knowing
little of what passes in the land of Life, what the Zulus desire
to do. Before me sits the Great Council of the Nation. Let it
speak."

Then one by one the members of the Council uttered their opinions
in order of rank or seniority. I do not remember the names of
all who were present, or what each of them said. I recall,
however, that Sigananda, a very old chief--he must have been over
ninety--spoke the first. He told them that he had been friend of
Chaka and one of his captains, and had fought in most of his
battles. That afterwards he had been a general of Dingaan's
until that king killed the Boers under Retief, when he left him
and finally sided with Panda in the civil war in which Dingaan
was killed with the help of the Boers. That he had been present
at the battle of the Tugela, though he took no actual part in the
fighting, and afterwards became a councillor of Panda's and then
of Cetewayo his son. It was a long and interesting historical
recital covering the whole period of the Zulu monarchy which
ended suddenly with these words--

"I have noted, O King and Councillors, that whenever the black
vulture of the Zulus was content to attack birds of his own
feather, he has conquered. But when it has met the grey eagles
of the white men, which come from over the sea, he has been
conquered, and my heart tells me that as it was in the past, so
it shall be in the future. Chaka was a friend of the English, so
was Panda, and so has Cetewayo been until this hour. I say,
therefore, let not the King tear the hand which fed him because
it seems weak, lest it should grow strong and clutch him by the
throat and choke him."

Next spoke Undabuko, Dabulamanzi and Magwenga, brothers of the
king, who all favoured war, though the two last were guarded in
their speech. After these came Uhamu, the king's uncle--he who
was said to be the son of a Spirit--who was strong for peace,
urging that the king should submit to the demands of the English,
making the best terms he could, that he "should bend like a reed
before the storm, so that after the storm had swept by, he might
stand up straight again, and with him all the other reeds of the
people of the Zulus."

So, too, said Seketwayo, chief of the Umdhlalosi, and more whom I
cannot recall, six or seven of them. But Usibebu and the induna
Untshingwayo, who afterwards commanded at Isandhlwana, were for
fighting, as were Sirayo, the husband of the two women who had