Immediately after this two attacks were made on the native police, and Selous found when he arrived home that some Matabele had borrowed axes from Mrs. Selous, and had left with them ostensibly to repair their cattle-kraals, but in reality to attack the settlers. The following night three miners, Messrs. Foster, Eagleson and Anderson, carrying on work at Essexvale, were attacked and murdered as well as several other Europeans in the neighbourhood. Next day most of the Essexvale cattle were driven off by the natives, so that there was now no doubt that a rising was imminent. Selous therefore took his wife into Bulawayo for safety, and returned at once with an armed force of thirty-eight men, intending if possible to recover his cattle; but by this time the flame of rebellion had spread to the whole of the north, and numerous white men, women and children had been brutally murdered. At least nine-tenths of the Matabele natives were now in arms against the whites, who were very badly equipped and in sore straits for arms, ammunition, cattle and horses. Their position was somewhat desperate, but, as ever before and since, the settlers nobly responded to the call to arms, although there was really no organized force worth speaking of. However, about five hundred good men and true assembled at Bulawayo, from which it was almost impossible to move owing to the absence of horses. This force only had some 580 rifles, but a good supply of ammunition--1,500,000 rounds. There was also a .303 Maxim and an old gun or two. This is all they had with which to resist some 10,000 Matabele, of which at least one-fifth had breechloading rifles and plenty of ammunition. The tactics of the Matabele, however, were indifferent, and it is somewhat incomprehensible that they never blocked the main road to the south or attacked waggons or coaches moving along it. Of the 1000 white men in Bulawayo only about 300 were available for active operations, as 400 had always to be kept for the defence of the women and children in the town: but in addition to this force a regiment of native boys, mostly Zulus, was organized by Colonel Johan Colenbrander,[48] and did excellent scouting work. This little force of white and black eventually drove the Matabele from the neighbourhood of Bulawayo and rescued many small isolated detachments, whilst keeping the enemy at bay until the arrival of Sir Frederick Carrington, who eventually completed their rout.