authority which he understands,—it is necessary to reduce him to obedience at almost any cost. There are three hundred and twenty thousand Natives in Natal, with hundreds of thousands over the borders on each side of the little Colony, and it is essential that all these should believe Great Britain to be indomitable. If Langalibalele had been allowed to be successful in his controversy every Native in and around Natal would have known it;—and in knowing it every Native would have believed that Great Britain had been so far conquered. It was therefore quite essential that Langalibalele should be made to come. And he did more than refuse to obey the order. A messenger who was sent for him,—a native messenger,—was insulted by him. The man's clothes were stripped from him,—or at any rate the official great coat with which he had been invested and which probably formed the substantial part of his raiment. It has been the peculiarity of this case that whole books have been written about its smallest incidents. The Langalibalele literature hitherto written,—which is not I fear as yet completed,—would form a small library. This stripping of the great coat, or jazy[1] as it is called,—the word ijazi having been established as good Zulu for such an article,—has become a celebrated incident. Langalibalele afterwards pleaded that he suspected that weapons had been concealed, and that he had therefore searched the Queen's messenger. And he
- ↑ I have seen it asserted that this word comes from "jersey"—a flannel under shirt; but I seem to remember the very sound as signifying an old great coat in Ireland, and think that it was so used long before the word "jersey" was introduced into our language.
