The success of this expedition incited Tchaka to repeat the experiment, and his troops had hardly returned when he sent them off against a chief named Sotshangana. This chief had a spy in the camp of Tchaka, and no sooner had the army set off than the spy contrived to detach himself from the troops, and went off at full speed to his master. Sotshangana at once sent out messengers to see whether the spy had told the truth, and when he learned that the Zulu army was really coming upon him, he laid a trap into which the too confident enemy fell at once. He withdrew his troops from his kraals, but left everything in its ordinary position, so as to look as if no alarm had been taken. The Zulu regiments, seeing no signs that their presence was expected, took possession of the kraal, feasted on its provisions, and slept in fancied security. But, at the dead of night, Sotshangana, accompanied by the spy, whom he had rewarded with the command of a regiment, came on the unsuspecting Zulus, fell upon them while sleeping, and cut one regiment nearly to pieces. The others rallied, and drove off their foes; but they were in an enemy’s country, where every hand was against them.
Their wonderful discipline availed them little. They got no rest by day or by night. They were continually harassed by attacks, sometimes of outlying skirmishers, who kept them always on the alert, sometimes of large forces of soldiers who had to be met in battle array. They could obtain no food, for the whole country was against them, and the weaker tribes, whom they attacked in order to procure provisions, drove their cattle into the bush, and set fire to their own corn-fields. It is said also, and with some likelihood of truth, that the water was poisoned as well as the food destroyed; and the consequence was, that the once victorious army was obliged to retreat as it best could, and the shattered fragments at last reached their own country, after suffering almost incredible hardships. It was in this campaign that the soldiers were obliged to eat their shields. At least twenty thousand of the Zulu warriors perished in this expedition, three-fourths having died from privation, and the others fallen by the spears of the enemy.
What would have been Tchaka’s fury at so terrible a defeat may well be imagined; but he never lived to see his conquered warriors. It is supposed, and with some show of truth, that he had been instrumental in causing the death of his own mother, Mnande. This word signifies “amiable” or “pleasant,” in the Zulu tongue, and never was a name more misapplied. She was violent, obstinate, and wilful to a degree, and her son certainly inherited these traits of his mother’s character, besides superadding a few of his own. She was the wife of the chief of the Amazulu, then a small and insignificant tribe, who lived on the banks of the White Folosi river, and behaved in such a manner that she could not be kept in her husband’s kraal. It may be imagined that such a mother and son were not likely to agree very well together; and when the latter came to be a man, he was known to beat his mother openly, without attempting to conceal the fact, but rather taking credit to himself for it.
Therefore, when she died, her family had some good grounds for believing that Tchaka had caused her to be killed, and determined on revenge. Hardly had that ill-fated expedition set out, when two of her sisters came to Dingan and Umhlangani, the brothers of Tchaka, and openly accused him of having murdered Mnande, urging the two brothers to kill him and avenge their mother’s blood. They adroitly mentioned the absence of the army, and the terror in which every soldier held his bloodthirsty king, and said that if, on the return of the army, Tchaka was dead, the soldiers would be rejoiced at the death of the tyrant, and would be sure to consider as their leaders the two men who had freed them from such a yoke. The two brothers briefly answered, “Ye have spoken!” but the women seemed to know that by those words the doom of Tchaka was settled, and withdrew themselves, leaving their nephews to devise their own plans for the murder of the king.
This was no easy business. They would have tried poison, but Tchaka was much too wary to die such a death, and, as force was clearly useless, they had recourse to treachery. They corrupted the favorite servant of Tchaka, a man named Bopa, and having armed themselves with unshafted heads of assagais, which could be easily concealed, they proceeded to the king’s house, where he was sitting in conference with several of his councillors, who were unarmed, according to Kaffir etiquette. The treacherous Bopa began his task by rudely interrupting the councillors, accusing them of telling falsehoods to the king, and behaving with an amount of insolence to which he well knew they would not submit. As they rose in anger, and endeavored to seize the man who had insulted them, Dingan and Umhlangani stole behind Tchaka, whose attention was occupied by the extraordinary scene, and stabbed him in the back. He attempted to escape, but was again stabbed by Bopa, and fell dying to the ground, where he was instantly slain. The affrighted councillors tried to fly, but were killed by the same weapons that had slain their master.
