ZULU, or AmazuLtr, is the name of that portion of the Kaffer race who inhabit Natal and the region n.e. of it, until they gradually merge into the mere negro of the e. coast, n. of the Zambesi. The Kaffer organization appears to hold an intermediate place between that of the negro and a higher type; and as we go s. and w. from the swamps and malaria of Delagoa bay and Sofala to the more healthy and bracing regions of Natal and independent Kaffraria, the Kaffer features appear, as it were, to grow more refined —the mouth protrudes less, the lips are less thick, and the nose assimilates more to that of the European, although the distinguishing type of woolly hair may still continue.
The Zulu Kaffer is a far more amiable savage than his brother the Amakosa of the Cape frontier districts. He is less warlike and predatory, more industrious, and far more willing to act in the capacity of a farm-laborer or domestic servant. In language, customs, habits, etc., although certain tribal and local differences occur, yet they may be called common to all the nation, as a Zulu Kaffer has no difficulty in understanding a native of British Kaffraria; and his views of a future state, purchase of wives, etc., are pretty similar. The Zulu is by nature social, light of heart, and cheerful; his affec tions are gentle, steady, and enduring; his passions are, however, strong, and called out when in a state of war. He is comparatively chaste; crimes which stain European or eastern civilization are unknown him. He is hospitable and honest, yet greedy and stingy; lie is kind to his own family, yet cruel to dumb animals; and whatever the better nature of his impulses may be, yet when his great chief commands war, be is con verted into a demon. He is proud, and very easily can distinguish between an English gentleman and the loafing tribe with which too many of our colonies are afflicted. The writer of this article, by the exercise of a little kindness and firmness, has experienced the most utter devotion from individuals of the Kaffer race generally. Their reasoning powers are good, and with an improved education a Zulu rationalist might not disgrace a chair in the Sorbonne.
It is from the Zulu country, however, that those terrible tyrants who so long devas tated south-eastern Africa, the chiefs Cliaka, Dingaan, Moselikatze, etc., issued. The training of their subjects to a peculiar mode of warfare spread desolation and havoc for many years among the Betjuana and other tribes of the interior, until eventually these mighty chiefs with their thousands of followers, fighting, like Homer's heroes, hand to hand, armed with stabbing assagais and shields of ox-hide, the colors of which distin guished the different regiments they were formed into, melted away with broken power into comparative insignificance before the terrible rifles of a few hundred emigrant Dutch Boers, who, in their turn, gave way to the energetic action of the British authorities (sec NATAL). The Zulus, although they have very often series intestine wars among
themselves, have generally lived on friendly terms with the Natal colonists. That their warlike qualities have not decayed was sufficiently shown in the war that broke out in 1879 between England and Ketchwayo (Cetewayo), the Zulu king. Within a week or two after the British forces crossed the Natal frontier the Zulus inflicted a severe blow on the invaders by surrounding a camp at Isandhlwa and annihilating the defenders. They repulsed several attacks on their strongholds; but, after the British had received re-en forcements, were defeated at Ginghilovo, and completely broken by lord Chelmsford at Ulundi on July 3. The king was captured shortly afterward, and deported to Cape Town. Terms were proposed by sir Garnet Wolseley in September; and accepted by the Zulu chiefs. The Zulu country, no longer under one supreme ruler, is divided among twelve chiefs, who undertake to suppress the strict and universal military dis cipline introduced by Chaka, to give a fair trial to accused persons, and abolish witch craft, and to prevent the importing of arms and ammunition. They are also bound not to make war save with the sanction of the British residents, of whom there are to be four.
A number of missionary societies of the Wesleyan, American, Norwegian, and Epis copal churches labor among these tribes. Considerable interest was some time ago pro voked with regard to bishop Colenso's peculiar views for the evangelizing these heath ens; and Colenso's Zulu was for a while almost as famous as Macaulay's New Zealander.
The Amafeugu tribe, now settled along the Cape frontier, are a broken tribe of Zulus, driven far to the s.w. by Chaka or Dingaan, then reduced ,to slavery by the Ama kosa Kaffers, and freed by sir B. Durban in the Kaffer war of 1834-35. The principal Zulu tribes are the Amazulu, the Amahute, Amazwazi, and Amatabele. The last emi grated far northward to the mountains which separate the basins of the Limpopo and Zambesi.