er. Indeed, when Sir T. Shepstone discovered what was
going on, he suffered great anxiety lest some catastrophe should
occur before he was in a position to prevent it. Nothing short of
the Annexation could have saved the Transvaal at that moment, and the
conduct of the Boers after the danger had been taken on to the
shoulders of the Imperial Government is a startling instance of national
ingratitude.

Here again the Zulu king was brought face to face with the ubiquitous
British Government, and that too at a particularly aggravating moment.
He was about to commence his attack when he was met with a polite,
"Hands off; this is British territory." No wonder that we find him in
despair renewing his prayer that Sompseu will allow him to make "one
little raid only, one small swoop," and saying that "it is the custom
of our country, when a new king is placed over the nation, to wash
their spears, and it has been done in the case of all former kings of
Zululand. I am no king, but sit in a heap. I cannot be a king till I
have washed my assegais." All of which is doubtless very savage and
very wrong, but such is the depravity of human nature, that there is
something taking about it for all that.

It was at this period of the history of South Africa that many people
think we made our crowning mistake. We annexed the Transvaal, say they,
six months too soon. As things have turned out, it would have been wiser
to have left Zulus and Transvaal Boers to try conclusions, and done
our best to guard our own frontiers. There is no doubt that such a
consummation of affairs would have cleared the political atmosphere
wonderfully; the Zulus would have got enough fighting to last them some
time, and the remainder of the Boers would have entreated our protection
and become contented British subjects; there would have been no
Isandhlwana and no Majuba Hill. But to these I say who could foresee the
future, and who, in the then state of kindly feeling towards the Boers,
could wish to leave them, and all the English mixed up with them, to
undergo, unprepared as they were, the terrible experience of a Zulu
invasion? Besides, what guarantee was there that the slaughter would
stop in the Transvaal, or that the combat would not have developed into
a war of races throughout South Africa? Even looking at the matter in
the light of after events, it is difficult to regret that humanity
was on this occasion allowed to take precedence of a more cold-bloode