Beautiful though the district looked when viewed from Entonjaneni, the country to be traversed proved a rugged one, covered with tall reed-like grass of giant height, that swayed slowly in the wind, interspersed with mimosa scrub and enormous cacti, with leaves like sabre-blades; but by half-past one a.m. the White Umvolosi was reached.
More scouting in a dark and moonless night fell to the lot of Buller's Horse and Florian's Mounted Infantry. They could hear the war-song of the vast Zulu army—unseen in the darkness, but chiefly posted at fords on the river, loading the still, dewy air, rising and falling with wild, weird, and impressive effect, now apparently near, now distant; but so mighty ever and anon was the volume of sound that it seemed to corroborate the alarming message of Cornelius Vign. Among other sounds were the awful shrieks of a dying prisoner, whom they had impaled on the bank of the stream.
Much scouting, scampering about, and skirmishing by 'bank, bush, and scaur' followed for three days, and the 4th of July saw the division on its way to fight the great and final battle of the war, before Wolseley could come on the ground—Ulundi.
The sun was well up in the sky, when the column crossed the river at a point where sweet-scented bushes, graceful acacias, gigantic convolvuli, and wild guava fringed its banks, where the bees were humming, and the Kaffir vultures hovering over the slain of a recent skirmish; and splendid was its aspect in the brilliant morning light—the 17th Lancers with their striking uniform and 'pennoned spears, a stately grove'—the infantry, not clad in hideous 'mud-suits,' but in their glorious scarlet, their polished bayonets and barrels shining in the sun, while in the hollows under the shadows of the great mountains, shadows into which the light of day had scarcely penetrated as yet, the impis or columns of the Zulus were gathering in their sombre and savage thousands.
'The troops will form in hollow square!' was now the General's order, and, with other aides-de camp, Villiers, cigar in mouth, and with flushed cheek and brightening eye, went cantering along the marching column, with the details of that formation for the advance—the first instance of such a movement in modern war, since William Wallace of Elderslie, the uncrowned King of Scotland, instituted such a system at the battle of Falkirk, and consequently he, as Green tells us in his 'History of the English People,' was actually the first founder of 'that unconquerable British Infantry,' before which the chivalry of Europe went down.
As formed by Lord Chelmsford on that eventful 4th of July, the infantry on the four sides of his oblong square marched in sections of fours, with all cavalry and other mounted men scouring the front and flanks, Shepstone's Basutos covering the rear, with the cannon in the acute angles of three faces of the square; all waggons and carts, with stores and ammunition, in the centre.
This was about eight in the morning, and with colours flying and bands playing merrily in the sunshine, this huge human rectangle marched in a north-easterly direction, past two great empty kraals and a vast green tumulus that marks the grave of King Panda, the father of Cetewayo, who is seated therein, buried in a partly upright position, according to Zulu custom.
To the right of the marching square were hills covered with thorn trees overlooking the White Umvolosi; to its left were other hills covered with enormous loose stones, and in its rear was a rugged country tufted with mimosa trees, and others that stood up with feather-like foliage against the blue-green sky. And in the centre of a species of a natural amphitheatre stood three military kraals of vast extent, the principal being named Ulundi.
At the extremity of this amphitheatre there was visible a long line of oval-shaped shields, above which black heads and bright points appeared—the Zulu impis marching forward in double column with a cloud of skirmishers on their front and flanks, precisely according to European tactics.
The square was halted now, the ranks closed up, all facing outwards; the rifles and cannon were loaded, the ammunition boxes opened, and two of the kraals were set in flames by the Irregular Horse; but one was extinguished, lest the dense smoke from it rolling across the plain might offer a cover for the Zulu advance.