On March 28th Mr. Fannin reports that “three messengers have arrived with a message from Cetywayo. Their names are Johannes (a native of Entumeni), ’Nkisimana, and Umfunzi. On approaching the ferry they were fired on by the Native Contingent.... The message is very short; it is simply to say, Cetywayo sees no reason for the war which is being waged against him, and he asks the Government to appoint a place at which a conference could be held with a view to the conclusion of peace.” They further brought a message from Dabulamanzi, that “a few days ago he sent a white flag with two messengers to Ekhowe, to ask for a suspension of hostilities, until the result of this mission was known, but the men have not returned. He asks that the men may be released.” Mr. Fannin says: “Four other Entumeni men have arrived with these messengers,” and he suggests, “that the Entumeni men should not be allowed to return to Zululand” (_ibid._ pp. 44, 45). “Owing,” says Sir B. Frere, on June 17th, “to some misunderstanding between the various civil and military authorities, these messengers also were detained for several weeks, and have only lately been sent back.” “I do not for a moment suppose,” he continues, “that either the civil or military authorities were aware of this, or could have prevented it by bringing their detention to notice at an earlier period, but it shows the difficulties of intercourse on such subjects with the Zulus, where such things could occur without the slightest ground for suspicion of bad faith on the part of either the civil or military authorities.”[164] It is not easy to discover what unusual and mysterious difficulties the civil and military authorities can have found in communicating with the Zulu messengers (men who had been employed for many years in carrying the “words” of Government and the Zulu king to each other), and it is still more inexplicable to whose notice the said authorities could have brought their detention. The whole matter is about as comprehensible as the statement which appeared at the time in the Natal papers, that when these same messengers—a small party—approached our camp, bearing a white flag, “_we fired upon it_ (_i.e._ the flag) _to test its sincerity_.”