NATAL AND THE TRANSVAAL.

Kumara Times, Issue 796, 19 April 1879, Page 4

NATAL AND THE TRANSVAAL.

In none, perhaps, of her colonies or dependencies has England more difficult questions to solve than in those of South Africa. The settlers there —scattered far apart, varying in nationality and divided in interests, enormously outnumbered by the semi civilised natives living in their very midst, surrounded on all sides by independent tribes of warlike savages, and yet constantly incited by circumstances to push further inland—must necessarily come into frequent collision with their aboriginal neighbours ; while they are» at the same time, scarcely able to fight their own battles without assistance from the Mother Country. Ever since its first settlement by the Dutch in 1650, and through its various changes of ownership till it finally became a British possession in 1806, the original Cape Colony settlement was constantly at issue with the Hottentot and Kaffir tribes on its borders. Since that date, besides frequent minor collisions, there have been four considerable Kaffir wars, in 1811, 1819, 1834, and 1850 ; the result in each case being, of course, that the limits of British territory have extended further into the central wild of the continent. Matters have, however, of late years been comparatively quiet in Cape Colony, and the interest of the South African question has centred in the north-easterly settlements of Natal and the Transvaal, which have been brought into hostile contact with the most warlike of the Kaffir tribes. A brief review of the formation and history of these settlements not be uninteresting. Little or nothing was known of the interior' of Natal previous to the year 1837. Up to that time the port had only been occasionally visited by slavers, a few of whom had settled on the coast. The military superiority of the Zulus over the other neighboring tribes had, during the previous half century, been established by their famous chief Chaka. At the time of his accession in 1787 to the chieftainship of this tribe they were a small and comparatively insignificant body, inhabiting the mountains of the immediate interior. Chaka, however, was gifted with a military talent and a power of organisation far superior to that of any of his neighbors, and he rapidly extended hia territory. Hia great mechanical achievement was the substitution of the “ assegai,” or short spear—for which the Zulus are now famous—for the long lance of the Kaffir tribes By this means he brought his men into hand-to-hand conflict with the enemy, who, hitherto accustomed to throw their weapons at the foe and then seek the nearest shelter, we’e quite nonplused by this novel mode of warfare. The merciless warrior chie'’, moreover, punished with death any of his braves who returned from battle without their assegais. By these means he made himself master of a very large tract of country, and fully established the Zulus as the _leading power in Eastern Sou'h Africa. But with all his ferocity and cruelty, Chaka had tact and prudence enough to incorporate the tribes he conquered with his own, and thus to consolidate the foundation of his military sovereignty. After a highly successful reign of 40 years, however, he met with his fate so common among barbarian despots, being assassinated by two of his brothers, who, of course, had to fight for the succession afterwards. Dingan, the victor, assumed the power in 1828, and proved a worthy military successor to his brother. During his reign, in 1828 and .1835 the Dutch Boers began to emigrate from Cape Colony in considerable numbers, They had never been reconciled to the English occupation of the country ; but the “ last straw” was laid upon their backs by the proclamation in 1833 of the abolition of slavery throughout the British possessions in South Africa. The measure was to take effect in five years from that date, and the British Government voted a sum of L 1,200,000, as compensation to the slave owners. It was estimated that there were about 35,000 slaves then in the Colony, of an average value of LBS; and, as the award amounted to but L 35 per slave, the Boers, who were the principal owners, saw a considerable loss impending. Great dissatisfaction prevailed, and large bodies of them migrated north and east in search of new territory and independance. Among the foremost of these pioneer parties was one composed of a mixed assemblage of Boer men, women, and children, and Hottentot slaves and attendants, numbering in all about 10,000, which started for North-East in 3837. The greater part of these pushed on steadily, with their waggons, household goods, and live stock, over the Drakenburgh range, and eventually debouched in Natal, then in the possession of Dingan. The country had, however, been so ravaged by this Zulu tryant that it was almost uninhabited ; and the Boers opened communication with him in the hope of arranging fora peaceful occupation of it. The treacherous savage, however, had no intention of allowfng them to settle in his neighbourhood, and cruelly slaughtered about 300 of the principal Boers and their attendants, whom he had inveigled unarmed, into his kraal under the pretext of a friendly conference. He then made a rapid march upon their camp at the Tugela River, attacked it unawares, and slew a large number of the unfortunate occupants, without respect of sex or age. Recovering from their surprise, however, the Boers eventually turned the tide of battle ; but not till 600 of their number had perished. Constant

accessions were made to the Dutchmen from their migrating countrymen, and a series of struggles with the Zulu chief—in which they were aided by the handful of English settlers on the coast, backed by large bodies of the scattered natives, who were the hereditary enemies of the Zulus —ended in the secession of Dingan’s brother, Pande, to the European party with a large body of the Zulu forces. Dingan was defeated, and Pande proclaimed King of Zulnland in 1840. He ceded Natal to the Boers, who thereupon asserted their independence, and commenced their old malpractices of slave dealing and owning. After several futile remonstrances, a British force was sent from the Cape in 1842, and within a few months the Boers were reduced to submission, and made a solemn declaration of allegiance to ihe Queen. In May, 1843, Natal was finally proclaimed a British Colony ; and by degrees largo numbers of the Biers moved off north and west across the Orange and Vaal Rivers to join their brethren in the Orange Free Stale and the Transvaal Republic. The former of these settlements was taken possession of by Sir Harry Smith in 1848, and proclaimed B itieh territory under the designation of Orange Sovereignty ; but was eventual 1 ,? abandoned to the Boers again in 1854, and a convention entered into between them and the Imperial Government, by which the State secured the recognition of its independence of allegiance to the British Crown, while it covenanted to man entire freedom from slavery in any form, and generally to conduct itself and its affairs in an exemplary manner. Shortly afterwards, in the same year, a similar convention was made between the representatives of the British Government and the delegates of the Transvaal settlers ; and thus the Dutch Boers secured the independence in search of which they had wandered, and for which they had suffered and fought during half a century.