Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/250

 192 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. scene of almost uninterrupted wars and maaeacres since the rise of the Zulu military power early in the present century. The Zulus. The Ama-Zulus, or " People of Zulu," that is of the " Heavenly," do not pre- sent a physical tj-pe distinct from that of the other Kafir nations in the south-east corner of the continent. They are in fact not a separate race, but an amalgam of all the surrounding tribes that were successively " eaten up " when the original Zulu group began its career of conquest under Chaka, about the beginning of the century. The communities thus devoured by the " Great Lion " were never com- pletely exterminated, the women and children being usiially reserved for the conquering nation, while the young men were enrolled in the victorious army. The primitive tribes were doomed to disappear all the more rapidly in the multitude of the conquered that Chaka had forbidden his warriors to marry. The veterans alone were permitted to take wives, the number being proportioned to that of the enemy slain by them in battle. To stifle the growth of the human affections that might have enervated or incapacitated them for their work of ruthless destruction, Chaka ordered all new-born babes to be slaughtered. In order to set an example, he himself celebrated no marriages according to the ancient usages, and caused all his children to be put to death at their birth. As a jealous monarch he looked upon every son born to him as a possible future rival, and preferred to cut him off betimes. This atrocious ruler, drilling the whole nation like a perfect engine of war, had sacrificed all other interests of the State to the insatiable thirst of conquest. The capital was nothing but a military camp, while similar camps were distributed throughout the whole land. In the villages grouped round the kraals of the warriors, the women and slaves stored provisions for the army, which was fed exclusively on a meat diet, milk, the food of the peaceful, being interdicted. The Zulus, formidable especially for their manner of attack, had abandoned the dart, which is hurled at a distance, retaining only the assegai or hand-spear, with which to strike at close quarters. Nor were their irregular hordes any longer flung in disorder against the enemy, but the well-trained troops were so disposed as gradu- ally to envelope the opposing forces, attacking first on one flank then on another, and thus step by step driving them in on the central body, by which they were then overwhelmed. After the victory all attention was turned to the capture of the cattle, which had been driven to a distance from the battlefield, and it was characteristic of the thoroughness of the system that the very herds were trained to sudden retreat in disciplined order. But such a purely military organisation necessarily tended to involve the whole nation in ruin. Founded by the sword, the Zulu empire perished by the sword. After breaking like angry waves against the outspanned waggons encircling the Boer encampments, the Zulu .bands could no longer hope to exterminate the white intruders, and so turned in fierce internecine warfare one against the other. And