ZULULAND.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3131, 1 March 1879, Page 3

ZULULAND.

The following article from the Bay of Plenty Times may bo found interesting under present circumstance:

As the Zulu Campaign seems quito likely to attract more attention than any of the aggressive expeditions recently undertaken by the British, it may not be amiss to detail in a series of leaders some interesting information, derived from personal knowledge, with reference to the origin of,.the war and the country in which it will take place. The Zululand is situated on the east coast of Africa, between the twenty seventh and twentyninth parallels of south latitude, and the thirtieth and thirty-third of east longitude, and may be roughly estimated at thirty thousand square miles. It is separated on the south from the cokmy of Natal by the river Tugela, a fine clear, rapid stream, more than a mile iv width at its mouth. On its north shore dwell the Amaswazis, an amiUe, though warlike tribe, speaking the same language as the Zulus, but hating and dreading them, am^sxtremely friendly to the English. They^muster perhaps ten thousand warriors, and are divided from their foes by the Pongola river, another fine stream, which joins the Usntu, -running from the north - west, and together they enter the; south end of Delagoa Bay. To the west lie the Transvaal territories, now, British possessions, which are separated from Zulu land* by :the head waters of the Pongola, by a portion of-the great' Drakensberg range, which extends from Abyssinia to Cape Town, and by the Blood river, a Btreani'.{hat runs into, the Buffalo river, which in its turn joins the Tugela. . The whole^, of the country;, is exceedingly broken and hilly, the altitudes increasing as the Wa is receded from, until on the western bpundary a general elevation of between |hree.^housand and four thousand feet is attainable. Though so broken, locomo'ion is not difficult, the grades being in * few places abrupt, while a great deal of the surface is- open, grass, and the bush; lftiids scattered about are not, as in New Zealand, impenetrable, but allow waggons to pick their way through, Moreover, none ot the numerous streams' which, intersect t it are of any size, all being easily crossed at numerous points of their-, short course. Ths coast lands are tropical in their climate, and are mostly covered with bush, in which the mimosa and euphorbia families take a conspicuous place. Numerous lagunes are scattered about, swarming with hippopotami and alligators. Until quite recently these lands were alive with elephants and other lairge game, but the hunters have played sad havop,with them, and very few of the former, now remain. The coast lands are well adapted for sugar, coffee, tobacco, arrowroot, and other tropical produce. Further inland is open grass, varied with expanses of mimosa bush, and here tobacco, cotton,,and maize flourish in a surprising mariner, and cattle and goats find congenial homes, while many large varieties of bucks-roam about the unfrequented districts. Still further in the surface is broken into a succession of rounded lines, all covered with the sweetest and.most luxurious of grasses. The round beehive huts of the natives swarm! under every hill side, and along every stream, and immense herds of cattle, numbering thousands to the herd, meet the eye of the traveller wherever he goes. In the ravines and " kloofs " of these uplands, clumps and patches of sombre looking ,bush take the place of the grasses, and will be found to contain immense timber trees, chiefly of the yellow wood tree of the teak family, together % with other large, forest trees. The climate of Zulu land is, in the interior, extremely pleasant and' salubrious, illness being little known save on the coast, where..;the. lagunes and rank vegetation arising from them render it in summer extremely unhealthy. In addition to the wealth of the natives in cattle —and-inihat-xespectthey are the richest of all-A^ican'tribes-^-and'the value of the country for the growth of tropical produce, its natural resources are otherwise very great. The writer has found gold in several places, and coal, iron, and copper abound, but only of the iron do the natives make any .use, and that simply to make their assegais or spears.- The Zulus have been estimated at various numbers, from one to five millions, four millions being probably somewhere near the mark, and can put into the field certainly as many as a hundred thousand fine young warriors, who are all drilled soldiers, divided into regiments of about five thousand each, and officered by chiefs of different grades in European style. A large proportion of these warriors have guns, the use bf which they fully underderstand, being born sportsmen, with a natural instinct for destruction. Of ammunition they have large stores, and, given the material, many are able to manufacture powder, the art having been taught them by renegade Europeans. The writer, however, is not aware ot the existence of any sulphur in the country, nor of lead, though it is common in one district of the adjoining Transvaal. Those not hgVfeg guns carry a number of assegais, beautifully made of native iron, with taper handles of iron wood. These they throw with marvellous precision up to seventy yards. Differing from all other African tribes, they also carry shorthandled long-bladed assegais, for hand-to-hand fighting, the blades of which are more than two feet long, by about three inches in width at the widest part, and are double-edged, truly desperate looking weapons. In addition to these, they all carry a knobkerrie, or short stick of bard heavy wood, having a round knob, the size of a very large orange^at the end ; these they either use as cl»s or throw them as tomahawks, and do so with dexterity enough to bring down a partridge on the wing. They also carry large light shields of buffalo or bullock hide, of sufficient size to cover the entire person. In person they are tall, and magnificently made, with physiques unexcelled by any race of people in the world. They are also handsome in countenance — some exceedingly so, though, in common with all negro tribes, they have rather thick lips. Their activity and powers of endurance are simply marvellous, and they will carry on their heads weights up to eighty pounds all day, and day after day. They are not, however, fond of work, leaving all the field labour to the women, nor can they stand cold. In intelligence they take a very high place amongst races who have not as yet been " improved " by the operations of civilization; in fact, it would not be too much to say, the highest. They are all born orators, and besides being actors and mimics can sustain a speech iv a natural flow of the most flowery and poetical language for hours together.