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Helena boasts of some elegant society. A few years before our confinement the Zulu chief, Dinizulu, was banished within the rocky bounds of this island prison. This son of Cain had during his detention here been invited to all the fashionable parties and dances, and had been honoured with an invitation to the Governor's house.
Letters would actually reach him from England solemnly addressed to Bloater Park. Life at this time if we except the 1887 operations against Dinizulu in Africa, when B.-P. was Assistant Military Secretary, and commanded a column in attack was for the most part humdrum, and only enlivened by theatricals and shooting expeditions.
In a battle at Labombo mountain, June 6th of that year, Meyer and Dinizulu vanquished the enemy, and as payment for their services the Boers each received a large farm in the district now known as Vryheid.
I remember, I suppose it must be almost twenty years ago, sending to the late Mr. Chamberlain, who was then Colonial Secretary, information to this effect which reached me from undoubted sources in South Africa. Again, not long ago, I was shown a document which was found among the papers of the Zulu Prince Dinizulu, son of King Cetewayo, who died the other day.
General Meyer received his fundamental military education from the famous Zulu chieftain, Dinizulu, in 1884, when he and eight hundred other Boers assisted the natives in a war against the chieftains of other tribes.
He was fêted at dinners and public festivities but of course it must be remembered that Dinizulu was a kaffir and we were only Boers. Fancy, my Afrikander brothers, a self-respecting English young lady consenting to dance with this uncivilised kaffir! Imagine, they allowed him to dine at the same table, and to drive in the same carriage with them!
Transvaal Boers invaded Zululand and took up the cause of Dinizulu, a son of the dead Cetewayo, and established him as king, upsetting Sir Garnet Wolseley's settlement. They then proceeded to seize the country, but the British Government intervening at this point, rescued some two-thirds for the Zulus.
On went the train, and the monotonous melody of the rolling wheels gradually lulled the weary thoughts to sleep. Captain Lange thought of Elandslaagte again and of Colonel Schiel and Dinizulu, the Kafir chief, and of the story the colonel had told, as they bivouacked round the fire, of the latter's royal anointment with castor-oil.
Under these conditions they were placed in the Pretoria Gaol, and with the exception of a few subordinates there they have lived or died since. The offences of these natives, for all anyone knows, may have been similar to those of Langalibalele, Dinizulu, Secocoeni, Cetewayo, and other native chiefs whom the British Government have also disposed of without trial.
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