Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
My men say that it is not usual for impis to visit this part of the country." "Who could have told them?" asked Marais. "I don't know, mynheer. Perhaps the natives have sent on word, or perhaps Hernan Pereira." "I knew that you would suspect my nephew, Allan," he exclaimed angrily. "I suspect no one; I only weigh what is probable.
Cetewayo nodded heavily, and answered "My impis were broken to pieces on the plain of Ulundi; the cowards ran from the bullets as children run from bees. My kraals are burnt and I, the King, with but a faithful remnant fly for my life. The prophecy of the Black One has come true. The people of the Zulus are stamped flat beneath the feet of the great White People."
You have seen the circle of the witch-doctors and the unconquerable Zulu impis rushing to war; you have crowned their kings and shared their counsels, and with your son's blood you have expiated a statesman's error and a general's fault. Sompseu, a song has been sung in my ears of how first you mastered this people of the Zulu.
"Then shall you, Hafela, send on the most of your cattle and the women and the children through that pass in the mountains, bidding them to await you in the plain, and after a while you shall follow them with your impis. But these shall not travel in war array, for carriers must bear their fighting shields in bundles and their stabbing spears shall be rolled up in mats.
'Then Wilson put it to the officers whether we should try and break through the impis which were now forming up between us and the river, or whether we would go for the King and sell our lives in trying to get hold of him. The final decision was for this latter. 'So we set off and walked along the vlei back to the King's wagons.
It was not until our horns were about to close upon them that they had dreamed of their approach, for they believed these forces to be hidden in reserve upon the crest of the moon-shaped hill. And now, before they could even assume a proper formation for defence, the outflanking Impis had leapt, like greyhounds, on their flanks. In five minutes the fate of the battle was decided.
Yes, generals have become like women; the captains of the impis are set to milk the cows. Well, what have I to do with all this? What does it matter to me who am so very old that only my head remains above the level of the earth, the rest of me being buried in the grave, who am not even a Zulu to boot, but a Dwandwe, one of the despised Dwandwe whom the Zulus mocked and conquered?
He begins to long ah, how he longs! for the keen breath of the desert air; he dreams of the sight of Zulu impis breaking on their foes like surf upon the rocks, and his heart rises up in rebellion against the strict limits of the civilized life. Ah! this civilization, what does it all come to?
"Nay," answered another, "it is the Ehlose, the guardian ghost of the Amazulu that appears and dies." "Not so," broke in a third, "that light shows the Amaboona travelling from the south-west to be eaten up in the blackness of our impis." "Such a star runs ever before the death of king. It fell the night ere the Black One died," murmured a fourth as though he spoke to himself.
"Silence," he thundered in the deep voice for which he was remarkable, and instantly each man became as if he were turned to stone, only the echoes still answered back: "And the impis shall sing it in their ears in their ears." "I am growing certain that this is no place for me," thought Hadden; "if that scoundrel had been armed he might have temporarily forgotten himself. Hullo! who's this?"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking