Such was Cetshwayo’s frame of mind (even before he knew that the decision was in his favour) at a time when he was popularly represented as being in an aggressive, turbulent condition, preparing to try his strength against us, and only waiting his opportunity to let loose upon Natal the “war-cloud” which he was supposed to keep “hovering on our borders.” The boundary question resolved itself into this: 1. To whom did the land in dispute belong in the first instance? 2. Was it ever ceded or sold by the original possessors? 1. In answer to the first question, the Commissioners took the treaty made in 1843, between the English and the Zulus, as a standpoint fixing a period when the territory in dispute belonged entirely to one or other. There was then no question but that the Zulu country extended over the whole of it. 2. The Zulus deny ever having relinquished any part of their country to the Boers, who on the other hand assert that formal cessions had been made to them of considerable districts. With the latter rested the obligation of proving their assertions, which were simply denied by the Zulus, who accordingly, as they said themselves, “had no witnesses to call,” having received no authority from the king to do more than point out the boundary claimed[82] (2242, p. 80). The Boer delegates brought various documents, from which they professed to prove the truth of their assertions, but which were decided by the Commissioners to be wholly worthless, from the glaring discrepancies and palpable falsehoods which they contained. One of these documents, dated March 16th, 1861, “purporting to give an account of a meeting between Sir T. Shepstone, Panda, and Cetshwayo,” they decided to be plainly a fabrication, as Sir T. Shepstone did not arrive at Nodwengu,[83] from Natal, to meet Panda and Cetshwayo, until May 9th, 1861. Other records of cessions of land professed to be signed by the king, but were witnessed by neither Boer nor Zulu, or else by Boers alone. A definition of boundaries was in one case ratified by one Zulu only, a man of no rank or importance; and in other documents alterations were made, and dates inserted, clearly at another time.