When the pursuit
halted the Boers halted and the rifle fire began anew. The strategy
was simple but most effective. When one remembers how often since
then our own horsemen have been pitted against savages in all parts
of the world, one deplores that ignorance of all military
traditions save our own which is characteristic of our service.
This victory of the 'voortrekkers' cleared all the country between
the Orange River and the Limpopo, the sites of what has been known
as the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In the meantime another
body of the emigrants had descended into what is now known as
Natal, and had defeated Dingaan, the great Chief of the Zulus.
Being unable, owing to the presence of their families, to employ
the cavalry tactics which had been so effective against the
Matabeli, they again used their ingenuity to meet this new
situation, and received the Zulu warriors in a square of laagered
wagons, the men firing while the women loaded. Six burghers were
killed and three thousand Zulus. Had such a formation been used
forty years afterwards against these very Zulus, we should not have
had to mourn the disaster of Isandhlwana.
And now at the end of their great journey, after overcoming the
difficulties of distance, of nature, and of savage enemies, the
Boers saw at the end of their travels the very thing which they
desired least - that which they had come so far to avoid - the flag
of Great Britain.
