needed--unintentionally, perhaps. The Zulu menace, which Aylward so
lightly dismisses, was a very serious matter; the danger a very real
one. It has frequently been asserted by the Boers and their friends
that the Zulu trouble was fomented by a section of the Natal people,
and that Sir Theophilus Shepstone himself, if he did not openly
encourage the Zulu King in his threats and encroachments on the
Transvaal, at any rate refrained from using his unique influence and
power with the Zulus in the direction of peace, and that he made a
none too scrupulous use of the Zulu question when he forced the
annexation of the Transvaal. It is stated that, in the first place,
there was no real danger, and in the next place, if there were, such
was Sir Theophilus's power with the Zulus that he could have averted
it; and in support of the first point, and in demolition of Sir T.
Shepstone's pro-annexation arguments, the following extract from the
latter's despatches is quoted by Aylward and others:

EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH, DATED UTRECHT, TRANSVAAL, JANUARY 29, 1878.

_Sir T. Shepstone to Sir H. Bulwer_.

Par. 12. 'Although this question has existed for many years, and the
settlement of it has been long postponed, yet on no former occasion
has it assumed so serious an aspect, or included so wide an area of
territory; never before has there existed any bar to the farmers
occupying their farms after an absence more or less temporary, caused
by a temporary and local scare. Practically, the line of occupied
farms has not been heretofore affected by the dispute about the
beaconed boundary, but now the prohibition to these has become
absolute by Zulu claims and action. Ruin is staring the farmers in
the face, and their position is, _for the time, worse under Her