Cheshire Observer, 24 May 1879
The correspondent on the Liverpool Courier says:
The Zulu warrior possesses advantages over the British soldier which any who have a knowledge of his habits and country cannot call in question.
He knows every inch of the ground he desires to hold, its pathways, natural defences, and positions of weakness. He can travel with a rapidity on foot that would out-distance in the race for any given point the mounted rider, who would be compelled to travel by a more circuitous route; he can run like a buck and leap like a goat. Moreover he can sustain himself for a length of time upon the handful of mealies he carries in his bag of skin.
Inured to heat and cold, he fears no dysentery or fever, and if such overtakes him during his march he carries round his neck subtle remedies gleaned from the roots and herbs that cover the hills of his much-to-be-desired and really beautiful country. He is here today and fifty miles away by sundown on the next. He has no commissariat stores or convoy of wagons to hamper him, neither has he red tape to bind him. He carries nothing but what he requires, and if he challenges the issue of battle he will fire his tower musket, Martini-Henry, or fowling-piece, often with an accuracy of aim that would do credit to Wimbledon marksmen, then discard it for his ever ready and terrible assegai. I have seen Zulus throw this weapon with a precision that might appear incredible, and an effect that to any beholder must prove astonishing. I have witnessed them at their kraals indulge in competitions, when a reed has been split again and again at 30 or 40 yards distance, and once in my own presence a smart young Kafir threw his assegai into the air, and at the third attempt split the cork in the neck of a bottle upon which it descended at some distance from where he stood.
