Nearly six months passed before all the dead at Isandhlwana were
reverently buried. Strange were the scenes that those saw whose task it
was to lay them to their rest. Here, hidden by the rank grass, in one
heap behind the officers' tents, lay the bodies of some seventy men, who
had made their last stand at this spot; lower down the hill lay sixty
more. Another band of about the same strength evidently had taken refuge
among the rocks of the mountains, and defended themselves there till
their ammunition was exhausted, and their ring broken by the assegai.
All about the plain lay Englishmen and Zulus, as they had died in the
dread struggle:--here side by side, amidst rusted rifles and bent
assegais, here their bony arms still locked in the last hug of death,
and yonder the Zulu with the white man's bayonet through his skull, the
soldier with the Zulu's assegai in what had been his heart. One man was
found, who, when his cartridges were spent, and his rifle was broken,
had defended himself to the end with a tent-hammer that lay among his
bones, and another was stretched beneath the precipice, from the crest
of which he had been hurled.
[Illustration]
Well, they buried them where they were discovered, and there they sleep
soundly beneath the shadow of Isandhlwana's cliff.
* * * * *
And now a few words more, and this true story will be finished. We
conquered the Zulus at last, at a battle called Ulundi, where they
hurled themselves in vain upon the bullets and bayonets of the British
square. To the end they fought bravely for their king and country, and
though they were savages, and, like all savages, cruel when at war, they
were also gallant enemies, and deserve our respect. The king himself,
Cetywayo, was hunted down, captured, and sent into captivity.
Afterwards, there was what is called a 'popular movement' on his behalf
in England, and he was sent back to Zululand, with permission to rule
half the country. Meanwhile, after the conclusion of the war, our
Government would not take the land, and a settlement was effected, under
which thirteen chiefs were put in authority over the country. As might
have been expected, these chiefs fought with each other, and many men
were killed. When Cetywayo returned the fighting became fiercer than
ever, since those who had tasted power refused to be dispossessed, until
at last he was finally defeated, and, it is believed, poisoned by his
own side, to whom he had ceased to be serviceable. Meanwhile also, the
Dutch Boers, taking advantage of the confusion, occupied a great part of
Zululand, which they still hold. Indeed, they would long ago have taken
it all, had not the English government, seeing the great misery to which
its ever-changing policy had reduced the unhappy Zulus, assumed
authority over the remainder of the country. From that day forward,
there has been no more killing or trouble in British Zululand, which is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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