The Zulus, seeing that the boys were alone, approached them, and began to ask them questions, and were evidently much surprised at hearing that they had escaped from the massacre of the British. From the door of the hut in which they were sitting a chief, evidently of high rank, for the others greeted him respectfully, now came out.
After the cause of the tumult was explained to the chief, he ordered the boys to be bound. This was done and they were put into an empty hut while their fate was decided upon; after much deliberation it was agreed by the Zulus that, as they were but boys and had come into the camp unarmed and of their own accord, their lives should for the present be spared.
It happened that in the village were a party of men who belonged to the tribe of Umbelleni, whose territory lay to the north-west, and these volunteered to take the prisoners to their chief, who was one of the strongest opponents of the English. His country, indeed, lay just within the Zulu frontier, and, having been engaged in constant skirmishes and broils with the Dutch settlers, he was even more disappointed than the other chiefs at the taking over of the Transvaal by England, just at the time when the Zulus were meditating its conquest.
The road from Itelezi, the village at which the boys had given themselves up, to Umbelleni’s country ran along between the Blood River and the lofty hill-country; and, although they were ignorant of the fact, Colonel Wood’s force was at that moment lying on this line. They were therefore taken up over a mountain-country, crossing Mount Ingwe, to the Zlobani Mountain, a stronghold ten miles south of Umbelleni’s chief kraal, and where at present he was residing. After three days’ journey the lads, exhausted and footsore, ascended to the plateau of the Zlobani Mountains.
Upon their way they passed through many villages, and at each place it needed the efforts of their guards to prevent their being seriously maltreated, if not killed. The Zulus, although victorious at Isandula, had suffered terribly, it being estimated that nearly 3000 had fallen in the attack.
Thus there was not a village but had lost some of its members, for, although the Zulu regiments have local denominations and regular military kraals, each regiment consists of men drawn from the population at large.
Every four or five years all the lads who have passed the age of eighteen since the formation of the last corps, are called out and formed into a regiment, or are embodied with some regiment whose numbers have fallen in strength. Thus a regiment may consist of men differing considerably from each other in point of age, the great distinction being that some corps consist entirely of married men, while others are all unmarried. A regiment remains unmarried until the king formally gives the permission to take wives, and the corps to whom the boon has been granted are distinguished from the others by their hair being arranged in a thick ring round the head. So great is the enmity between these married regiments and their less fortunate comrades that they are never encamped in each other’s view, as fighting in that case would inevitably take place. Thus it happened that, although some of the corps had suffered far more than others, the loss was spread over the whole of Zululand.