The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

iti2porrn .\xd east Africa.scene of almost iinintcrrup(cd wars and massacres since the rise of the Zulumilitary power early iu the present century.The Zui.rs.The Ama-Zulus, or " People of Zulu," that is of the " Ileavenlj'," do not presenta physical type distinct from that of the other Kafir nations in the south-eastcorner of the continent. They are in fact not a separate race, but an amalgamof all the surrounding tribes that were successively " eaten up " when the originalZulu group began its career of conquest under Chaka, about the beginning of thecentury. The communities thus devoured by the "Great Lion" were never completelyexterminated, the women and children being usually reserved for theconquering nation, while the young men were enrolled in the victorious army.The primitive tribes were doomed to disappear all the more rapidly in the multitudeof the conquered that Chaka had forbidden his warriors to marry. The veteransalone were permitted to take wives, the number being proportioned to that of theenemy slain by them in battle. To stifle the growth of the human affections thatmight have enervated or incapacitated them for their work of ruthless destruction,Chaka ordered all new-born babes to be slaughtered. In oi'der to set an example,he himself celebi'ated no marriages according to the ancient usages, and caused allhis children to be put to death at their birth. As a jealous monarch he lookedupon every son born to him as a possible fxiturc rival, and preferred to cut him offbetimes.This atrocious ruler, drilling the whole nation like a perfect engine of war,had sacrificed all other interests of the State to the insatiable thirst of conquest.The capital was nothing but a military camp, while .similar camps were distributedthroughout the whole land. In the villages grouped round the kraals of thewarriors, the women and slaves stored provisions for the arm}', which was fedexclusively on a meat diet, milk, the food of the peaceful, being interdicted. TheZulus, formidable especially for their manner of attack, had abandoned the dart,which is hurled at a distance, retaining only the assegai or hand-spear, with whiclito strike at close quarters. Kor were their irregular hordes any longer flung indisorder against the enemy, but the well-trained troops were so disposed as graduallyto envelope the opposing forces, attacking first on one flank then on another,and thus step by step driving them in on the central body, by which they werethen overwhelmed. After the victory all attention was turned to the capture ofthe cattle, which had been driven to a distance from the battlefield, and it wascharacteristic of the thoroughness of the system that the very- herds were trained tosudden retreat in disciplined order.But such a purely military organisation necessarily tended to involve the wholenation in ruin. Founded by the sword, the Zulu empire perished by the sword.After breaking like angry waves against the outspanned waggons encircling theBoer encampments, the Zulu bands could no longer hope to exterminate the whiteintruders, and so turned in fierce internecine warfare one against the other.And