We remember how similar changes have taken place in our European armies, when the heavy columns that used to be so resistless were shattered by the fire of single ranks, and how the very massiveness of the column rendered it a better mark for the enemy’s fire, and caused almost every shot to take effect. Tchaka was not always successful, for he forgot that cunning is often superior to force, and that the enemy’s spears are not the most dangerous weapons in his armory. The last expedition that Tchaka organized was a singularly unsuccessful one. He had first sent an army against a tribe which had long held out against him, and which had the advantage of a military position so strong that even the trained Zulu warriors, who knew that failure was death, could not succeed in taking it. Fortunately for Tchaka, some Europeans were at the time in his kraal, and he obliged them to fight on his behalf. The enemy had, up to that time, never seen nor heard of fire-arms; and when they saw their comrades falling without being visibly struck, they immediately yielded, thinking that the spirits of their forefathers were angry with them, and spat fire out of their mouths. This, indeed, was the result which had been anticipated by the bearers of the fire-arms in question, for they thought that, if the enemy were intimidated by the strange weapons, great loss of life would be saved on both sides. The battle being over, the conquered tribe were subsidized as tributaries, according to Tchaka’s custom, and all their cattle given up. The success of this expedition incited Tchaka to repeat the experiment, and his troops had hardly returned when he sent them off against a chief named Sotshangana. This chief had a spy in the camp of Tchaka, and no sooner had the army set off than the spy contrived to detach himself from the troops, and went off at full speed to his master. Sotshangana at once sent out messengers to see whether the spy had told the truth, and when he learned that the Zulu army was really coming upon him, he laid a trap into which the too confident enemy fell at once. He withdrew his troops from his kraals, but left everything in its ordinary position, so as to look as if no alarm had been taken. The Zulu regiments, seeing no signs that their presence was expected, took possession of the kraal, feasted on its provisions, and slept in fancied security. But, at the dead of night, Sotshangana, accompanied by the spy, whom he had rewarded with the command of a regiment, came on the unsuspecting Zulus, fell upon them while sleeping, and cut one regiment nearly to pieces. The others rallied, and drove off their foes; but they were in an enemy’s country, where every hand was against them.