march
and onslaught upon the main division of Umsilikazi. The attack was so
well timed and aimed that the array of fierce impis was shattered and
their chief was driven in flight to the wilderness beyond the Limpopo.
There, in the present Mata-beleland, Umsilikazi brought together the
remnants of his people, and ruled in awe of the pioneers until his
death in 1870.
Hard
upon the defeat of Umsilikazi came the greater clash with Dingaan, when
the trekking Boers crossed the Dra-kensberg or Dragon Mountains to the
terraces of Natal. This cunning and tricky chief made smooth
professions of friendship to the Boers at first. He welcomed as allies
the company headed by Pieter Retief and received the commander at his
kraal. The chief's house was a spherical hut about twenty feet in
diameter. Its floor was polished till it shone like a mirror, and its
roof was supported by twenty-two pillars of wood completely covered
with beads. Around this house were seventeen hundred ruder huts which
Dingaan used as barracks for his impis, and each hut would cover twenty
men.
After
some parleying Dingaan signed a cession of the greater part of the
present territory of Natal to the Boers. To celebrate the compact he
invited Retief to visit him again with his companions. It was agreed as
an exhibit of good faith that no arms should be taken into the chiefs
kraal. So Retief and some sixty other Boers, with forty Hottentot
attendants, piled their arms outside the kraal, and came in before
Dingaan, who was sitting in an arm-chair in front of his hut. Two of
his impis were formed in a circle about him. The Boers took their seats
on the ground within the circle, and cups of utywala or
