pool of blood," and the stream thenceforward was known as Blood River.1 Three thousand six hundred Zulus were left dead
on the field, and this decisive victory was gained without the loss of
a single life to the Boers. A few were slightly wounded, but they
thought nothing of their hurts in the common thanksgiving.
This signal triumph and salvation were humbly taken as the answer of God to their prayers, and the vow before the battle
was
faithfully fulfilled, as the old Dutch Reformed Church of Pieter
Maritzburg, the mother church of Southeast Africa, bears witness. The
flying Zulus were pursued and the kraal of Dingaan captured,February
3d, 1839, where the bodies of Retief and his companions were found and
mournfully buried in one grave. The Boers called the place Weenan, the
weeping, and so it is known to this day.
Dingaan
fled north and hid himself in a concealed kraal which he built. A Boer
writer tells a story of his capture and death with grim delight. Many
of the tribes which had been pressed in with the Zulus made peace with
the Boers. One of the Swazi chiefs, Sapusa, who had bowed to the
tyranny of Dingaan, found his late master's hiding-place. " On the
first day old Sapusa pricked his captive with sharp assagais, not
