At Derby there was, not unnaturally, some slight confusion owing to this double appointment of officers in command; but having overcome this difficulty, Colonel Rowlands set himself seriously to consider the situation, which was by no means a promising one. A force composed of two companies of Europeans and 250 natives, collected from the neighbouring country, was clearly useless for any aggressive purposes, while the Swazis, though ready and willing to co-operate with an English force large enough to support them, were evidently far from satisfied with the number collected at Derby. That town, or hamlet rather, consisting of but two houses in point of fact, is situated from twenty to five-and-twenty miles from the Zulu border of a part of Zululand peopled by some of the most warlike tribes of that nation, and so small a garrison as the above did but invite attack and disaster. Upon these considerations Colonel Rowlands determined to reinforce himself from Pretoria and Lydenburg. He sent instructions to Major Tyler, 80th Regiment, to send him three companies of the 80th, two Armstrong guns, and a troop of Weatherley’s Border Horse, but directing him to consult the colonial authorities as to whether the troops could be safely spared, before complying with the order.
At this time, about the middle of January, the Zulus throughout this northern and thickly-populated part of the country were perfectly quiet and even friendly. There was still a possibility that the difficulty between their king and the English might be settled without bloodshed, and the people were evidently anxious to avoid giving cause of offence. Colonel Rowlands, who employed his time while waiting for his reinforcements (which would take some weeks to arrive) in reconnoitring the country, found the roads open and the inhabitants inoffensive. At this period he also attempted to organise a frontier force of farmers—Englishmen, Boers, and Germans—whom he summoned to a meeting for consideration of the question. From fifty to sixty attended, and, after hearing his address, their spokesman responded to the effect that they were willing to take service for the defensive object proposed, but that it was to be clearly understood that by uniting themselves to a common protective cause (course?), they did not thereby acknowledge allegiance to the British crown. But a committee, subsequently formed to consider details connected with the proposed force, fell out amongst themselves, and the scheme was abandoned.
On the 26th January, Colonel Rowlands received from Sir T. Shepstone the news of the disaster at Isandhlwana; and from this time nothing but contradictory orders and impossible commands seem to have reached him at his distant post. He heard of the troops he had intended for special purposes being ordered elsewhere; he was directed by Lord Chelmsford to take orders from his junior, Colonel Wood; he received different instructions, entirely opposed to each other, concerning the calling out of the Swazi allies; nevertheless, in spite of the confusion which reigned at that unhappy epoch, he kept his head, and went steadily on with the plans he had formed. By the second week in February he had, with some difficulty, collected a force of something under a thousand Europeans and natives, and was prepared to operate. It seemed, however, impossible to get any distinct orders or definite instructions from those in command, either military or civil; and representations having been made to him by the border Boers that a Zulu impi was about to attack them from the Tolaka Mountains, he marched out with a portion of his force in that direction, leaving Major Tucker (80th) in command of the rest. While halted at the Assegai River upon this expedition, he received a despatch from Colonel Wood, requesting him to march his force from Derby to Luneburg to his support. Sending a note to Major Tucker, directing him to start for Luneburg next morning, he continued his march, attacked and took the Tolaka Mountain, and then proceeded towards Luneburg with his own force. He was now about eighteen miles from where his head-quarters camp under Major Tucker would be, with a broken and hilly country to pass through, over which he had great difficulty in conveying his wounded (fortunately but few), and the captured women and children. These captives were, on this account, offered their freedom, but refused to accept it, which, perhaps, was not unnatural, seeing that their homes and crops were destroyed, and they had no longer any means of livelihood.
The force passed through the Intombi Valley, laying the country waste for miles on either side of the road as it went, and met on its way messengers from Colonel Wood, requesting the immediate presence of the mounted corps. But upon the 23rd February, Colonel Rowlands received a memorandum to the effect that the Lieut.-General, by desire of the High Commissioner, wished him to proceed at once back to Pretoria, to prepare some defence against the Boers, who had assumed a threatening attitude. Upon the receipt of this order he quitted the Luneburg district, and arrived on the 6th of March at the capital of the Transvaal. Here there were but 200 infantry and some few mounted volunteers; but by Colonel Rowlands’s exertions the number was soon swelled to 600 or 700, by the addition of city corps and other volunteers.
A considerable number of Boers who had never willingly accepted the annexation of their country by the English, had taken the opportunity, offered by the general confusion which reigned after the disaster of the 22nd January, of endeavouring to regain the independence of their state. Mass meetings were held to discuss the subject, and finally a large body of armed men formed a camp at no great distance from Pretoria. The situation appeared a very serious one; and the High Commissioner himself travelled to Pretoria to endeavour by his honeyed words to calm an agitation which might prove so singularly inconvenient should the angry feelings of the indignant Boers find vent in blows. On the 12th of April, just two years from the day of the annexation, Sir B. Frere met a deputation of the Transvaal farmers at Erasmus Spruit, about six miles from Pretoria, and held a long discussion with them upon the subject of their rights and wrongs. They repeatedly and plainly asserted that Sir T. Shepstone had coerced the people into submission by threatening them with the Zulus, and declared unanimously that nothing would satisfy them but the recovery of their liberties. Sir Bartle Frere gave them to understand in return that this was the only thing for which they might not hope. He assured them that he looked upon the voortrekkers as an honour to their race, and that he felt proud to belong to the same stock. The Queen, he told them, felt for them “as for her own children;”[160] and he hoped to tell her that she had “no better subjects in her empire,” than amongst them. The committee, however, retired in complete dissatisfaction, and addressed a petition to Her Majesty, in which they remark, “unwilling subjects but faithful neighbours we will be;” and more than hint that they are prepared to “draw the sword” to prove how much they are in earnest. The excitement, however, calmed down for the time being, and Sir Bartle Frere departed.
During his stay in Pretoria, he desired Colonel Rowlands to make preparations to resume hostilities against Sikukuni, and accordingly, by the end of May, that officer had increased the number of his mounted volunteers by 450. He then made a vain attempt to induce Lord Chelmsford to spare him another regiment of regular troops; but finding that this was decidedly refused, and that no operations were likely to take place in the Transvaal for some time, he accepted the General’s offer of a brigade in the lower column.
On the arrival of Sir Garnet Wolseley at Port Durnford, he applied to that general for the command in case operations should be resumed in the Transvaal. To this he had a strong claim, both on account of his experience and of his laborious services there; but the request was refused.
CHAPTER XVI.
NO. 4 COLUMN—INTOMBI—INDHLOBANE—KAMBULA—KING’S MESSENGERS.
On January 6th, No. 4 Column, under Colonel Wood, V.C., C.B.—strength previously detailed—crossed the Blood River (the Zulu boundary according to the award of the Commission) and advanced to Bemba’s Kop.