Their wonderful discipline availed them little. They got no rest by day or by night. They were continually harassed by attacks, sometimes of outlying skirmishers, who kept them always on the alert, sometimes of large forces of soldiers who had to be met in battle array. They could obtain no food, for the whole country was against them, and the weaker tribes, whom they attacked in order to procure provisions, drove their cattle into the bush, and set fire to their own corn-fields. It is said also, and with some likelihood of truth, that the water was poisoned as well as the food destroyed; and the consequence was, that the once victorious army was obliged to retreat as it best could, and the shattered fragments at last reached their own country, after suffering almost incredible hardships. It was in this campaign that the soldiers were obliged to eat their shields. At least twenty thousand of the Zulu warriors perished in this expedition, three-fourths having died from privation, and the others fallen by the spears of the enemy. What would have been Tchaka’s fury at so terrible a defeat may well be imagined; but he never lived to see his conquered warriors. It is supposed, and with some show of truth, that he had been instrumental in causing the death of his own mother, Mnande. This word signifies “amiable” or “pleasant,” in the Zulu tongue, and never was a name more misapplied. She was violent, obstinate, and wilful to a degree, and her son certainly inherited these traits of his mother’s character, besides superadding a few of his own. She was the wife of the chief of the Amazulu, then a small and insignificant tribe, who lived on the banks of the White Folosi river, and behaved in such a manner that she could not be kept in her husband’s kraal. It may be imagined that such a mother and son were not likely to agree very well together; and when the latter came to be a man, he was known to beat his mother openly, without attempting to conceal the fact, but rather taking credit to himself for it. Therefore, when she died, her family had some good grounds for believing that Tchaka had caused her to be killed, and determined on revenge. Hardly had that ill-fated expedition set out, when two of her sisters came to Dingan and Umhlangani, the brothers of Tchaka, and openly accused him of having murdered Mnande, urging the two brothers to kill him and avenge their mother’s blood. They adroitly mentioned the absence of the army, and the terror in which every soldier held his bloodthirsty king, and said that if, on the return of the army, Tchaka was dead, the soldiers would be rejoiced at the death of the tyrant, and would be sure to consider as their leaders the two men who had freed them from such a yoke. The two brothers briefly answered, “Ye have spoken!” but the women seemed to know that by those words the doom of Tchaka was settled, and withdrew themselves, leaving their nephews to devise their own plans for the murder of the king.