It is a curious fact, and one worthy of note, that Sir T. Shepstone, who for so many years had held and expressed an opinion favourable to the Zulus on this most important boundary question, should yet have studied it so little that, when he had been for six months Administrator of the Transvaal, with all evidence, written or oral, official or otherwise, at his command, he could say, speaking of a conversation which he held with some Dutch farmers at Utrecht—Parl. p. (2079, p. 51-4): “I then learned for the first time, what has since been proved by evidence the most incontrovertible, overwhelming, and clear, that this boundary line[62] had been formally and mutually agreed upon, and had been formally ratified by the giving and receiving of tokens of thanks, and that the beacons had been built up in the presence of the President and members of the Executive Council of the Republic, in presence of Commissioners from both Panda and Cetshwayo, and that the spot on which every beacon was to stand was indicated by the Zulu Commissioners themselves placing the first stones on it. “I shall shortly transmit to your Lordship” (the Secretary of State for the Colonies) “the further evidence on the subject that has been furnished to me.” This “further evidence,” if forwarded, does not appear in the Blue-books. It is plain that the Border Commissioners of 1878 found both the “evidence the most incontrovertible, overwhelming, and clear,” and the “further evidence” promised, utterly worthless for the purpose of proving the case of the Boers; but, even had it been otherwise, Sir T. Shepstone’s confession of ignorance up to so late a date on this most vital question is singularly self-condemnatory. “When I approached the question,”[63] he says, “I did so supposing that the rights of the Transvaal to land on the Zulu border had very slender foundation. I believed, from the representations which had been systematically made by the Zulus to the Natal Government on the subject, of which I was fully aware from the position I held in Natal, that the beacons along the boundary line had been erected by the Republican Government, in opposition to the wishes, and in spite of the protests, of the Zulu authorities.[64]