ed only by their wives and children and
Kaffir servants, or rather slaves; and thus the Transvaal Boer, to whom
alone we ought to apply the name, became more sullen, obstinate,
bigoted, and ignorant than his cousins farther south.

Very little good could such people, with few exceptions little above the
average of an English farm-labourer, do with independence. Many years
were wasted in quarrelling and even fighting among themselves, every
leader of a district with a few scattered farms claiming independence,
before all were united under one government. There was constant war
with natives on the border, no means of collecting taxes or providing
for public works, and by the year 1877 it seemed as though the State
must collapse and the Transvaal be overrun by its enemies. The Boers
were defeated by Sekukuni, chief of the Bapedi; they had an open dispute
with Cetewayo about territory which they had annexed from his country,
and he was preparing for war; the tribes in the north had driven back
the farmers; the State was bankrupt, and all was confusion. The more
settled members of the community in the towns called for firm
government, but the president had no power at his back to enforce it.

Such a state of things encouraged a general native rising, and was a
menace to the safety of all the whites in South Africa. The Cape
Government watched the situation with anxiety, and at length the British
Government intervened, and on 12th April 1877 proclaimed the Transvaal
to be annexed to the British dominions.

At the time it was believed that the majority of the burghers were in
favour of this step, which met with no serious opposition. Subsequent
events, however, proved that this belief was not well founded. It is,
however, tolerably certain that it saved the Transvaal an attack from
the thirty or forty thousand Zulus collected by Cetewayo on its
frontier.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE ZULU WAR.

Cetewayo had for many years been training a large army of warriors, and
had intended, unquestionably, to use them for an attack upon his
neighbours the Boers of the Transvaal, who, indeed, had given him more
than sufficient cause, by constantly violating the frontier, squatting
upon Zulu territory, and committing raids upon Zulu cattle. Upon our
taking over the Transvaal, however, the prospect of great plunder and
acquisition of territory vanished, and the king and his warriors
remained in a state of extreme discontent.