However, after a time, they were allowed to depart, an attempt made to take their horses from them being prevented by the induna of the Zulus.
Sir Bartle Frere does not seem to have thought very much of the matter at first, for Sir M. Hicks-Beach, when acknowledging his despatch reporting it, says (2220, p. 320): “I concur with you in attributing no special importance to the seizure and temporary arrest of the surveyors, which was partly due to their own indiscretion, and was evidently in no way sanctioned by the Zulu authorities.”
But a little later—although with no fresh facts before him—Sir B. Frere takes a very different tone (2222, p. 176).
“I cannot at all agree with the lenient view taken by the Lieut.-Governor of this case. Had it stood quite alone, a prompt apology and punishment of the offenders might have been sufficient. As the case stands, it was only one of many instances of insult and threatening, such as cannot possibly be passed over without severe notice being taken of them. What occurred,” he says, “whether done by the king’s order, or only by his border-guards, and subsequently only tacitly approved by his not punishing the offenders, seems to me a most serious insult and outrage, and should be severely noticed.”
There is no sign that it was ever brought to the king’s knowledge, and when Sir B. Frere speaks of its being “only one of many instances of insult and threatening,” he is drawing largely on his imagination, as there is no other recorded at all, unless he means to refer to the “notices to quit” in the disputed territory of which we have already treated.
We must now consider the points connected with the internal management of the Zulu country, which have generally been looked upon as a partial excuse for our invasion. Foremost amongst these is the infraction of the so-called “coronation promises,” of which we have spoken in a previous chapter. Frequent rumours were current in Natal that the king, in defiance of the said promises, was in the habit of shedding the blood of his people upon the smallest provocation, and without any form of trial. Such stories of his inhuman atrocities were circulated in the colony that many kind-hearted and gentle people were ready to think that war would be a lesser evil. Yet, whenever one of these stories was examined into or traced to its source, it turned out either to be purely imaginary, or to have for its foundation some small act of more or less arbitrary authority, the justice of which we might possibly question, but to which no one would apply the words “barbarities,” “savage murders,” etc.
An instance of the manner in which the Zulu king has obtained his character of “a treacherous and bloodthirsty sovereign,”[97] came under the notice of the present writer about December of last year (1878). Happening to be on a visit to some friends in Pietermaritzburg, and hearing them mention Cetshwayo’s cruelties, I observed that I did not much credit them, as I had never yet met anyone who knew of them from any trustworthy source. I was met with the assurance that their “kitchen-Kafir,” Tom, from whom they had received their accounts, was a personal witness, having himself escaped from a massacre, and they vouched for the truthfulness of the man’s character. I asked and obtained permission to question the man in his own language, being myself anxious to find any real evidence on the subject, especially as, at that time—with military preparations going on on every side—it was apparent to all that “we” intended war, and one would have been glad to discover that there was any justification for it on our side. The same evening I took an opportunity of interrogating “Tom,” saying, “So I hear that you know all about this wicked Zulu king. Tell me all about it.” Whereupon the man launched out into a long account of the slaughter of his people, from which not even infants were spared, and from which he was one of the few who had escaped. He had plainly been accustomed to tell the tale (doubtless a true one), and there were touches in it concerning the killing of the children which showed that he had been in the habit of recounting it to tender-hearted and horror-struck English mothers. When he had finished his tale I asked him when all the horrors which he had described had taken place. “Oh!” he replied, “it was at the time of the fight between Cetshwayo and Umbulazi (1856); that was when I left Zululand.”
“And you have never been there since?”
“No; I should be afraid to go, for Cetshwayo kills always.”