being similarly enrolled, though they did not fight. The Zulu military
system was the universal-service system of Germany brought to an
absolute perfection, obtained by subordinating all the ties and duties
of civil life to military ends. Thus, for instance, marriage could not
be contracted at will, but only by the permission of the king, which was
generally delayed until a regiment was well advanced in years, when a
number of girls were handed over to it to take to wife. This regulation
came into force because it was found that men without home ties were
more ferocious and made better soldiers, and the result of these harsh
rules was that the Zulu warrior, living as he did under the shadow of a
savage discipline, for any breach of which there was but one punishment,
death, can hardly be said to have led a life of domestic comfort, such
as men of all times and nations have thought their common right. But
even a Zulu must have some object in life, some shrine at which to
worship, some mistress of his affections. Home he had none, religion he
had none, mistress he had none, but in their stead he had his career
as a warrior, and his hope of honour and riches to be gained by the
assegai. His home was on the war-track with his regiment, his religion
the fierce denunciation of the isanusi,[*] and his affections were fixed
on the sudden rush of battle, the red slaughter, and the spoils of
the slain. "War," says Sir T. Shepstone, in a very remarkable despatch
written about a year before the outbreak of the Zulu war, "is the
universal cry among the soldiers, who are anxious to live up to their
traditions, . . . . and the idea is gaining ground among the people that
their nation has outlived the object of its existence." Again he says,
"The engine (the Zulu military organisation) has not ceased to exist or
to generate its forces, although the reason or excuse for its existence
has died away: these forces have continued to accumulate and are daily
accumulating without safety-valve or outlet."