This dread scene was terminated by an act partly resulting from native ferocity, and partly from superstition. The two murderers opened the still warm body of their victim, and drank the gall. Their subsequent quarrel, and the accession of Dingan to the throne, has already been mentioned. The new king would probably have been murdered by the soldiers on their return, had he not conciliated them by relaxing the strict laws of celibacy which Tchaka had enforced, and by granting indulgences of various kinds to the troops. As to the dead Mnande, the proximate cause of Tchaka’s death, more will be said on a future page.
CHAPTER XIII.
HUNTING.
THE KAFFIR’S LOVE FOR THE CHASE — THE GAME AND CLIMATE OF AFRICA — THE ANTELOPES OF AFRICA — HUNTING THE KOODOO — USES OF THE HORNS — A SCENE ON THE UMGENIE RIVER — THE DUIKER-BOK AND ITS PECULIARITIES — ITS MODE OF ESCAPE AND TENACITY OF LIFE — SINGULAR MODE OF CONCEALMENT — THE ELAND, ITS FLESH AND FAT — CURIOUS SUPERSTITION OF THE ZULU WARRIORS — THIGH-TONGUES — MODE OF HUNTING THE ELAND — THE GEMSBOK — ITS INDIFFERENCE TO DRINK — DIFFICULTY OF HUNTING IT — HOW THE GEMSBOK WIELDS ITS HORNS — THEIR USES TO MAN — MODES OF TRAPPING AND DESTROYING ANTELOPES WHOLESALE — THE HOPO, OR LARGE PITFALL, ITS CONSTRUCTION AND MODE OF EMPLOYMENT — EXCITING SCENE AT THE HOPO — PITFALLS FOR SINGLE ANIMALS — THE STAKE AND THE RIDGE — THE GIRAFFE PITFALL — HUNTING THE ELEPHANT — USE OF THE DOGS — BEST PARTS OF THE ELEPHANT — HOW THE FOOT IS COOKED — VORACITY OF THE NATIVES — GAME IN A “HIGH” CONDITION — EXTRACTING THE TUSKS AND TEETH — CUTTING UP AN ELEPHANT — FLESH, FAT, AND SKIN OF THE RHINOCEROS — SOUTH AFRICAN “HAGGIS” — ASSAILING A HERD OF GAME — SLAUGHTER IN THE RAVINE — A HUNTING SCENE IN KAFFIRLAND — THE “KLOOF” AND THE “BUSH” — FALLS OF THE UMZIMVUBU RIVER — HUNTING DANCE — CHASE OF THE LION AND ITS SANGUINARY RESULTS — DINGAN’S DESPOTIC MANDATE — HUNTING THE BUFFALO.
Excepting war, there is no pursuit which is so engrossing to a Kaffir as the chase; and whether he unites with a number of his comrades in a campaign against his game, whether he pursues it singly, or whether he entices it into traps, he is wholly absorbed in the occupation, and pursues it with an enthusiasm to which a European is a stranger. Indeed, in many cases, and certainly in most instances, where a Kaffir is the hunter, the chase becomes a mimic warfare, which is waged sometimes against the strong, and sometimes against the weak; which opposes itself equally to the fierce activity of the lion, the resistless force of the elephant, the speed of the antelope, and the wariness of the zebra. The love of hunting is a necessity in such a country, which fully deserves the well-known title of the “Happy Hunting Grounds.” There is, perhaps, no country on earth where may be found such a wonderful variety of game in so small a compass, and which will serve to exercise, to the very utmost, every capacity for the chase that mankind can possess.
Southern Africa possesses the swiftest, the largest, the heaviest, the fiercest, the mightiest, and the tallest beasts in the world. The lofty mountain, the reed-clad dell, the thorny bush, the open plain, the river bank, and the very water itself, are filled with their proper inhabitants, simply on account of the variety of soil, which always produces a corresponding variety of inhabitants. The different kinds of herbage attract and sustain the animals that are suited to them; and were they to be extinct, the animals must follow in their wake. The larger carnivora are in their turn attracted by the herbivorous inhabitants of the country, and thus it happens that even a very slight modification in the vegetation has altered the whole character of a district. Mr. Moffatt has mentioned a curious instance of this fact.