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Updated: June 20, 2025
There would, for example, be dished up falsely rendered and dramatically coloured and perverted selections, such as the treacherous massacre of Retief's party in 1838, averring that the Zulu king, Dingaan, had been incited thereto by the British authorities; tragic descriptions of events, coupled with the massacres by Zulu impis soon after at Weenen and Blaauwkrantz, averred also to have taken place at the instance of the English Government, and ever and anon references and full tragic descriptions of the Slachtersnek execution in 1816, omitting to state that the Boer culprits were hanged after fair and open trial and conviction by a "Boer" jury for high treason in conspiring with Kaffirs against the Government, which crime had led to bloodshed, and that their relatives had been ordered to witness the execution because they had been abettors and privy to the crime.
She told of disasters to the English, of the death of a great young Chief who was deserted by his companions and died fighting bravely afterwards I discovered that this was the Prince Imperial of France of the advance of our armies, of defeats inflicted upon Cetewayo's impis, and finally of the destruction of the Zulus on the battlefield of Ulundi, where they hurled themselves by thousands upon the British square, to be swept away by case-shot and the hail of bullets.
And it makes no difference whatever if the first ten or hundred or thousand are instantly mowed down by the bacillus or its deadly toxins, the rear ranks sweep forward without an instant's hesitation, and pour on in a living torrent, like the Zulu impis at Rorke's Drift, until the bacilli are battered down by the sheer impact of the bodies of their assailants, or smothered under the pile of their corpses.
Were not Cetywayo's impis gathered against the land, and was it not because it became the Queen's land that at your word he sent them murmuring to their kraals? To save bloodshed you annexed the country beyond the Vaal. Perhaps it had been better to leave it, since "Death chooses for himself," and after all there was killing of our own people, and with the killing, shame.
Unless a White Swallow guide your footsteps in the war with the Men of the Mountains you shall perish and your impis shall be scattered, but if a White Swallow flies before your spears than but little of your blood shall be shed, and you shall return with honour and with one whom you seek.
Now, to reach this country, I must travel by the pass that is not far from your Great Place, and I pray you that you will not attack my impis or the women and children that I shall send, and a guard before them, to await me in the plain beyond the mountains, seeing that these can only journey slowly.
I guessed little, my father, how changed they would be. Dingaan the king sat upon a day in the kraal Umgugundhlovu, waiting till his impis should return from the Income that is now named the Blood River. He had sent them thither to destroy the laager of the Boers, and thence, as he thought, they would presently return with victory.
The "partial deployment" of which Kinglake speaks, consisting of "wings or forearms" devised to cover the flanks or fold inwards on the front, did not make itself apparent to any observer of "C" Troop; and indeed the present writer never knew a Russian who had heard of it, the species of formation adumbrated, so far as he is aware, being confined to Zulu impis.
"That is a bad council which has two voices, for to which of them must the Captain listen when the impis of the foe gather in front of him? Here I have sat while the moon climbs high and counted, and what do I find? That one half of you, men of wisdom and renown, say Yes, and that the other half of you, men of wisdom and renown, say No. Which then is it to be, Yes or No?
Must the gods die or live? So intense and fearful was the hush, unbroken by a breath of air or the calling of a bird, that Otter could bear it no longer, but suddenly burst into song. He had a fine deep voice, and it was a Zulu war-song that he sang, a triumphant paean of the rush of conquering impis interspersed with the wails of women and the groans of the dying.
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