“These gentlemen will proceed by-and-by to the place known as Rorke’s Drift, which is on the Buffalo River, and in Natal territory, and they will there open the inquiry on Thursday, March 7th. “The Lieut.-Governor proposes, as the most convenient course to be taken, that the Zulu king should appoint two or three indunas to represent the Zulu king and the Zulu case at the inquiry, and that these should be at Rorke’s Drift on March 7th, and meet the Natal Commissioners there. The same thing also the Governor proposes shall be done by the Transvaal Government.” And the king’s reply to the messengers was expressive: “I am very glad to hear what you say—I shall now be able to sleep.” On March 7th the Commission met at Rorke’s Drift, and sat for about five weeks, taking evidence day by day in presence of the representatives deputed, three by the Transvaal Government, and three by the Zulus. Of the three gentlemen who formed the Commission, one was Sir T. Shepstone’s brother, already mentioned in this history, whose natural bias would therefore certainly not be upon the Zulu side of the question; another was a Government official and an acute lawyer; and the third, Colonel Durnford, to the writer’s personal knowledge, entered upon the subject with an entirely unbiassed mind, and with but one intention or desire, that of discovering the actual truth, whatever it might be. The only thing by which his expectations—rather than his opinions—were in the least influenced beforehand, was the natural supposition, shared by all, that Sir T. Shepstone, who had the reputation of being in his public capacity one of the most cautious of men, must have some strong grounds for his very positive statement of the Transvaal claim. There was, plainly, some slight confusion in the minds of the three Transvaal delegates, as to their position relative to the Commissioners, with whom they apparently expected to be on equal terms, and in a different position altogether from the Zulu delegates on the other side. This, however, was a manifest mistake. It was particularly desirable that the Zulus should be made to feel that it was no case of white against black; but a matter in which impartial judges treated either side with equal fairness, and without respect of persons. One of the Commissioners was the brother of their chief opponent, one of the Transvaal delegates his son; it would naturally have seemed to the Zulus that the six white men (five out of whom were either Englishmen, or claimed to be such) were combining together to outwit them, had they seen them, evidently on terms of friendship, seated together at the inquiry or talking amongst themselves in their own language.