T. Shepstone, when he says (1137, p. 18) “Natal gives up the cattle of Zulu refugees.... The refugees themselves are not given up,” plainly includes women amongst the cattle or “property” of the Zulus.
[89] And later, Nov. 18, 1878 (2222, p. 173), he says: “I do not hold the King responsible for the commission of the act, because there is nothing to show that it had his previous concurrence or even cognizance. But he becomes responsible for the act after its commission, and for such reparation as we may consider is due for it.”
[90] Since rifled by our troops, and the bones of the old king brought over to England.