NO. 4 COLUMN—INTOMBI—INDHLOBANE—KAMBULA—KING’S MESSENGERS 344 CHAPTER XVII. THE LOWER TUGELA—INYEZANE—ETSHOWE 368 CHAPTER XVIII. NGINGINDHLOVU—RELIEF OF ETSHOWE—BORDER RAIDING 380 CHAPTER XIX. REINFORCEMENTS—ISANDHLWANA REVISITED 394 CHAPTER XX. THE PRINCE IMPERIAL 418 CHAPTER XXI. ULUNDI 433 CHAPTER XXII. SIR GARNET WOLSELEY—CAPTURE OF CETSHWAYO 453 CONCLUSION 475 THE ZULU WAR. CHAPTER I. FIRST CAUSES. England’s collisions with the savage races bordering upon her colonies have in all probability usually been brought about by the exigencies of the moment, by border-troubles, and acts of violence and insolence on the part of the savages, and from the absolute necessity of protecting a small and trembling white population from their assaults. No such causes as these have led up to the war of 1879. For more than twenty years the Zulus and the colonists of Natal have lived side by side in perfect peace and quietness. The tranquillity of our border had been a matter of pride as compared to the disturbed and uncertain boundaries between Zululand and the Transvaal. The mere fact of the utterly unprotected condition of the frontier farmers on _our_ border, and the entire absence of anything like precaution, evinced by the common practice of building houses of the most combustible description, is a proof that the colonists felt no real alarm concerning the Zulus until the idea was suggested to them by those in authority over them.[1] The only interruption to this tranquil condition of the public mind about the Zulus was in the year 1861, when a scare took place in the colony, for which, as it afterwards proved, there were no grounds whatsoever. A general but unfounded belief was rife that Cetshwayo,[2] king, or rather at that time prince, ruling Zululand, was about to invade Natal, in order to obtain possession of his young brother Umkungo, a claimant of the Zulu crown, and who had escaped over the border at the time of the great civil war of which we shall presently treat. This young prince had been placed—by the Secretary for Native Affairs, Mr. Shepstone—at Bishopstowe,[3] for his education in the Native Boys’ School there; and it was not until he had been there for years that the fancy arose, suggested and fostered by the border farmers and traders in Zululand, that Cetshwayo intended to take him by force from amongst us, or at all events to make the attempt.