And when my visiters arrived,
To sit, and prate, and stare;
Of light and air at once deprived,
The heat I scarce could bear.
The solid ground my softest bed,
A mat my mattress made;
The friendly saddle raised my head,
As in my cloak I laid.

The homely lizard harmless crept
Unnoticed through the door;
And rats their gambols round me kept,
While sleeping on the floor.

Such was my humble Zoolu home,
And memory paints thee yet;
While life shall last, where'er I roam,
That hut I'll ne'er forget.'

6

We may here observe that Commander Gardiner proceeded by land through the midst of the Caffre country, and had a very narrow escape; the war having broken out two days after he had cleared their country; it was one,' he says, of those merciful escapes in which the hand of a gracious God is so eminently conspicuous.' In passing through the Amakosa tribes (those bordering on the colony), and others beyond them, he called at several missionary stations scattered among these people; he stopped also at some of the dwellings of the English and Dutch traders, who subsisted by bartering knives, beads, coarse cottons, and tobacco, for elephants' tusks, hides, and deer-skins.

These are wretched mud-built hovels, and in so filthy a state that my surprise is that any of the inmates ever escaped the most malignant fevers. Contented with two rooms, they inhabited one while the other (the partition of which, as though purposely constructed to admit the effluvia, did not reach within several feet of the roof,) was piled nearly to the rafters with a collection of hides and horns, the former in all the intermediate stages from the green to the pickled. Such an odoriferous mélange of garbage, fat, and filth was perhaps never before compacted into so small a compass, yet were these people seemingly happy, and sipped their tea and their coffee, and offered the same to every stranger that passed, with as much frankness and disregard to their olfactory nerves as though the walls were of cedar and their floors carpeted with lavender and roses. Nothing so soon dissipates a romantic dream as one of these charnel houses.'-Gardiner, pp. 9, 10.

But it is time we proceed with our two authors to the Zoolu Country, the limits of which may be roughly, but not, from any data they have supplied, accurately determined; both, indeed, are very loose in all their descriptions. Port Natal we know to be situated in 29° 53′ S. lat., 30° 32′ E. long.; it has a narrow entrance with a bar across, but with a depth of water sufficient to admit ships of from two to three hundred tons burden; within, it spreads, like the Knysna of the colony, into a fine sheet of water, surrounded with rising ground covered with wood, and having an island in the midst. If we take the river Umzimcoolu as the southern boundary, forty miles to the south-west of the port, and the Amatakoola, seventy miles to the north-east of it, we shall have one hundred and ten miles for the extent of the sea-coast of the Zoolu territory; and as Commander Gardiner estimates at one

hundred

hundred miles his journey inland to the Quathlamba Mountains, which run parallel with the sea-coast, we may assume the Zoolu country to be a square of about one hundred miles each side. From this range of mountains a number of rivers intersect the plain in their way to the sea, the largest of which, frequently unfordable, appear to be the Umzimcoolu and the Tugala, the latter of which Isaacs calls Ootoogale. We must leave our authors to give their own descriptive sketches of the interior.

The small trading vessel, that carried our youthful adventurer Nathaniel to the east coast of Africa, was commanded by Lieut. King of the navy. The object of the voyage was, in the first place, to touch at the Cape, and from thence at the bay of Natal. Our little bark,' he says, soon faced the bar, which had an awful and even terrific aspect. The surf beat over it with a prodigiously overwhelming force; the foaming of the sea gave it an appearance that would have unnerved any but an experienced seaman; the wind whistling through the rigging seemed as the knell of our approaching destruction.' In short, after some six pages of description of this appalling kind, and as many more from Lieut. King's journal, we find the little bark completely wrecked on the rocks; but the people remained on board in safety. At first all around looked wild and desolate, and they concluded that Lieut. Farewell, who was known to have been there with a party, had been disposed of by the natives. Presently, however, they perceived a group of people, who planted a ragged union-jack on the point opposite to the wreck, one of them clad in European garments, but ragged as the flag. This proved to be an English youth, by name Holstead, one of Farewell's party. . The rest of the group consisted of a Hottentot woman, in a dungaree petticoat, with a blue cotton handkerchief tied round her head; five natives entirely naked; and a female with a piece of bullock's hide fastened round her waist.' The other European settlers, now absent in the interior, were Cane, Ogle, Fynn, and Lieut. Farewell, together with one Jacob, who, being a Caffre and speaking English, was serving as an interpreter. Their houses were little barns, made of wattle and plastered with clay, without windows, and with one door to each; near them were several native huts, shaped like beehives, about seven feet in diameter and six feet high. Appearances, in short, were anything but encouraging,'all seemed wild, gloomy, and revolting; yet here,' says Isaacs, 'I was destined to remain two years and nine months, an almost solitary European, wandering occasionally I knew not where, and in search of I knew not what.'

