Coomassie, a veritable Golgotha, was razed to the ground, the palace destroyed, and the fierce spirit of the Ashantees quelled.
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE BATTLES WITH THE ZULUS.
1879.
Says a writer in “Blackwood’s Magazine,” in March, 1879:—“To break the military power of the Zulu nation, to save our colonies from apprehensions which have been paralysing all efforts at advancement, and to transform the Zulus from the slaves of a despot who has shown himself both tyrannical and cruel, and as reckless of the lives as of the rights of his subjects ... is the task which has devolved upon us in South Africa, and to perform which our troops have crossed the Tugela.”
Such causes enumerated above would appear to the unprejudiced observer to be more than sufficient raison d’être for the British invasion of Zululand, but when one takes into account the unimpeachable statements of those long resident in the adjacent colony of Natal, one cannot help believing them to be a direct, if not wilful, misrepresentation of the facts.
The kingdom of Zululand in 1873 lay, as all are aware, between the British colony of Natal on the south and the Transvaal Republic on the north. Now, while the Natal border had always been in a state of quiet and peacefulness, and the nearer settlers were on friendly terms with their Zulu neighbours, the northern border of the kingdom was in a constant state of unrest. For one thing, the Transvaal Boers were, upon one pretext and another, constantly encroaching in a southerly direction on the confines of Zululand; for another, they were in the habit of treating the Zulus and other tribes with an unpardonable severity.
The accusations brought above against Cetewayo, King of Zululand, appear also to have been largely unfounded. He was crowned, at his own request, by the British Commissioner, on the 8th August, 1873, and had ruled his people well and in a fairly enlightened manner, though it is true he observed many barbarous native customs in the punishment of Zulu offenders. He may, however, be declared to be a competent and capable native ruler.
Zululand being at this time under British protection, though ruled by Cetewayo, the Zulus were not permitted to resent the intrusions of the Boers upon their borders by a recourse to arms. When, however, on April 17, 1877, Great Britain, in the person of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, annexed the Transvaal Republic, on the ground of its mismanagement, incapability, and gross ill-treatment of the native races by slavery and other means, it was felt by Cetewayo that the time had at last come when the question of his disturbed border would be satisfactorily adjusted.
The Transvaal Boers were “paralysed” when the edict of annexation was read to them, and strong protests were issued to the British Government against this high-handed proceeding. Accordingly every effort was made to conciliate the Boers until such time as they should have settled down under the new regime, almost the first of these concessions taking the form of an anti-Zulu view of the border question. Upon this question of the Transvaal-Zulu border, the whole matter of the war now turned.
As late as 1876 the Zulu people begged that the Governor of Natal “will take a strip of the country, the length and breadth of which is to be agreed upon between the Zulus and the Commissioners (for whom they ask) sent from Natal, the strip to abut on the colony of Natal and to run to the northward and eastward in such a manner as to interpose all its length between the Boers and the Zulus, and to be governed by the colony of Natal.”