OCR Rendition - approximate

332 SIR H. 13. FRrRE.-On the Laws affecting the much anterior to the appearance of Chaka, as founder of the Zulu power, say seventy years ago, when the regions now known as Zululand and Natal were the abode of a simple, peaceful, primitive people, living a pastoral life, in small tribes, under independant chiefs, seldom going to war, and when they did quarrel, settling their disputes by a formal fight in battle array, which decided the question of relative supremacy, without leading to prolonged hostilities or disturbing the generally neighbourly relations of the clans engaged. The picture is a pleasing one, but not consistent with known and undoubted facts, and I fear must to a great extent be classed with the poetical histories of a golden age in other parts of the world. There can, be no doubt that, eighty years ago, the country in question was very sparsely inhabited by small tribes, which were slowly moving southward and eastward, along the coast regions, between the sea and the great ranges of which the Drakensberg is the best known, and that the country was full of elephants and other large game to an extent incompatible with the presence of numerous or strong tribes. There seems no reason to doubt the story of the origin of the Zulu power-that a petty chief and fugitive from his own country, passed some years in the frontier provinces of the Cape Colony, and there learnt something of European discipline, which he carried back with him to his own country, and used to subdue neighbouring tribes, establishing something like a kingdom. He left, however, each tribe as it was subjected, under the rule of its own chiefs and headmen, a humane mistake, as it seemed to his successors, leading to a conspiracy against him, and to his own assassination. His favourite lieutenant, Chaka, resolved to correct this mistake, and introduced the custom of assimilating each conquered clan, and absorbing it into the conqueror's own tribe of Zulus. This was effected by slaying or putting to flight all adult males who were likely to be incorrigible upholders of their own tribal rights, and the absorption of the younger males and females into the ranks of the victors. This -policy was consistently followed, with some variations of energy and success, by Chaka and his successors, Dingaan, Panda, and Cetywayo. It was effectual in welding all the conquered people into one nation, though the assimilation and extinction of separate rights was more perfect in the case of some tribes than of others. As a rule the centralization of authority, the destruction of separate tribal influence and of the power of the tribal chiefs, was very complete. The fighting men were organised in regiments instead of tribes. Each regiment was made to consist of a mixture of various tribes, the warriors being chosen rather for equality of age than for