with their ideas that the nominator of their future king should be
greeted with any salute inferior to the Bayete, and this, as plain Mr.
Shepstone, it was impossible to give him. The difficulty was obvious,
but the Zulu mind proved equal to it. He was solemnly announced to be
a Zulu king, and to stand in the place of the great founder of their
nation, Chaka. Who was so fit to proclaim the successor to the throne
as the great predecessor of the prince proclaimed? To us this seems a
strange, not to say ludicrous, way of settling a difficulty, but there
was nothing in it repugnant to Zulu ideas. Odd as it was, it invested
Mr. Shepstone with all the attributes of a Zulu king, such as the power
to make laws, order executions, &c., and those attributes in the eyes of
Zulus he still retains.

In 1873 messengers came down from Zululand to the Natal Government,
bringing with them the "king's head," that is, a complimentary present
of oxen, announcing the death of Panda. "The nation," they said, "was
wandering; it wanders and wanders, and wanders again;" the spirit of
the king had departed from them; his words had ceased, and "none
but children were left." The message ended with a request that Mr.
Shepstone, as Cetywayo's "father," should come and instal him on the
throne. A month or two afterwards there came another message, again
requesting his attendance; and on the request being refused by the
Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, there came a third message, to which the
Natal Government returned a favourable answer.

Accordingly Mr. Shepstone proceeded to Zululand, and on the 3rd
September 1873 proclaimed Cetywayo king with all due pomp and ceremony.
It was on this occasion that, in the presence of, and with the
enthusiastic assent of, both king and people, Mr. Shepstone, "standing
in the place of Cetywayo's father, and so representing the nation,"