Returning home and regaining
his throne, he began to organise and drill his warriors, who before that
time had fought without order or discipline, like other savages. His
favourite officer was Tshaka, a young chief, also exiled, who belonged
to the then small tribe of Zulus. On the death of Dingiswayo, Tshaka was
chosen its chief by the army, and the tribes that had obeyed Dingiswayo
were thenceforward known under the name of Zulus. Tshaka, who united to
his intellectual gifts a boundless ambition and a ruthless will, further
improved the military system of his master, and armed his soldiers with
a new weapon, a short, broad-bladed spear, fit for stabbing at close
quarters, instead of the old light javelin which had been theretofore
used. He formed them into regiments, and drilled them to such a
perfection of courage that no enemy could withstand their rush, and the
defeated force, except such as could escape by fleetness of foot, was
slaughtered on the spot. Quarter had never been given in native wars,
but the trained valour of the Zulus, and their habit of immediately
engaging the enemy hand to hand, not only gave them an advantage like
that which suddenly made the Spartan infantry superior to all their
neighbours, but rendered their victories far more sanguinary than native
battles had previously been Tshaka rapidly subjected or blotted out the
clans that lived near, except the Swazis, a kindred tribe whose
difficult country gave them some protection. He devastated all the
region round that of his own subjects, while the flight before his
warriors of the weaker tribes, each of which fell upon its neighbours
with the assagai, caused widespread slaughter and ruin all over
South-east Africa. Natal became almost a desert, and of the survivors
who escaped into the mountains, many took to human flesh for want of
other food. To the north of the Vaal River a section of the Zulu army,
which had revolted under its general, Mosilikatze, carried slaughter and
destruction through the surrounding country for hundreds of miles, till
it was itself chased away beyond the Limpopo by the emigrant Boers, as
will be related in the following chapter.

To trace the history of these various native wars would occupy far more
space than I can spare. I will sum up their general results.

A new and powerful kingdom, far stronger than any other native monarchy
we know to have existed before or since, was formed by the Zulus. It
remained powerf