ensberg Mountains into Natal, under the leadership of
Piet Retief. The land of Natal was at that time practically unpopulated.
Chaka and his warriors had swept the country clean of its native
inhabitants, so Dingaan considered it within his sphere of influence. The
Boers accordingly made overtures to Dingaan, Chaka's successor, who resided
at his kraal on the White Umvolosi, a hundred miles distant in Zululand,
for the right to trek into this country. This was granted after the Boers
had undertaken to restore some cattle of the Zulus stolen by the Basutos. A
thousand prairie wagons containing Boer families trekked over the
Drakensberg into Natal, and scattered over the unpeopled country along the
banks of the Upper Tugela and Mooi Rivers. Piet Retief, with sixty-five
followers, went to visit Dingaan in his kraal. They were made welcome. A
solemn treaty of peace and friendship was drawn up by one Owens, an English
missionary with the Zulus. During a feast, the Boers, disarmed and wholly
unprepared for an attack, were suddenly seized and massacred to a man. Then
the Zulus, numbering some ten thousand warriors, swept out into the veldt
to attack the Boer settlements. Near Colenso, at a spot called Weenen
(weeping), in remembrance of the tragedy there enacted, the Zulus
overwhelmed the largest of the Boer laagers, and slaughtered all its
inmates--41 men, 56 women, 185 children and 250 Kaffir slaves. In spite of
this and other battles the Boers held their ground.

[Sidenote: South Australia settled]

[Sidenote: British seize Aden]

The Englishmen likewise extended their colonial conquests. The unsettled
Bushland of South Australia was colonized by Captain Hindmarsh and his
followers. They founded the city of Adelaide, named after the consort of
William IV. A wrecked British ship having been plundered by Arabs, the
Sultan of Aden, under a threat of British retaliation, was made to cede
Aden to Great Britain. New claims for territory were preferred by Great
Britain against the Republic of Honduras, in Central America.

[Sidenote: Mexican independence acknowledged]

[Sidenote: Defence of the Alamo]

[Sidenote: Joaquin Miller's lines]

The neighboring republic of Mexico, under the dictatorship of Santa Anna,
at last succeeded in having its independence formally acknowledged by
Spain. On March 6, Santa Anna, having raised a new force of 8,000 men,
marched on Fort Alamo, which had been left in charge of a small garrison of