nts had never been engaged during the day, the whole fighting
having been done by the irregulars.

In four hours from the time the fight began, the Afghan army was driven
from the position it had taken up, its camp and all its appurtenances
falling into our hands, as well as thirty-one guns and two Horse
Artillery guns, which had been captured at Maiwand. They had made
certain of victory, for not a tent was struck, nor a single mule-load of
baggage off.

This action, which completely crushed the force of Ayoub, concluded the
campaign.

The battle cost the lives of three officers--Lieutenant-Colonel
Brownlow, commanding 72nd Highlanders, Captain Frome, 72nd Highlanders,
and Captain Straton, 2nd battalion 22nd Foot. Eleven officers were
wounded, 46 men were killed and 202 wounded. The enemy's loss was about
1200 in killed alone. Their work was over; and as General Stewart, with
the army of Cabul, had retired from beyond the borders of Afghanistan on
the one side, so General Roberts, with his relieving force, fell back on
the other, and the Afghan Campaign came to a close.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE ZULU WAR--1879.

Towards the end of the year 1878, serious disputes arose between the
British authorities of Natal and Cetewayo, the King of the Zulus, a
savage monarch possessing a large army of warriors, composed of men
well-trained according to the savage idea of warfare, and possessed of
extreme bravery.

The ill-feeling had commenced at the time that the British took over the
Transvaal. Between the Boers and the Zulus great hostility prevailed,
the Boers constantly encroaching upon the Zulus' ground, driving off
cattle, and acting with extreme lawlessness. The Zulus had long been
preparing for retributive warfare; and as the Boers had proved
themselves shortly before unable to conquer Secoceni, a chief whose
power was as nothing in comparison with that of Cetewayo, the Zulus
deemed that they would have an easy conquest of the Transvaal. The
occupation of that country by the English baulked them of their expected
hopes of conquest and plunder, and a very sore feeling was engendered.
This was heightened by the interference of the English with the tribal
usages. Wholesale massacres had been of constant occurrence in
Zululand, the slightest opposition to the king's will being punished not
only by the death of the offender himself, but by the destruction of all
the villages of the tribe to which he belonged.