A sailor is never at a loss. Lieut. King, with his chief mate, Mr. Hatton, who happened to be a practical shipwright, com

menced

menced preparations for building a new vessel from the materials of the one wrecked, with the assistance of plenty of fine timber growing near the bay. It was not long before Mr. Farewell returned from his visit to Chaka, the chief of the Zoolus; but the account he gave of this personage was not calculated to soothe the apprehensions of Isaacs. Lieut. King, however, determined to visit this despot, and in company of Farewell and Fynn, and a party of his sailors, bearing a suitable present, set out on his journey. They had every reason to be pleased with their reception; he ordered bullocks to be killed for them, and having observed that the sailors were armed with muskets, desired they might go out with him and his people to hunt the elephant. The men, however, declined this kind of sport, saying they had only leaden bullets, not adapted for such huge animals, on which Chaka desired the interpreter to tell them they were afraid. This remark touched the pride of the blue-jackets; and Lieut. King and his sailors determined, therefore, to join the party; and fortunately they did so, as the idea of inferiority in courage was not likely to promote the hospitality of the despot. The following is an extract from Mr. King's Journal

:

'We soon fell in with the king, surrounded by his warriors, seated under a large tree, and from which he had a complete view of the valley out of which they intended to start the elephant; we took our station about two hundred yards from him, waiting impatiently, yet dreading the result. Two hours had nearly elapsed, when a messenger presented to the king the tail of an elephant, at which they all appeared greatly surprised; he was desired to bring it to us, and say the white people had killed the animal. As may be supposed, we could scarcely credit the fact, but hastened towards the forest to join our people, and met them almost exhausted; we, notwithstanding, had the satisfaction of congratulating each other upon what appeared to us almost a miracle. It appeared that the natives drove the elephant from the forest to a plain, where the sailors placed themselves directly before the animal: the first shot entered under the ear, when it became furious: the other lodged near the fore shoulder, after which it fell, and soon expired. Had this affair turned out differently, we should, in all probability, have been held in a contemptible light by this nation, and awkward consequences might have resulted to the settlement.'

The evening was spent in dancing, singing, and other amusements; in the midst of which, our sailors, with true British feeling, and hearty stentorian voices, struck up God save the King,' and Chaka, on its being explained, so far from being displeased with this, was highly delighted. On paying him a visit the following morning, the Lieutenant expressed a wish to see him in his war dress :

He immediately retired, and in a short time returned attired; his dress consists

consists of monkey's skins, in three folds from his waist to the knee, from which two white cows' tails are suspended, as well as from each arm; round his head is a neat band of fur stuffed, in front of which is placed a tall feather, and on each side a variegated plume. He advanced with his shield, an oval about four feet in length, and an umconto, or spear, when his warriors commenced a war song, and he began his manœuvres. Chaka is about thirty-eight years of age, upwards of six feet in height, and well proportioned; he is allowed to be the best pedestrian in the country, and, in fact, during his wonderful exercises this day he exhibited the most astonishing activity. On this occasion he displayed a part of the handsomest beads of our present.'

On the day of their departure Chaka made them a present of one hundred and seven head of cattle. It took them seven days to return to Natal, the distance being above one hundred miles.

