ndeed such an element as chance in the graver
affairs of man--that a Zulu conqueror had swept over this land and left
it untenanted, save by the dwarf bushmen, the hideous aborigines,
lowest of the human race. There were fine grazing and good soil for
the emigrants. They traveled in small detached parties, but their total
numbers were considerable, from six to ten thousand according to their
historian, or nearly a quarter of the whole population of the colony.
Some of the early bands perished miserably. A large number made a
trysting-place at a high peak to the east of Bloemfontein in what was
lately the Orange Free State. One party of the emigrants was cut off
by the formidable Matabeli, a branch of the great Zulu nation. The
survivors declared war upon them, and showed in this, their first
campaign, the extraordinary ingenuity in adapting their tactics to their
adversary which has been their greatest military characteristic. The
commando which rode out to do battle with the Matabeli numbered, it is
said, a hundred and thirty-five farmers. Their adversaries were twelve
thousand spearmen. They met at the Marico River, near Mafeking. The
Boers combined the use of their horses and of their rifles so cleverly
that they slaughtered a third of their antagonists without any loss to
themselves. Their tactics were to gallop up within range of the enemy,
to fire a volley, and then to ride away again before the spearmen could
reach them. When the savages pursued the Boers fled. When the pursuit
halted the Boers halted and the rifle fire began anew. The strategy was
simple but most effective. When one remembers how often since then our
own horsemen have been pitted against savages in all parts of the world,
one deplores that ignorance of all military traditions save our own
which is characteristic of our service.

This victory of the 'voortrekkers' cleared all the country between the
Orange River and the Limpopo, the sites of what has been known as the
Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In the meantime another body of
the emigrants had descended into what is now known as Natal, and had
defeated Dingaan, the great Chief of the Zulus. Being unable, owing to
the presence of their families, to employ the cavalry tactics which had
been so effective against the Matabeli, they again used their ingenuity
to meet this new situation, and received the Zulu warriors in a square
of laagered wagons, the men firing while the women loaded. Six b