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Updated: June 15, 2025
The gigantic forms, the red shields and the gleaming, broad-bladed spears of Kondwana's small band, and the terrible evidence of prowess as shown in the night attack, had inspired great dread. Moreover, the Makalaka Chief determined on making sure that not a single man should escape to tell the tale to Tshaka.
Amongst the spoil of a recent and very distant northern raid were a few copper bangles, and the prisoners from whom these were taken said that the metal had been smelted from green and yellow stones dug out of a mountain far to the north. In a native forge at one of the villages sacked, a few stones of the kind described had been found, and these were brought to Tshaka.
It could at once be seen that the mere name of Tshaka made a considerable impression. The spokesman replied that the Makalakas did not want to fight with the Zulus, that the copper ore was found in the country of the Balotsi, to the northward, and that a party which the Makalaka chief had sent in the previous year for the purpose of fetching a supply of the ore, had never returned.
But the Chief now felt safe from the avenging wrath of Tshaka. Three of the Zulus were, however, still alive. Kondwana the induna, Senzanga the man without a head-ring, and one other, had fallen into an old elephant-pit, the surface of which was completely covered over with brushwood. Dry leaves and twigs had accumulated at the bottom, and thus the shock of their fall had been lessened.
"My beaten shields to thunder thrill, My spears like lightning flash between, Till raining blood their brightness kill, Or dim to lurid red their sheen! At morn and eve the splendid shine of burning clouds I hail with joy The sky thus gives its son the sign To rise up mighty, and destroy!" Zulu Pictures. Tshaka.
TSHAKA, king of the Zulus, sat in state in his Royal Kraal one morning in the month of March, 1816. His throne was a log of white ironwood standing on its end, from the upper portion of which the stumps of three thick branches expanded, thus giving it the rough semblance of an arm-chair. The ends of the stumps were rounded and polished.
Kondwana knew that he ran a serious risk in not killing Senzanga at once, but after consulting with his officers, he decided on venturing to spare the young man's life, meaning to deliver him as a prisoner to Tshaka on the return of the expedition, and then pray that he might be pardoned for the fault he had not committed, and which had been so heavily punished.
You have heard of Umdava, who used to eat men in Natal long ago, after the wars of Tshaka well, he was my uncle. After Umdava had been killed and his people scattered, my father, with a few followers, came to live amongst these mountains. But we found that after having eaten human flesh we could enjoy no other food, so we caught people and ate them.
The two parties then met, and began to discuss matters. The Makalaka spokesman inquired of Kondwana who he and the men were, and why they were making war on the Makalaka nation. Kondwana replied to the effect that he and his men were Zulus sent by Tshaka to obtain copper; that they did not want to make war, and had only done so because they found armed men assembled to oppose them.
Strange rumours, mysterious and vague, had reached him already rumours relating to an immensely powerful tribe inhabiting the dark and unexplored country away to the north, whose raids were extending more and more, whose wrath fell alike upon all upon Arab slave-hunter and the prey sought by the latter a Zulu-speaking tribe said to have taken its origin in some hardly recorded exodus in the days of Tshaka Zulu alike in its habits and customs, and in the despotism of its ruler.
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