tiful harbour where the city of Durban
now stands, but his stay there was brief,
as the object of his voyage was the dis-
covery of a sea route to India. From that
date different explorers visited the harbour
of Natal, but no attempt at settlement
was made until 1824, when King and Fare-
well, two British naval lieutenants landed
and visited the Zulu King Chaka and ob-
tained from him a grant of 100 square
square miles of land.

The Zulus were the strongest tribe in
South Africa, and their territory lay north
of Natal, and so fierce was Chaka’s army
that no other tribes could successfully op-
pose him. His ruthless warfare during his
reign depopulated Natal of some two
million natives. It is hard to realize that
this country, so pleasing to the eye, has
been the scene of some of the bloodiest con-
flicts known to history, for the Zulus gave
no quarter in war and expected none.

When in 1836 the Cape Boers started
their trek northward to get away from
British rule, a party of them led by Pieter
Retief, crossed the Drakensberg mountains
into Natal. There they saw a land suitable
for white men to thrive in, with green
pastures and meadows, plenty of wood
and water and rich soil. When these pio-
neers arrived the country was almost de-
populated, for the Zulus had killed or
driven off nearly all its inhabitants. At
this time Chaka’s power had passed to his
brother, Dingaan, who had conspired with
other chieftains to murder him. Dingaan
was just as bloodthirsty a tryrant as Chaka,
but he received Retief and his party with
a show of friendship and told the Boer
leader he might settle in the country on
condition of first recovering a herd of
cattle that a neighbouring chief had stolen
from him. These terms were accepted,
and the Boers recovered the cattle and
brought them to Dingaan, while others of
the party spread out over the rolling pas
ture lands and selected home sites without
any fear of danger.

EMIGRANTS MASSACRED

Retief with 65 of his men and a party
of Hottentot camp followers went to Din-
gaan’s kraal (a) with the cattle. The Zulu
king made his mark upon a document
giving a large tract of land to the Boer
emigrants, but his heart was full of treach-
ery towards them, and when they were
ready to return to their friends he bade
his warriors put them to death without
warning. They were all murdered in cold
blood; then he sent his army to destroy
their friends and families in Natal. A
few days after the murder of Retief and
his party the savage Zulu warriors fell
upon the emigrants near the Tugela River
and murdered men, women and children
alike. The whole body of Boers would have
met the same fate if a young lad had not
sprung upon an unsaddled horse and ridden
away to warn the families further on.
These, in great haste drew their wagons
into lagers and defended themselves against

(a) Native village.
WINTER EDITION

attack, and though great numbers of Zulus
fell attempting to force the lagers, not one
of them was taken. Then the savages with-
drew driving nearly all the emigrants’ cattle
away. When news of the massacre reached
the Boers of the Transvaal they at once set
out to aid their friends and were joined by
an army of Natal Kaffirs from the coast,
led by a few Britishers.

After suffering some defeats at the hands
of the Zulus, they were joined by Andreas
Pretorius with a strong commando and
Dingaan’s army was defeated in a battle
fought on December 16th, 1838. This day
is still observed in South Africa as one of
thanksgiving and is called ““Dingaan’s Day.”

A year later Umpande, a brother of
Dingaan, rebelled against him and joined
the Boers. Their united forces attacked

Dingaan’s army and destroyed it. He him-

Major-General Sir J. G. Dartnell, K.C.B., Com-
missioner Natal Mounted Police, 1874-1903.

self fled to Swaziland where he was murder-
ed shortly afterwards. Umpande now be-
came king of the Zulus, but agreed to keep
peace with the white men. There was no
longer an enemy close by to molest them,
so the Boers settled in the country, which
they called the Republic of Natal. Sixty
miles inland they built a town called Pieter-
maritzburg, where their governing council
met, but their government was very weak
and the people formed parties, which fre-
quently quarelled with each other. The
Cape Government, however, refused to
recognize the Republic of Natal and in-
formed the Boers that they were still British
subjects and when they refused to recog-
nize British rule the Governor of the Cape
dispatched troops to Natal to force them
to submit.

After some fighting between the British
soldiers and the Boers the latter gave up the
contest and in 1842 Natal became a British

possession. A few of the Boers remained,
but most of them packed their wagons and
with their flocks and herds crossed the
Drakensberg to join their countrymen in
the Transvaal.

Colonization of Natal was slow, but the
white settlers that took up land there were
of a superior type. Many were planters
from India, who took to growing such crops
as tea, coffee and sugar cane, which the
coast climate was favourable to. Large
numbers of coolies were brought from India
to work on these plantations, as the Kaffirs
would not take steady employment and
returned to their kraals as soon as they had
earned a few shillings.

FORMATION OF THE NATAL MOUNTED
POLICE

The Zulus kept peace with the whites
during Umpande’s reign, but when he died
in 1873 he was succeeded by his eldest son,
Cetshwayo, a man of fighting spirit, who
already had a large army of warriors at his
command. The Zulu menace and the rebel-
lion of a Natal Kafr chief named Langali-
balele led to the formation of the Natal
Mounted Police. This rebellion, though
soon quelled, clearly demonstrated the
necessity for a semi-military police force
and the Government announced its decision
to organize a fully equipped force in order
to check native insubordination in its earli-
est stages. The force could not be a police
force in the English sense of the word, as
conditions were so utterly dissimilar to
those in a fully civilized country. In 1874
there were but 17,000 whites, 30,000 East
Indians and more than half a million blacks,
spread over a vast area of country without
railroads, some parts of which were almost
inaccessible.

It was fortunate for the future history of
the force that Major (later General Sir
John) Dartnell, a fine hard soldier and an
Indian Mutiny veteran, was chosen to con-
trol its destiny. When he was selected to
raise and take charge of the Natal Mounted
Police he was leading the simple life of a
farmer in Natal, after a strenuous career
in the British Army in India, where he
fought through the Mutiny and received
five wounds in the attack on the fortress
of Jhansi.

At first Major Dartnell was sent to King
William’s Town in Cape Colony to study
the methods of the Frontier Armed Mount-
ed Police, later called the Cape Police, so
that he could model his own corps on similar
lines. The Frontier Armed Mounted Police
had been established many years and had
done good work, so Major Dartnell soon
returned to Natal and drew up a scheme for

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