The necessity for immediate concentration of a force at Trewirgie was obvious. To have delayed, say for 36 hours, would have been to court appalling disaster. Zulus are known to be precipitate in action when once the war-cry has been sounded from the hill-tops and the beacon-fires lit. Every battle of the Zulu War testified to their energy, rapidity and true martial instincts. The fact that the first blow had been struck in a cause common to a million others, already impatient to emulate the heroic deeds of their fellows, still further lessened any chances of delay on their part. Here is the language of one of them, uttered on the 13th February to friends within a couple of miles of Richmond: "You are cowards, sitting still when there's fighting on. I have a following of my own. Let us combine and kill the whites round about here."[106] Had the rebels got away with the renown of having attacked and defeated the police with loss, without overwhelming action being swiftly taken, the Rebellion must have spread in an alarming manner. That, at any rate, is the opinion of all persons on the spot best entitled to express it, men with life-long experience of those parts, including the Natives themselves. The alternative, that of calling out the Militia in support of the police, assuming these to have been available, would certainly have been proper in the case of any ordinary riot, disturbance of the peace, or other emergency, but this was no ordinary outbreak, nor was it at all likely to confine itself to the locality in which it had occurred. Outbreaks of a more serious character, such as the one in question, were intended by the legislature to be dealt with by a Permanent Militia Force, provision for establishing which was included in the law. Such force, it was enacted, might be ordered out to any part of the Colony, "to act therein, either in aid of, or as the police force ... and when so acting every member of the Permanent Militia Force shall have the same authority as constables and otherwise."[107] This force, owing to the want of the necessary financial provision, had never been created. If, however, regular police had been employed, there would have been no one available to relieve them at their various posts. In this connection, it must be stated that, as the disaffection was general, it was obviously impossible to withdraw the police from the various out-stations. Under all these circumstances, the Governor had no difficulty in deciding (_a_) "that men were in armed resistance to the authority of the Crown"; (_b_) "that such armed resistance could not be dealt with by the Military, acting merely in aid of the civil power in the ordinary manner"; (_c_) "that such armed resistance could not be promptly and effectively suppressed otherwise than by subjecting the inhabitants of the disturbed district to direct military control, and by inflicting summary punishment upon offenders against the peace."[108]