The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1879-06-14
Killing a Thousand Zulus.
LORD CHELNsEoRD's RELIEF OF COLONEL PEAR
SONS COMMAND.

A correspondent of the London Telegraph
writing from st. Vincent, South Africa, says:
The relief of Colonel Pearson has been accom-
plished by the column under the personal COM
mand Of Lord Chelmsford. After difficult
marches, our troops, who had already been
sighted from Ekowe, camped at Gingihlovo to-
ward SHUTDOWN on the LIST of April. Much rain
was falling about dusk and through the night,
and it had been signalled from the Ekowe church
tower that the Zulus were drawing in upon the
generals position with very large numbers.
Lord Chelmsford had taken every possible pre-
caution against surprise. The faces of the
camp were covered with lines of shelter trenches;
the guns posted at the angles, and all positions of
importance covered.
\ little before 6 o'clock A. ". large masses of
Zulus began to show all over the hill tops in our
vicinity on the northeastern side of the camp.
The thickets in this direction seemed on a sudden
to swarm with the enemy, who, with their usual
tactics, were seen pouring in a stream of shields
and black bodies, right and left, so as gradually
to envelOp this quarter of our lager. As soon
as their order of battle was thus formed, they
came down in Il most resolute style upon the
side of the camp defended by the SixtIeth Rifles,
raising their curious war cry and brandishing
their weapons. The foremost portion of the
Rifles were lying inside the trenches already
mentioned, and their support behind them had a
second line Of shelter, as well as the laagered
wagons, from which to fire, and the Gatlings
were stationed to the right.
As the enemy drew out of the grass and thorn
bushes into u dense semi-circle of advancing war
riOrs, the whole front of our camp broke out in
to a sheet of fierce flame which ran from corner
TO corner without Iiutermissiou, in rattling volleys
of a frightful close range musketry. Nothing, it
might be thought, could live before this terrible
and perpetual roll Of the breech-loader, and yet
our gallant though savage foes crowded their way
onward through the halls Of death. While
spreading now to the right, now TO the left, as if
70 find anma hraaE in the tran M fire their rem
trail swarms kept desperately pressing f'rward
past the fallen bodies of their comrades. Thlse
behind spraug TO the front over the cor, SEES of
their fellows, only to sink to the ground them
selves and be succeeded by fresh desperadoes.
it was impossible for men to perish with more
magnificent contempt Of death, but they coo.d
not quite reach even our outer trenches. After
again and again charging up to within twenty or
thirty yards Of the muzzle of our Martini-Henris
despite the whitening tempest of bullets rained
upon them, to say nothing of the Calling fire and
the rockets-these heroic sayages gave the game
up at last upon this face of the camp, leaving the
front of our defences piled with dead and
wounded.
Another large body had meanwhile concen.
trated on the other flank Of our lager, and Just
as the first attack was failing a second and most
spirited attempt to rush our positions was tried
in this new quarter. If the courage Of the
enemy was admirable, so was the GOODNESS with
which the men of the Ninety-first and Fifty
| bcFeuIu met tue bNdIm6 OF yelling luOusduue
which closed in toward the trenches. This last
effort was led by a chief Of high rank named
D~ubalmanzi, who was mounted on a good horse
and rode in the thick of his regiments close up &c
the lager. The onset was for some minute:
very formidable, and once inside our lines such
men might have done anything; but the never
ceasing rattle of the breech-loaders could not bC
confronted, ana on the point of forcing on tina
hand-to-hand fight which they wanted, the dar
ing barbarians melted away again, and fnallI
abandoned the attack.
4 ringing British cheer was raised upon thi
second retreat of the enemy, and the word wa
given for the mounted troops to dash out. Thi
vas done by the cavalry and BarrOw's mounted
infantry, accompanied by some of the swift-foote'
native contingent, who few forth from the shel
ter of the wagons and pursued the now disheart
ened survivors. Once turned and beaten, tn
Zulu makes no further stand, and in the head
long hunt which ensued almost as many Of tn
foe as had fallen before the m~usketry and the fir
of the Gatlings we're overtaken and despatched i
the bush. From the first appearance of Getty
wayo's army upon the hill tops and amid tn
hollows till the last fierce blows dealt on the fly
ing savages, the affair did not occupy two hours
But it was sharp work while it lasted, an
though the British loss in killed was only five
and in killed and wounded together fifty for a
contingents, yet some nine or ten hundred Zulu
lay dead around US as the sun rose high. Thei
total loss Is estimated at fifteen hundred, wit
many more wounded.