Sir Henry Bulwer writes to Sir Bartle Frere as follows on this point (July 16th): “The Zulu king says that all the message he sent was a request that the Boers should be warned not to return to the disputed country, as he was informed they were doing since the meeting of the Commission. We know that some of the Boers did return to the disputed territory after the Commission broke up;[85] and this, no doubt, was looked upon by the Zulus as an attempt on the part of the Boers to anticipate the result of the inquiry, and led to the giving those notices.... The fault has been, no doubt, on both sides.” The military kraal, also, turned out to be no more of the nature ascribed to it than was its predecessor: “An ordinary private Zulu kraal”—see report of Mr. Kudolph (2144, p. 186)—“built simply to have a kraal in that locality, where many of Cetshwayo’s people are residing without a head or kraal representing the king ... the king having given instructions that neither the white nor the native subjects of the Transvaal were in any way to be molested or disturbed by the Zulus;” and having sent a small force to do the work, because the large one he had sent on a previous occasion had frightened the white people. Colonel Pearson, commanding the troops in Natal and the Transvaal, writes, June 8th, 1878 (2144, p. 236): “The Landrost of Utrecht I know to be somewhat of an alarmist, and the border farmers have all along been in a great fright, and much given to false reports. I allude more particularly to the Boers. I enclose Lieut.-Colonel Durnford’s views of the kraal question. He is an officer who knows South Africa intimately, and his opinion I consider always sound and intelligent.” And the following is the statement of Lieut.-Colonel Durnford, R.E., June 8th, 1878 (2144, p. 237): “I know the district referred to, in which are many Zulu kraals, and believe that, if such a military kraal is in course of erection on the farm of one Kohrs, believed to be a field-cornet in the Wakkerstroom district, residing about fifteen miles from the mission station of the Rev. Mr. Meyer, it is being constructed that order may be kept amongst the Zulus here residing—who owe allegiance to the Zulu king alone—and in the interests of peace.... I further believe that, if the German or other residents at or near Luneburg have been ordered to leave, it is not by orders of the King of Zululand, who is far too wise a man to make a false move at present, when the boundary between himself and the Transvaal is under consideration.” The excitement concerning the “notices to quit,” and the second “military kraal,” appears to have been as unnecessary as any other imaginary Zulu scare; and there are no proofs to be extracted from the official papers at this period of the slightest signs of aggressive temper on the part of the Zulu king.