The opinions now expressed are those of the majority of military correspondents and military men, but the thorough novelty and difficulty of operations do not seem sufficiently taken into account. Besides, in judging Lord Chelmsford, it must be specially remembered that his instructions about concentrating at Isandhlwana camp were not attended to, and to this fact many attributed the disaster that ensued. Certainly no one deserved sympathy more than this general, whose misfortunes were quite as great as his faults. Subsequently, he did everything in his power to make the campaign successful. Reinforcements poured in, and were pushed forward to the front. It is true that delays occurred, but these, it is argued, were thoroughly unsurmountable. We shall find at last that Lord Chelmsford finished the campaign with glory and success at the great battle of Ulundi. The people of Natal and the Cape Colony, who had sympathized with his reverses, thoroughly recognized the greatness of this victory and rejoiced in his triumph. It is only fair, when furnishing opinions full of condemnation, to refer at the same time to the fact that contrary views are held by numerous men of intelligence, who have had every opportunity of studying the subject. The disaster of Isandhlwana was pregnant with results almost too awful to contemplate. Natal was panic-stricken. Twenty thousand white people were threatened, not only with the victorious army, but with hundreds of thousands of natives, kept heathen and alien from motives of policy, who would have, out of fear of Cetywayo, quickly joined any army of massacre which that tyrant could have sent to devastate Natal. Fortunately, in spite of their much-vaunted strategy, the Zulus proved unequal to the task of taking advantage of their victory. Had they, in the first instance, only allowed the general to move forward into his new camp, the destruction of the column could have been made complete. It was by a miracle that Lord Chelmsford and the men with him escaped. If they had been attacked when, exhausted and dispirited, they flung themselves down on the reeking plain of Isandhlwana, it is extremely likely that the general and every man with him would have been killed. The gross absurdity of blaming Lord Chelmsford for not burying the dead on the field is only equalled by its injustice. The general and the remnant of his column were really fugitives, and it was not until they found that, by the heroic defence of Rorke's Drift, the base of operations was still held, that they were able to breathe with any degree of safety. It was hoping against hope to imagine that a place really left unfortified could have been held against a victorious army; and it is well to recognize the fact that not only Natal and its people, but Lord Chelmsford and the remnant of his column, were saved by the heroes of this colonial Thermopylæ. [Sidenote: _Panic in Natal._]