Further messages passed between Cetshwayo and the Natal Government upon the subject, until it was finally arranged that the coronation should be performed by Mr. Shepstone, in Zululand, and, with a party of volunteers as escort, he crossed the Tugela on the 8th August, 1873, accompanied by Major Durnford, R.E., Captain Boyes, 75th Regiment, and several other officers and gentlemen. Mr. Shepstone’s long despatch, already quoted from, and in which he describes, with true native minuteness, the most trivial circumstances of the journey, and subsequent proceedings, gives the impression that he looked upon his mission as a service of danger to all concerned. It was, however, carried out without any break in the friendly relations between the Zulus and his party, who returned to Pietermaritzburg “without unpleasant incident” on the 19th September. The coronation mission was carried out—how far _successfully_ entirely depends upon the results expected or desired by those in command. The king himself, while looking upon the fact of his recognition as sovereign of Zululand by the English as important, is quite keen enough to have detected certain elements of absurdity in the proceedings by which they invested him with his dignity. There was perhaps a little good-humoured scorn in his reception of the somewhat oddly-chosen presents and marks of honour offered him. Without losing that respect for and faith in the English which has always characterised his dealings with them, he felt impatiently that they were rather making a fool of him; especially when they put upon his shoulders a little scarlet mantle—formerly a lady’s opera-cloak—the curtailed dimensions of which made him ridiculous in his own eyes; and upon his head a pasteboard, cloth, and tinsel crown, whose worthlessness he was perfectly capable of comprehending. Mr. Shepstone’s despatch represents him as greatly impressed by the ceremony, etc.; but the impression on the minds of many observers was that he put up with much which both seemed and was trifling and ridiculous, for the sake of the solid benefits which he hoped he and his people would derive from a closer connection with the English. The portion of Mr. Shepstone’s despatch, however, which it is important that we should study with attention is that which refers to the “coronation promises” (so called) of Cetshwayo, and treats of the political subjects discussed between king and kingmaker. Sir Bartle Frere repeatedly speaks of the transaction as “a solemn act by the king, undertaken as the price of British support and recognition;” of Cetshwayo as having “openly violated his coronation promises;” of his “undoubted promises;” while Sir Garnet Wolseley, in his speech to the assembled chiefs and people of the Zulu nation, speaks of the coronation promises as though the want of attention to them had been the chief, if not the only, cause of the king’s misfortunes; and the same tone is taken in all late despatches on the subject.