readier access than they had expected into Natal. It had not recovered
from the devastations of Chaka and was thinly inhabited. Settlements
were made near the banks of the Tugela, while Piet Retief, after a brief
visit to Durban, went on to negotiate with Dingaan at the royal kraal of
Umgungundhlovu in Zululand. He was received with some cordiality, but
accused of participating in a recent cattle raid. Retief, to show his
good faith, offered to catch the robber, a chief named Sikunyela, whose
kraal was a hundred miles away. He found Sikunyela, who greatly admired
the glistening rings of a pair of handcuffs shown him by the slim
Dutchman, and who was even persuaded that they would be a becoming
ornament to a native chief. He tried them on, but a more intimate
acquaintance with the use of handcuffs induced him to surrender the
cattle he had stolen from Dingaan, the King of the Zulus.

Again Retief with a hundred followers waited upon Dingaan at
Umgungundhlovu, and after military displays on each side received from
him a grant of the same land which Chaka had already given to the
British pioneers of Durban. Next day the Boers were received in farewell
audience by Dingaan, by whose orders they were treacherously surrounded
and led out to the place of execution, a hill of mimosas outside the
royal kraal, where they were put to death.

There remained the defenceless plantations on the Tugela. Before the
news of the massacre could reach them, and while they were hourly
expecting the return of Retief, Dingaan's impis swooped down upon them
from Zululand. At the cost of the lives of 600 men, women, and children,
the tribes were driven back, and the little town of Weenen, the "place
of weeping," remains to mark the spot.

Soon other parties of emigrants came in from beyond the Drakensberg, and