Thus, the earliest provisions consisted in nought else than the establishment and consolidation of a bond of friendship between the little band of adventurers and the rulers of the land, and, so long as that bond was faithfully observed, so long was there peace between the parties, whatever else might have been the position in respect of the adjoining states. From 1824 to 23rd September, 1828 (the date of Tshaka's assassination), the British settlers averaged about twenty-five souls in number. Between the latter date and 1834 they fell to a smaller figure. But, from then on to 19th October, 1837,[6] when a party of Boers under Piet Retief arrived at Durban from the Cape Colony, the numbers, through the coming of traders and missionaries, and their families, were considerably increased. The policy of the pioneers, indeed, could be no other than, for the time being, to place themselves wholly and unreservedly under the protection of the Zulu sovereign, first Tshaka, their declared and, as it proved, real and constant friend, and subsequently, Dingana, perfidious autocrat as he soon revealed himself to be. The kindly feelings entertained by Tshaka towards _his_ Europeans (_abelungu_), as he always called them, and the invaluable services and substantial concessions extended to them up to the day of his assassination, are not borne in mind in these days as much as they deserve to be. This disposition carried with it, as a matter of course, an unqualified attitude of amity and respect on the part of the entire Zulu nation, only too eager to render immediate obedience to their tyrant. With his successor and brother Dingana, the position became greatly altered. So far from cherishing a friendly disposition towards the immigrants, he regarded them as sources of peculiar inconvenience, if not as an insidious and growing menace to his very throne and person. He resented their harbouring refugees from his country at Port Natal, notwithstanding that Tshaka had always refrained from troubling himself with such escapades, on the ground that, in quitting Zululand for the _abelungu_ at Isibubulungu (as the Zulus called Port Natal), they had but gone to his friends, and were, therefore, within reach whenever required. So uneasy and hostile did Dingana eventually become that, in 1834, he dispatched a strong raiding-party to massacre every soul, white as well as black, settled in the neighbourhood of the Port, and this vindictive order would have been carried out to the letter, had they not fled precipitately either towards the Cape Colony, or concealed themselves in the numerous bushes round about. As it was, a party, headed by Fynn, consisting of a considerable number of his Native adherents, was overtaken by the raiders south of Umzimkulu, and exterminated almost to a man, Fynn himself escaping. Nor was this the only occasion on which this King betrayed his hatred of the British settlers.[7]