knew what was to be expected, but they were set down as 'croakers,' and their earnest warnings of disaster to come were disregarded.
Now let us return to the camp. It will be remembered that Colonel Glyn's force, accompanied by General Lord Chelmsford, had left at dawn. About eight o'clock a picket placed some 1,500 yards distant reported that Zulus were approaching from the north-east. This information was despatched by mounted messengers to Colonel Glyn's column.
Lieut.-Colonel Durnford, with his mounted natives and a rocket battery arriving from Rorke's Drift about 10 A.M., took over the command of the camp from Colonel Pulleine. According to the evidence of Lieutenant Cochrane given at the court of inquiry, Colonel Pulleine thereupon stated to Colonel Durnford the orders that he had received, to 'defend the camp,' and it would appear that either then or subsequently some altercation took place between these two officers. In the issue, however, Colonel Durnford advanced his mounted force to ascertain the enemy's movements, and directed a company of the 1st battalion 24th regiment to occupy a hill about 1,200 yards to the north of the camp.
Other companies of the 24th were stationed at various points at a distance from the camp. It may be well to explain here, that to these movements of troops, which, so far as can be ascertained, were made by the direct orders of Colonel Durnford, must be attributed the terrible disaster that followed. There are two ways of fighting a savage or undisciplined enemy; the scientific way, such as is taught in staff colleges, and the unscientific way that is to be learned in the sterner school of experience. We English were not the first white men who had to deal with the rush of the Zulu impis. The Boers had encountered them before, at the battle of the Blood River, and armed only with muzzle-loading 'roers,' or elephant guns, despite their desperate valour, had worsted them, with fearful slaughter. But they did not advance bodies of men to this point or to that, according to the scientific method; they drew their ox waggons into a square, lashing them together with 'reims' or hide-ropes, and from behind this rough defence, with but trifling loss to themselves, rolled back charge after charge of the warriors of Dingaan.
Had this method been followed by our troops at the battle of Isandhlwana, who had ample waggons at hand to enable them to execute the manœuvre, had the soldiers even been collected in a square beneath the cliff of the mountain, it cannot be doubted but that, armed as they were with breech-loaders, they would have been
