H. Rider Haggard

“ Doubtless, also, the hearts of the white men beat high that night as they gathered round the fires of their camp, little knowing that thousands of Zulu eyes were watching them from afar, or that the black rock looming above them was destined to stand like some great tombstone over their bones for ever. ”

“ All about the plain lay Englishmen and Zulus, as they had died in the dread struggle: here side by side, amidst rusted rifles and bent assegais, here their bony arms still locked in the last hug of death, and yonder the Zulu with the white man’s bayonet through his skull, the soldier with the Zulu’s assegai in what had been his heart. One man was found, who, when his cartridges were spent, and his rifle ”

“ Some of the defenders formed themselves into groups and fought back to back till they fell where they stood, to be found weeks afterwards mere huddled heaps of bones. Hundreds of others fled for the waggon road, to find that the Undi regiment, passing round the Isandhlwana mountain, had occupied it already. Back they rolled from the hedge of Undi spears to fall upon the spears of the attacking regiments. One path of retreat alone remained, a dry and precipitous ‘donga’ or watercourse, and into this plunged a rabble of men, white and black, mules, horses, guns, and waggons. ”

“ Wherever the eye looked, men were falling and spears flashing in the sunshine, while the ear was filled with groans of the dying and the savage S’gee S’gee of the Zulu warriors as they passed their assegais through and through the bodies of the fallen. Many a deed of valour was done there as white men and black grappled in the death-struggle, but their bones alone remained to tell the tale of them. Shortly after the disaster, one of the survivors told the present writer of a duel which he witnessed between a Zulu and an officer of the 24th regiment. ”

“ But the Zulus as a nation are dead, and never again will a great Impi, such as swept away our troops at Isandhlwana, be seen rushing down to war. Their story is but one scene in the vast drama which is being enacted in this generation, and which some of you who read these lines may live to see, not accomplished, indeed, but in the way of accomplishment—the drama of the building up of a great Anglo-Saxon empire in Africa—an empire that within the next few centuries may well become one of the mightiest in the world. We have made many and many a mistake, but still that empire grows ”

“ At length the attacks slackened, the firing dwindled and died, and the dawn broke, that same dawn which showed to General Lord Chelmsford and those with him all the horror of Isandhlwana’s field. Here also at Rorke’s Drift it revealed death and to spare, but for the most part the corpses were those of the foe, some four hundred of whom lay lost in their last sleep around the burning hospital, in the bush, and beneath the walls of corn-sacks; four hundred killed by one hundred and thirty-nine white men all told, of whom thirty-five were sick when the defence began. ”

“ Thus it will be seen that this people differed from any other in the world in modern days, for whereas even the most courageous and martial of mankind look upon war as an exceptional state of affairs and an evil only to be undertaken in self-defence, or perhaps for purposes of revenge and aggrandisement, the Zulus looked on peace as the exceptional state, and on warfare as the natural employment of man. ”

“ Englishmen also are a warlike race, and there was honour and advancement to be won, and it would seem that but few of those who marched into the Zulu country guessed how formidable was the foe with whom they had to deal. A horde of half-naked savages armed with spears did not strike English commanders, imperfectly acquainted with the history and nature of those savages, as particularly dangerous enemies. ”

“ In their war with the English many of the Zulus were armed with muzzle-loading guns and rifles of the worst description, of which they could make little use, for few of them were trained to handle fire-arms. A much more terrible weapon in their hands, and one that did nearly all the execution at Isandhlwana, was the broad-bladed short-shafted stabbing assegai. This shape of spear was introduced by the great king Chaka, and if a warrior cast it at an enemy, or oven chanced to lose it in a fight, he was killed when the fray was over. ”

“ A kindlier-hearted and merrier young English gentleman never lived. Melvill and Coghill were swept away upon the tide of flight, down the dreadful path that led to Fugitives’ Drift, but Melvill bore with him the colours of the 24th regiment that were in his charge as adjutant, not tied round his waist, as has been reported, but upon the pole to which they were attached. ”

“ These soldiers were never beaten; if they dared to turn their back upon an enemy, however numerous, they were killed when the battle was done, so that soon they learned to choose death with honour before the foe in preference to death with shame at the hands of the executioner. Where Chaka’s armies went they conquered, till the country was swept of people for hundreds of miles in every direction. At length, after he had killed or been the cause of the violent death of more than a million human beings, in the year 1828 Chaka’s own hour came ”

“ By degrees the Englishmen were driven back, the hospital and its approaches were in the hands of the foe, and now they must retire to the inner wall of the cattle kraal. But they collected sacks of mealies and built two redoubts, which gave them a second line of fire, and let the Zulus do what they would, storm the place they could not, nor could they serve it as they had served the hospital and destroy it by fire. ”

“ Slowly, and with all military precaution, Lord Chelmsford and his force moved onward, till at length, when darkness had fallen, they encamped beneath the fatal hill of Isandhlwana. Here, momentarily expecting to be attacked, they remained all night amid the wreck, the ruin, and the dead, but not till the following dawn did they learn the magnitude of the disaster that had overtaken
our arms. ”

“ About forty white men lived to cross the river at Fugitives’ Drift, and these, almost the only English survivors of the force at Isandhlwana, rode on, still followed by Zulus, to the provision depot at Helpmakaar some fifteen miles away, where they mustered and entrenched themselves as best they were able, expecting to be attacked at any moment. ”

“ They arrived there about 3.30, and shortly afterwards an officer of Durnford’s native horse rode up, accompanied by about 100 mounted men, and asked for orders. He was requested to send out outposts in the direction of the enemy, and, having checked their advance as much as possible, to fall back, when forced so to do, upon the buildings and assist in their defence. Posts were then assigned to each man in the little garrison, and, this done, the defensive preparations went on, all doing their utmost, for they felt that the life of every one of them was at stake. ”

“ It advanced slowly, taking shelter with great skill behind rocks, and opened a quite ineffective fire on the soldiers. Meanwhile the two guns were shelling the Zulu centre with great effect, the shells cutting lanes through their dense ranks, which closed up over the dead in perfect discipline and silence. The attack was now general, all the impi taking part in it except a reserve regiment that sat down upon the ground taking snuff, and never came into action, and the Undi corps, which moved off to the right with the object of passing round the north side of the Isandhlwana hill. ”

“ In the issue, however, Colonel Durnford advanced his mounted force to ascertain the enemy’s movements, and directed a company of the 1st battalion 24th regiment to occupy a hill about 1,200 yards to the north of the camp.
Other companies of the 24th were stationed at various points at a distance from the camp. It may be well to explain here, that to these movements of troops, which, so far as can be ascertained, were made by the direct orders of Colonel Durnford, must be attributed the terrible disaster that followed. There are two ways of fighting a savage or undisciplined enemy ”

“ Meanwhile a Zulu ‘impi’ or army, numbering about twenty thousand men, or something more than one-third of King Cetywayo’s entire strength, had moved from the Upindo Hill on the night of January 21, and taken up its position on a stony plain, a mile and a half to the east of Isandhlwana. The impi was made up of the Undi regiment, about three thousand strong, that formed its breast, or centre, the Nokenke and Umcityu regiments, seven thousand strong, that formed its right wing or horn, and the Imbonanbi and Nkobamikosi regiments, ten thousand strong, forming its left horn or wing. ”

“ Most of the bodies they stripped naked, clothing themselves in the uniforms of the dead soldiers. They stabbed the poor oxen that remained fastened to the ‘trek-tows’ of the waggons, and they drank all the spirits that they could find, some of them, it is said, perishing through the accidental consumption of the medical stores. ”