and South Africa from being plunged into a native war of unexampled
magnitude. The day before the Annexation took place, when it was quite
certain that it would take place, a message was sent to Cetywayo by Sir
T. Shepstone telling him of what was about to happen, and telling
him too in the sternest and most straightforward language, that the
Transvaal had become the Queen's land like Natal, and that he must no
more think of attacking it than he would of attacking Natal. Cetywayo
on receiving the message at once disbanded his armies and sent them
to their kraals. "Kabuna," he said to the messenger, "my impis were
gathered; now at my father's (Sir T. Shepstone's) bidding I send them
back to their homes."

This fact, namely, that at the bidding of his old mentor Sir T.
Shepstone, Cetywayo abandoned his long-cherished plans, and his
undoubted opportunity of paying off old scores with the Boers in a most
effectual manner, and gave up a policy that had so many charms for him,
must be held by every unprejudiced man to speak volumes in his favour.
It must be remembered that it was not merely to oblige his "father
Sompseu" that he did this, but to meet the wishes of the English
Government, and the act shows how anxious he was to retain the
friendship and fall in with the views of that Government. Evidently
Cetywayo had no animosity against us in April 1877.

In his interview with Mr. Fynney, Cetywayo speaks out quite frankly as
to what his intentions had been; he says, "I know all about the soldiers
being on their way up, but I would have asked Sompseu to allow the
soldiers to stand on one side for just a little while, only a little,
and see what my men could do. It would have been unnecessary for the
Queen's people to trouble. My men were all ready, and how big must that
stone have been, with my father Sompseu digging at one side and myself