Dingaan—"poor fellow!"—was no doubt secretly encouraged by a large portion of the Zulu people. A number of the principal captains and friends of the late monarch fled, and several were put to death. The new capital was removed from the Umvati river to the White Umvolosi river, distant 45 miles in a direct line from the sea, and about 160 miles from D'Urban. The favour that had been extended by Chaka to the few Englishmen who arrived in Natal with Mr. H. Fynn was a sufficient reason for the adoption by his successor of an exactly opposite policy. An army of 3000 men was sent to D'Urban, and the few English settlers escaped with the utmost difficulty. Every vestige of property was destroyed. Quietness was, however, restored in a few years afterwards, and in the year 1833 Dingaan sent down spies to find out what progress had been made by the intruders. Captain Allen Gardiner arrived in 1835, and proceeded to the great place of the king. This missionary traveller mentions incidentally that, according to treaty, he brought back several men who had fled from the cruel despotism of the Zulu monarch. These captives fully calculated upon being put to death. Captain Gardiner pleaded for them, and was able to assure them that the king had promised to spare their lives. Nowha, one of the unfortunate prisoners, mournfully replied, "They are killing us now;" and they were all cruelly tortured to death by starvation.[2] [Sidenote: _Dingaan and the Boers._] In consequence of various causes, among which discontent with British rule requires prominent mention, a number of Dutch farmers left the Cape Colony in 1835, and, under the command of Pieter Retief, crossed the Drakensberg Mountains in 1837, and entered Natal. Their leader proceeded to Dingaan's capital, for the purpose of negotiating a treaty of peace and obtaining a formal cession of territory. In the last week of January, 1838, Pieter Retief, accompanied by seventy picked horsemen, crossed the Buffalo river, and on the 2nd of February arrived at Dingaan's kraal. The Zulu monarch fixed the 4th of February as the day for signing a formal cession of an immense district in Natal to the emigrant Boers. The necessary document, drawn out by the Rev. Mr. Owen, missionary, with Dingaan, was duly signed, and business having been satisfactorily concluded, the Dutchmen were invited into the king's kraal to take leave of Dingaan. As requested, Retief and his followers left their arms outside. The Zulu monarch, surrounded by his favourite regiments, conversed in the most friendly manner, and while a "stirrup cup" of maize beer was in course of being drunk, suddenly cried out, "Bulala matagati!"—"Kill the wizards!" These words were the signal for a cruel massacre. More than 3000 savages beat to death, with knobkerries, the unfortunate Dutchmen who had been weak enough to trust to Zulu promises and Zulu honesty. The corpses of the slaughtered men were dragged out of the kraal to an adjacent