CETEWAYO, THE ZULU KING.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 147, 21 May 1879, Page 3

CETEWAYO, THE ZULU KING.

The London correspondent of the { Daily Chronicle ’ says Cetewayo, the Zulu King, is a remarkable man. There is some resemblance between his career and character and those of Hyder Ali and Dost Hahomed. The Zulu chief is in the prime of life, and a friend of mine who has seen him says that his features are expi-essive and almost handsome. Physically, lie is a complete athlete. He has great strength of limb, and marvellous ■agility. He is wily, adroit, courageous, and, with a view of accomplishing his design, capable of great cruelty. Some •curious insights into his character crop up in the voluminous blue-books that have been published within the last two or three years concerning South African affairs. The conversations he had with Sir Theophilus Shepstone and other English representatives are strikingly picturesque, and at times eloquent. His expressions remind one of the mode of address indulged in by the American Indians, but Oete-.vayo’s views are more sanguinary than those of the Spotted Tail or Little Blanket. Having apparently without purpose made war upon a neighbouring tribe —the Swacis—he was asked by the English Commissioner why he did so. He answered with remarkable frankness that his object was not to gain territory nor to possess himself of boot}g but merely to kill the followers of Secocoeni, because they were his enemies If he had been an European potentate he would have covered his designs under some fine phrase. Louis Bonaparte would have said he had begun the war for an idea ; or the Czar, apologising for attacking a weak neighbour, would have justified himself on the ground of desiring to propogate the Gospel of Christ. But /, 'Cetewayo was not troubled with any such scruples, and lie openly said that his only object for going to war was to kill the •men he had been taught to regard as bis enemies. Asked on one occasion how many troops he had at his command, he •declared with poetical exageration that they were as innumerable as the sands of an African desert, and that the dust they raised when on the march was sufficient to obscure the sun. At another time, speaking to a British emissary who was striving to induce him to pursue pastoral or hunting pursuits ratlier than military, he said that the Zulus were born to fight, and that no young man amongst them was allowed to marry until he had been to war. Fighting was their mission on earth. He was their king, and he was anxious, in the first place, to prove his prowess as a warrior’, and next to give the young braves an opportunity of washing their spears in [the blood ■of • their foes. It was matterless to him whom he quarrelled with so long as he could accomplish these two purposes — demonstrating his own capacity as a chieftain and the courage of his people. When talking in his kraal on the same occasion about the missionaries, lie saic Christianity might be all very well for white men and for Europeans, but he did not like the missionaries, because experience had shown that a Zulu Christian w r as a Zulu spoiled. Over the whole of the intercourse between the English and this able, dauntless, but unscrupulous Kaffir, many instances could be quoted of savage pictnrcsquencss of expression, which throw’s a curious light upon the motives that move these swarthy warriors to action.