Early in the morning of the 2nd of October the vast army of Umsiligaas was reported as approaching. Commandant Sarel Cilliers, who commanded the laager, found that he had in all, including boys of twelve and fourteen, forty men with whom to meet the vast horde, and the women and girls were busy smelting lead to mould bullets for the old-fashioned guns. Cilliers and thirty-two of his men rode out to meet the enemy upon the open plain, where Matabele were formed into great squares upon Tchaka's system, and sat upon the ground, each man with his shield before him, as was always done preparatory to a great attack. Cilliers sent out a loud-voiced envoy to inquire why they came to fight the white men who had done them no harm. At once the thousands of warriors sprang to their feet with the mighty war cry: "Umsiligaas alone has the right to speak!" Brandishing their shields and assegais, the front ranks deployed to right and left, forming those two horns, so celebrated in Zulu warfare, which were intended to inclose the enemy. The emigrants mounted their horses, reloading their heavy muskets as they went and firing at the points of the horns; and with great difficulty, in an hour and a half, they reached the laager. Here men, women, and children knelt down for a short prayer, while the Matabele indunas were massing the column for the grand assault. Then followed a desperate fight. The Zulus poured forward in thousands with magnificent courage, even seizing hold of the wagons with their hands to tear them apart, and piercing the wagon sails again and again with their assegais. The Boers fought with desperate determination, the women reloading the guns and handing them to the men who stood at the corners of the laager. In the end, with heavy loss on both sides, the Matabele were repulsed, but in their retreat they swept away with them all the sheep and cattle of the emigrants. Hunger and desolation then reigned in the laager, and had it not been for the timely arrival of another party of emigrants all must have perished. Later on, the combined emigrants followed up the Matabele to their strongholds in the Transvaal in the hope of recovering their goods and the lost children. After long and bitter conflict the old flintlock gun conquered, and the Matabele moved northward towards the territory where they are now found, known as Matabeleland.