The favourable reception of the party inspired Mr. Isaacs with a desire to pay a visit to this potent monarch. He was accompanied by the lad Holstead, and some natives. Chaka received him kindly; asked if King George was as handsome as himself,and condescendingly said, King George and I are brothers; he has conquered all the whites, and I have subdued all the blacks.' Nathaniel tells us the circumference of the imperial kraal' exceeds three miles, and includes about one thousand four hundred huts; and that the palace, on an eminence, comprises about one hundred huts, in which none but girls live. At this period about three hundred men passed the king, saluting him as they went on, this was all very fine; but,

'on a sudden a profound silence ensued, when his majesty uttered one or two words, at which some of the warriors immediately rose and seized three of the people, one of whom sat near me. The poor fellows made no resistance, but were calm and resigned, waiting their fate with apparently stoical indifference. The sanguinary chief was silent; but from some sign he gave the executioners, they took the criminals, laying one hand on the crown and the other on the chin, and by a sudden wrench appeared to dislocate the head. The victims were then dragged away and beaten as they proceeded to the bush, about a mile from the kraal, where a stick was inhumanly forced up each, and they were left as food for the wild beasts of the forests, and those carnivorous birds that hover near the habitations of the natives.'-Isaacs, p. 75.

After this exhibition Mr. Isaacs, not feeling quite so easy, expressed a wish to take leave, but to his great dismay was ordered to remain; however, on a drove of cattle being brought up, the property of the wretched victims who had been so brutally sacrificed, Chaka ordered twelve head to be given to him, and allowed him to depart.

Chaka had heard of a boat in which the Lieutenant and his party had crossed the Tugala, and expressed a desire that it

should

should be brought to him. This occasioned another visit, when he inquired, in the course of conversation, if they had brought any doctors (missionaries) with them;' he said, he wished them to come and teach his people, for he had discovered we were a superior race.' On the following day Chaka entertained them with a review of three regiments of boys, amounting to about six thousand strong, all bearing black shields of ox hides. Each regiment was distinguished by the different shape and decoration of the caps. After running about the kraal, trying to excel each other in feats of agility, but regardless of all order, regularity, or discipline, a regiment of men with white shields arrived on the ground, and having saluted Chaka, they all, men and boys, assembled for a dance :

'They formed a half-circle; the men in the centre and the boys at the two extremities. The king placed himself in the middle of the space within the circle, and about one thousand five hundred girls stood opposite to the men three deep, in a straight line, and with great regularity. His majesty then commenced dancing, the warriors followed, and the girls kept time by singing, clapping their hands, and raising their bodies on their toes. The strange attitudes of the men exceeded anything I had seen before. The king was remarkable for his unequalled activity, and the surprising muscular powers he exhibited. He was decorated with a profusion of green and yellow glass beads. The girls had their share of such ornaments; in addition, too, they had each of them four brass bangles round their necks, which kept them in an erect posture, and rendered them as immovable as the neck of a statue.'-ibid. pp. 121, 122.

On taking leave the visiters were presented with three oxen and three cows, from a herd of upwards of a thousand head of cattle. On a third visit, Isaacs, who had now become bold, talks of having seen a large body of troops, consisting of seventeen regiments with black shields and twelve regiments with white ones, at drill on the surrounding hills, the whole appearing to amount to about thirty thousand fighting men. This visit seems to have passed off without any outrageous proceedings on the part of the despot, but on another occasion he was witness to a scene of a most wanton and unprovoked massacre, the account of which makes one's blood boil. The monster pretended he had a dream that his boys and others, in his absence, had taken liberties with his women, and thus polluted the purity of his palace. He pointed out a particular kraal, or village, on which he meant to wreak his vengeance, and a party of his ruffians were sent to surround it. Mr. Isaacs shall tell the rest :

'The king at first beat his aged and infirm mother with inconceivable cruelty, and to the astonishment of all, as he had ever manifested towards his parent a strong filial affection. When all the poor unoffending creatures were collected in the cattle kraal, many of them being sick, their

number