Africa, and two years after in a short conflict with the
Boers, or Dutch farmers, in the Transvaal; and in both of these wars a
Naval Brigade took part. From this time onward, South Africa has held a
position of increasing importance in our colonial history, and is likely
to continue to do so for many years to come; it will be well therefore
before considering the wars referred to, to give a general view of the
position of the British, the Dutch, and the Zulu at the date of their
commencement.

Cape Colony was originally founded by the Dutch about the middle of the
seventeenth century; it was seized by Great Britain during the wars with
France in 1806, and finally annexed to the British Empire by virtue of
the Treaty of Vienna in 1815.

A great proportion of the colonists, and especially of the farmers in
the districts farthest from the coast and from civilisation, did not
take kindly to British rule; and in 1835 and succeeding years a great
number crossed the Orange River--at that time the boundary of the colony
on the north--with the intention of setting up independent Dutch
communities. To this movement, known as the Great Trek, the occupation
by the Dutch Boers (i.e. farmers) of the territories, since known as the
Orange Free State and the Transvaal, or South African Republic, is due.

At that time the limits of the British colony were, on the north, the
Orange River; and, on the east, the Fish River. Beyond this, on the
east, was territory occupied by hostile Kaffir tribes, afterwards called
British Kaffraria, and now annexed to Cape Colony, and still farther to
the east of these lay the fertile land of Natal.

A large section of the trekking Boers, after passing the Orange and
going north, crossed the mountains, and descended upon Natal. There
were a few English hunters and traders settled upon the coast, but the
country had been depopulated of its original inhabitants by a ferocious
and warlike race of superior physique, whom we call the Zulu. These had
been trained to a high state of military and athletic perfection by a
succession of sanguinary chiefs, and had broken and massacred every
tribe with whom they had come in contact, so that in this district of
Natal alone it is computed that over a million had perished, and but
five or six thousand of the original inhabitants remained lurking in
caverns and amid the dense bush.

The first leader of the Boers, Retief, and some 70 persons, were
treacherousl