volunteers, and
Swazi allies, and took it with great slaughter. The losses on our side
were not very heavy, so far as white men were concerned, but the Swazies
are reported to have lost 400 killed and 500 wounded.

The struggle was, during the long period preceding the final attack,
carried on with great courage and ability by Major Clarke, R.A., C.M.G.,
whose force, at the best of times, only consisted of 200 volunteers and
100 Zulus. With this small body of men he contrived, however, to keep
Secocoeni in check, and to take some important strongholds. It was
marked also by some striking acts of individual bravery, of which one,
performed by Major Clarke himself, whose reputation for cool courage and
presence of mind in danger is unsurpassed in South Africa, is worthy of
notice; and which, had public attention been more concentrated on the
Secocoeni war, would doubtless have won him the Victoria Cross. On one
occasion, on visiting one of the outlying forts, he found that a party
of hostile natives, who were coming down to the fort on the previous day
with a flag of truce, had been accidentally fired upon, and had at once
retreated. As his system in native warfare was always to try and inspire
his enemy with perfect faith in the honour of Englishmen, and their
contempt of all tricks and treachery even towards a foe, he was very
angry at this occurrence, and at once, unarmed and unattended save by
his native servant, rode up into the mountains to the kraal from which
the white flag party had come on the previous day, and apologised to
the Chief for what had happened. When I consider how very anxious
Secocoeni's natives were to kill or capture Clarke, whom they held in
great dread, and how terrible the end of so great a captain would in
all probability have been had he taken alive by these masters of refined
torture, I confess that I think this act of gentlemanly courage is one
of the most astonishing things I ever heard of. When he rode up those
hills he must have known that he was probably going to meet his death at
the hands of justly incensed savages. When Secocoeni heard of what Major
Clarke had done he was so pleased that he shortly afterwards released
a volunteer whom he had taken prisoner, and who would otherwise, in all
probability, have been tortured to death. I must add that Major Clarke
himself never reported to or alluded to this incident, but an account of
it can be found in a despatch written by Sir O. Lanyon