Meantime the more formidable part of the Zulu-Kaffirs had been united under the terrible Chief Chaka.  He had organized a military system, not a new one by any means, but one of which we hear rumors back in the lake regions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.  McDonald says, “There has probably never been a more perfect system of discipline than that by which Chaka ruled his army and kingdom.  At a review an order might be given in the most unexpected manner, which meant death to hundreds.  If the regiment hesitated or dared to remonstrate, so perfect was the discipline and so great the jealousy that another was ready to cut them down.  A warrior returning from battle without his arms was put to death without trial.  A general returning unsuccessful in the main purpose of his expedition shared the same fate.  Whoever displeased the king was immediately executed.  The traditional courts practically ceased to exist so far as the will and action of the tyrant was concerned.”  With this army Chaka fell on tribe after tribe.  The Bechuana fled before him and some tribes of them were entirely destroyed.  The Hottentots suffered severely and one of his rival Zulu tribes under Umsilikatsi fled into Matabililand, pushing back the Bechuana.  By the time the English came to Port Natal, Chaka was ruling over the whole southeastern seaboard, from the Limpopo River to Cape Colony, including the Orange and Transvaal states and the whole of Natal.  Chaka was killed in 1828 and was eventually succeeded by his brother Dingan, who reigned twelve years.  It was during Dingan’s reign that England tried to abolish slavery in Cape Colony, but did not pay promptly for the slaves, as she had promised; the result was the so-called “Great Trek,” about 1834, when thousands of Boers went into the interior across the Orange and Vaal rivers.

Dingan and these Boers were soon engaged in a death struggle in which the Zulus were repulsed and Dingan replaced by Panda.  Under this chief there was something like repose for sixteen years, but in 1856 civil war broke out between his sons, one of whom, Cetewayo, succeeded his father in 1882.  He fell into border disputes with the English, and the result was one of the fiercest clashes of Europe and Africa in modern days.  The Zulus fought desperately, annihilating at one time a whole detachment and killing the young prince Napoleon.  But after all it was assagais against machine guns, and the Zulus were finally defeated at Ulundi, July 4, 1879.  Thereupon Zululand was divided among thirteen semi-independent chiefs and became a British protectorate.

[Illustration:  Ancient Kingdom of Africa]

Since then the best lands have been gradually reoccupied by a large number of tribes—­Kaffirs from the south and Zulus from the north.  The tribal organization, without being actually broken up, has been deprived of its dangerous features by appointing paid village headmen and transforming the hereditary chief into a British government official.  In Natal there are about one hundred and seventy tribal chiefs, and nearly half of these have been appointed by the governor.