Zulu (African people) -- Fiction; Zululand (South Africa) -- History -- Fiction
After Rachel’s adventure in the flooded river she and her parents
pursued their journey by slow and tedious marches, and at length,
though in those days this was strange enough, reached Natal unharmed.
At first they went to live where the city of Durban now stands, which
at that time had but just received its name. It was inhabited by a few
rough men, who made a living by trading and hunting, and surrounded
themselves with natives, refugees for the most part from the Zulu
country. Amongst these people and their servants Mr. Dove commenced his
labours, but ere long a bitter quarrel grew up between him and them.
These dwellers in the midst of barbarism led strange lives, and Mr.
Dove, who rightly held it to be his duty to denounce wrong-doing of
every sort, attacked them and their vices in no measured terms, and
upon all occasions. For long years he kept up the fight, until at
length he found himself ostracised. If they could avoid it, no white
men would speak to him, nor would they allow him to instruct their
Kaffirs. Thus his work came to an end in Durban as it had done in other
places. Now, again, his wife and daughter hoped that he would leave
South Africa for good, and return home. But it was not to be, for once
more he announced that it was laid upon him to follow the example of
his divine Master, and that the Spirit drove him into the wilderness.
So, with a few attendants, they trekked away from Durban.
On this occasion it was his wild design to settle in Zululand—where
Chaka, the great king, being dead, Dingaan, his brother and murderer,
ruled in his place—and there devote himself to the conversion of the
Zulus. Indeed, it is probable that he would have carried out this plan
had he not been prevented by an accident. One night when they were
about forty miles from Durban they camped on a stream, a tributary of
the Tugela River, which ran close by, and formed the boundary of the
Zulu country. It was a singularly beautiful spot, for to the east of
them, about a mile away, stretched the placid Indian Ocean, while to
the west, overshadowing them almost, rose a towering cliff, over which
the stream poured itself, looking like a line of smoke against its
rocky face. They had outspanned upon a rising hillock at the foot of
which this little river wound away like a silver snake till it joined
the great Tugela. In its general aspect the country was like an English
park, dotted here and there with timber, around which grazed or rested
great elands and other buck, and amongst them a huge rhinoceros.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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