id out
and named Pietermaritzberg, and at the Bay of Natal another town was
formed, now called D'Urban. _Landdrosts_ were appointed at both places,
and a regular system of government was established, and the Dutch
emigrants were under the impression that they would peaceably possess
the land for which they and their relatives had suffered so much; but
this was not yet to be. The intelligence of the scenes of bloodshed
which had been going on between the emigrants, who were still considered
British subjects, and the Zulus, had reached the English government at
Cape Town, which, justly claiming the district of Natal as a portion of
South Africa belonging to England, despatched a party of troops to
occupy the district, and to endeavour to put a stop to these scenes of
bloodshed. Very serious results might have occurred between the British
troops and the Boers, had not the officer in command acted with
considerable judgment, he having received orders to seize the arms and
gunpowder of the emigrants, in order to stop their slaughter of the
Zulus. As it was, however, the English and Dutch maintained friendly
intercourse until the winter of 1839, when the British troops were
withdrawn, and the emigrants left for a time in undisturbed possession
of Natal. The Zulu chief Dingaan gradually recovered his defeat, and
recruited his army; but being bent on the destruction of the emigrants,
he proceeded cunningly to discover what they were doing. In order to
throw them off their guard, he sent to them above three hundred horses
which he had captured from them, and promised to return cattle and guns,
desiring to make terms with them. The emigrants replied that when he
had returned the whole of the cattle he had taken, and had made
restitution for the losses he had occasioned them, they would make peace
with him, but not before. The crafty Zulu promised to do this, and
therefore employed ambassadors to visit the emigrants occasionally, in
order to convey messages backwards and forwards, these ambassadors being
actually used as spies, in order to discover whether the emigrants
continued together in force, or whether they were scattered, and thus
offered a chance of success should an attack be made on them. This
treacherous proceeding having been discovered by the emigrants, they
dared not yet settle down, and they were in uncertainty what to do, when
a singular event occurred in connexion with the native politics.

Dingaan had b