From thence he, with another brother, and two indunas (captains) were given up to Cetshwayo by the Boers, who required, in return for their surrender, the cession of land _east_ of the Blood River, and a pledge that the young princes should not be killed. Cetshwayo is said by the Boers to have agreed to both conditions, and he certainly acted up to the latter, three of the four being still alive, and the fourth having died a natural death.[73] It is this alleged bargain with Cetshwayo (in 1861) on which the Boers found their claim to the main portion of the disputed territory—a “bargain in itself base and immoral; the selling of the persons of men for a grant of land, and which no Christian government, like that of England, could recognise for a moment as valid and binding,” even if it were ever made. _But it is persistently denied by the Zulus_ that such a bargain was ever consented to by them or _by their prince_. On this point Cetshwayo himself says: “I have never given or sold any land to the Boers of the Transvaal. They wished me to do so when I was as yet an umtwana (child, prince). They tried to get me to sign a paper, but I threw the pen down, and never would do so, telling them that it was out of my power to either grant or sell land, as it belonged to the king, my father, and the nation. I know the Boers say I signed a paper, and that my brothers Hamu and Ziwedu did also. I never did, and if they say I held the pen or made a mark, giving or selling land, it is a lie!” The Prince Dabulamanzi, and chiefs sitting round, bore out the king in this statement. (From Report of Mr. Fynney on July 4th, 1877—P. p. 1961, p. 45.) And so says Sir T. Shepstone (1961, p. 5): “Panda, who is still living, repudiated the bargain, and Cetshwayo denied it. The Emigrant Farmers, however, insisted on its validity, and proceeded to occupy. The Zulus have never ceased to threaten and protest. And the Government of Natal, to whom these protests and threats have been continually made, has frequently, during a course of fifteen years, found it very difficult to impress the Zulus with the hope and belief that an amicable solution of the difficulty would some day be found, provided that they refrained from reprisals or the use of force.”