res, who were brave as men
could be, it was fighting to the death; so that one of the two engaged
was sure to be assagied. Eondema was active as a cat, and managed to
wound his antagonist with his assagy; and then, closing with him,
finished him without difficulty. Only a few Zulus escaped, for when
they found their chief shot they fought desperately, and retreated only
when there were four to one against them.

After the fight I explained to Eondema how to use the gun that the Zulu
had carried. It was a gun with a flint and steel lock, and Eondema was
never tired of cocking it, pulling the trigger and seeing the sparks fly
from the flint. I remembered that in India I had seen fire produced by
means of tinder and brimstone matches. I could easily make the tinder,
but had no brimstone with which to make matches. As, however, to create
fire was a very long process with the Caffres, I thought of making some
matches out of a small bundle of dry grass, the end of which bundle I
rubbed over with wet gunpowder. As this gunpowder dried it stuck to the
grass. I then placed the gunpowder end of this large match in the pan
of the gun; and, on pulling the trigger, ignited it by the spark. I by
this means produced a fire instantaneously: which was considered by the
Caffres a wonderful discovery, and the gun was thought to be more useful
as a fire-producing machine than as a weapon.

After defeating this party of Zulus we held a great council of war to
talk about what should be done. We knew the character of the Zulus too
well to imagine they would wait long before they revenged themselves for
the defeat, of this expedition, which had evidently been sent by the
Great Chief of the Zulus to search for me. After considerable talking,
we came to the conclusion that it would take four days for the men who
had escaped to reach the kraal of the chief, two days more to plan an
expedition, and four days additional for the expedition to again reach
the locality that we were now in.

Eondema decided to move with his cattle and wives across the Umlass
river, and to seek the aid of Umnini, a chief who was related to him,
and who could bring a thousand men to fight.

These Caffres, however, did not like this kind of fighting--there was
nothing to gain by it. The style of fighting they liked was, when many
cattle could be captured, if an enemy were defeated. In the present
instance they would be fighting merely to defend themselves,