When a Savage,--the only word I know by which to speak of such a man as a Zulu Chief so that my reader shall understand me; but in using it of Langalibalele I do not wish to ascribe to him any specially savage qualities;--when a Savage has become subject to British rule and will not obey the authority which he understands,--it is necessary to reduce him to obedience at almost any cost. There are three hundred and twenty thousand Natives in Natal, with hundreds of thousands over the borders on each side of the little Colony, and it is essential that all these should believe Great Britain to be indomitable. If Langalibalele had been allowed to be successful in his controversy every Native in and around Natal would have known it;--and in knowing it every Native would have believed that Great Britain had been so far conquered. It was therefore quite essential that Langalibalele should be made to come. And he did more than refuse to obey the order. A messenger who was sent for him,--a native messenger,--was insulted by him. The man’s clothes were stripped from him,--or at any rate the official great coat with which he had been invested and which probably formed the substantial part of his raiment. It has been the peculiarity of this case that whole books have been written about its smallest incidents. The Langalibalele literature hitherto written,--which is not I fear as yet completed,--would form a small library. This stripping of the great coat, or jazy[18] as it is called,--the word ijazi having been established as good Zulu for such an article,--has become a celebrated incident. Langalibalele afterwards pleaded that he suspected that weapons had been concealed, and that he had therefore searched the Queen’s messenger. And he justified his suspicion by telling how a pistol had been concealed and had been fired sixteen years before. And then that old case was ripped up, and thirty or forty native messengers were examined about it. But Langalibalele after taking off the Queen’s messenger’s jazy turned and fled, and it was found to be necessary that the Queen’s soldiers should pursue him. He was pursued,--with terrible consequences. He turned and fought and British blood was shed. Of course the blood of the Hlubi tribe had to flow, and did flow too freely. It was very bad that it should be so;--but had it not been so all Zululand, all Kafirland, all the tribes of Natal and the Transvaal would have thought that Langalibalele had gained a great victory, and our handful of whites would have been unable to live in their Colony.