se words:--

"I heard that the Boers were not treating him (Sompseu) properly, and
that they intended to put him in a corner. If they had done so I should
not have waited for anything more. _Had but one shot been fired_,
I should have said, 'What more do I wait for? they have touched my
father.' I should have poured my men over the land, and I can tell you,
son of Mr. Fynney, the land would have burned with fire." This will show
how eagerly Cetywayo was searching for an excuse to commence his attack
on the Transvaal. When the hope of finding a pretext in the supposed
firing at Sir T. Shepstone or any incident of a similar nature faded
away, he appears to have determined to carry out his plans without
any immediate pretext, and to make a _casus belli_ of his previous
differences with the Government of the Republic. Accordingly he massed
his impis (army corps) at different points along the Transvaal border,
where they awaited the signal to advance and sweep the country.
Information of Cetywayo's doings and of his secret plans reached
Pretoria shortly before the Annexation, and confirmed the mind of the
Special Commissioner as to the absolute necessity of that measure to
save the citizens of the Republic from coming to a violent end,
and South Africa from being plunged into a native war of unexampled
magnitude. The day before the Annexation took place, when it was quite
certain that it would take place, a message was sent to Cetywayo by Sir
T. Shepstone telling him of what was about to happen, and telling
him too in the sternest and most straightforward language, that the
Transvaal had become the Queen's land like Natal, and that he must no
more think of attacking it than he would of attacking Natal. Cetywayo
on receiving the message at once disbanded his armies and sent them
to their kraals. "Kabuna," he said to the messenger, "my impis were
gathered; now at my father's (Sir T. Shepstone's) bidding I send them
back to their homes."

This fact, namely, that at the bidding of his old mentor Sir T.
Shepstone, Cetywayo abandoned his long-cherished plans, and his
undoubted opportunity of paying off old scores with the Boers in a most
effectual manner, and gave up a policy that had so many charms for him,
must be held by every unprejudiced man to speak volumes in his favour.
It must be remembered that it was not merely to oblige his "father
Sompseu" that he did this, but to meet the wishes of the English
Government, and the a