Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 1).djvu/326

This page needs to be proofread.

the murders he had had nothing to do with them. There was a certain difficulty in ruling his subjects, and there would be bad men and violent men in his kingdom,—as in others. Two converts and two only had been murdered and he was very sorry for it. As for making his people Christians he thought it would be just as well that the missionaries should make the soldiers in Pieter Maritzburg Christians before they came to try their hand upon the Zulus.

I own I thought that the highly polished black traveller who was sitting before me must have heard the last little sarcasm among his white friends in Natal and had put the sharp words into the King's mouth for effect. "I think," said my fair friend, "that Cetywayo had us there," intending in her turn to express an opinion that the poor British soldier who makes his way out to the Colony is not always all that he should be. I would not stop to explain that the civilization of the white and black men may go on together, and that Cetywayo need not remain a Savage because a soldier is fond of his beer.

Such was the gist of the diary,—which might probably be worth publishing as shewing something of the manners of the Zulus, and something also of the feeling of these people towards the English. Zulu-land is one of the problems which have next to be answered. Let my reader look at his map. Natal is a British Colony;—so is now the Transvaal. The territory which he will see marked as Basuto Land has been annexed to the Cape Colony. Kafraria, which still nominally belongs to the natives, is almost annexed. The Kafrarian problem will soon be solved in spite of Kreli. But