Advice as to entertaining—Bishop Colenso—The opening of the Legislative Council—Preparations in the event of Boers declining to ratify the Convention—A long ride to the Drakensberg—Isandwhlana—My unpopularity dies out—How Colonists died around Colonel Durnford—Return to Chatham.

The day after my arrival I received much advice as to my social duties, from official and unofficial personages, male and female, all kindly meant; but I made no distinctions in invitations, and disregarded also the suggestion I should not entertain, but save my salary and take it home.

I was under no misapprehension as to my unpopularity, for at the end of May, when I thought it was possible that the offer of the Governorship of Natal might be made to me later, I desired a friend to inquire whether the feeling in the Colony was so bitter, as to render such an appointment undesirable in the public interest.

After the Zulu War of 1879, Natal had given me a beautiful testimonial in recognition of my services in the Zulu War, and my correspondent asked the Honorary Secretary of the Committee, who not only selected the offering, but who had moreover come to Chatham in 1880 to present it to me, on behalf of the Colony, for an opinion. That gentleman answered: “Yes, the feeling is very bitter against him. Although some few still respect him, the majority regard him as the mouthpiece of Mr. Gladstone.”

I therefore answered my adviser: “Yes, I am quite aware of the fact that I am unpopular, and I must be now as the instrument of the Government; but a long experience has shown me that dinner parties judiciously arranged afford satisfactory opportunities of dispelling unfavourable impressions. I do not suppose for a moment that the question of dinner influenced the Colonists, but it gave them an opportunity of seeing me, and learning my views. The Durban people had but little opportunity of meeting me, but Messrs. Escombe229 and Robinson230 lived there. Both were in the Legislative Council, and were therefore brought in contact with me more frequently than many others, and when I left the country the inhabitants of Durban give a dinner and a ball in my honour, at which such pleasant things were said of me that I do not venture to repeat them. A more important gain, however, was that owing to my better acquaintance with the ministers they treated me as a friend, asked me later how much they ought to give an able Governor, and on my advice raised the salary by £1500 per annum.

One entertainment I gave was of an unusual nature, but afforded me great pleasure. Thinking my guests would be happier without my company, I got Redvers Buller to ask me and my Aides-de-camp to dine, so as to enable me to invite forty-five soldiers, a Sergeant, three of the escort of the 15th Hussars, and the band of the 58th Regiment, which played at Government House at least three times a week. The escort had been with me since March, and as a soldier, regarding the band as comrades, I had objected to pay them, and indeed never gave them anything beyond refreshments. I told Slade, my Aide-de-camp, I wanted the table dressed with flowers, and that the wines and food should be exactly as if I was entertaining the Legislative Council, which was done.

I entertained within three months three bishops, a dean, and an archdeacon, a Church of England missionary who had come from India to carry out a series of Revival services, and a Church of England chaplain who was the brightest of them all. He had behaved courageously in the fight near the Ingogo River, and with a copious vocabulary, a musical voice, and a seraphic face, filled every Sunday an iron Drill Hall which he hired, in spite of his charging a shilling entrance.

The greater dignitaries of the Church agreed in one point, their dislike to Bishop Colenso. He was about sixty-eight years of age, with a noble face, an accurate reflection of his mind. Although I could not defend his retention of the Bishopric when he ceased to accept the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, I considered it to be my duty as Governor to attend the Church of the lawful Bishop of the Colony.

It was difficult for him to believe anything good of a white man, and although I became intimate with him, I never heard him admit anything against a Zulu. This mattered the less, however, as a great majority of Boers, and some Colonists acted on precisely opposite principles, and Colenso’s championing of the black races was absolutely disinterested.

He was greatly distressed because he heard I had referred to Cetewayo at the meeting of Chiefs under the Inhlazatze as a scoundrel (Ishinga), which was absolutely incorrect. On the other hand, it was commonly said that two years earlier, immediately after the Zulu War, that the Bishop generally referred to me as “the man of blood.”

The Bishop lived frugally, giving away a great part of his stipend in charity. As his house, Bishopstowe, was 7 miles from the church, I induced him occasionally to come in to Government House from Saturday to Monday; and though he and I disagreed on most Zulu questions, as indeed he had done with all my predecessors, yet I believe he felt that he was ever welcome by me. In a letter dated the 22nd October I wrote: “I trust whatever views you take of our respective duties, it will make no difference to our private relations.”

I generally attended his church as a point of duty, though I went also to the Bishop of Maritzburg’s church, and to the Army chaplain’s. What the Bishop of Natal read was uncontroversial sound doctrine, but as a preacher he was singularly ineffective. Very short-sighted, he held his manuscript close to his eyes, thus his beautiful snowy white hair was the only thing visible to the small congregation.

In the house he was a delightful companion. He made my acquaintance as I passed through Maritzburg in 1878, mainly, I believe, because he supposed I had been oppressing Umquikela, chief of the Pondos, and now in 1881 I found him a delightful guest. Sitting alone together one evening, I asked: “Are you the man who wrote that terrible Arithmetic over which I shed tears at school?” “Did you really shed tears over my Arithmetic?” “Yes, often.” “Well, when I was a small boy I shed tears over every Arithmetic put into my hands, and I resolved I would write one by which boys would learn without tears.” I replied: “Ah, Bishop, but you could not write down to my level.”

One of the other bishops, when attacking Dr. Colenso, virulently observed to me: “I do not know why you call him Bishop; he is not one.” “Well, he is the Bishop of Natal.” “But he is only a bishop from what the lawyers say.” I answered: “They did not appoint him, the Queen did, and She is the only Head of the Church whom I recognise.”

On the 6th of October I opened the Legislative Council, and the comments in the local papers were varied and amusing. The writers, despairing of finding something on which they could remark, turned to my delivery of the Speech. The Editor of the Radical paper observed the only good point in it was the perfect delivery; but he wound up by saying it was exactly like Edison’s phonographic machine!

Another paper declared that I spoke exactly like a Sergeant-Major giving an order to a Squad, while the Government Gazette remarked on my foreign habit of rolling my r’s. This last interested me most of all, because I still remember the tears which came into my eyes at Marlborough in 1847 as I counted the verses in the Bible which each boy had to read on Sunday afternoon, and saw that my fate would bring me to the 40th verse of the 18th Chapter of St. John, and when my turn came I popped up and said, “Now, Bawabbas was a wobber.”

Early in October the British Cabinet became perturbed by reports that the Raad sitting in Pretoria would not ratify the Convention under which the Boers had assumed the Government of the Transvaal in August, and Mr. Gladstone determined that they should either ratify it, or lose their Self-government. I was offered any reinforcements I required, but asked only for horses, mules, and one battery of Horse Artillery.231

I no longer got all the telegrams from Pretoria, as the Resident communicated direct with the High Commissioner at Cape Town; but what made the Government uneasy was a strongly worded telegram sent by the Boers to Mr. Gladstone. I explained in a telegram to the Colonial Office that in my opinion the Boers fully intended to ratify, and that the aggressive telegram had been drafted by a Hollander, and the result showed that my surmise was correct. Doubtless it was difficult for the Government at Home to read between the lines of the information which they had received. I asked the Resident for his views, and in a cypher telegram he answered: “Impossible to predict course the Raad will resolve on; I doubt if Leaders know. Equally difficult to predict action in case of non-ratification, nothing allowed to be divulged; Raad sits in secret.”

I did not believe the Boer Government would prosper, for, writing to my wife on the 31st of May, I said: “I cannot believe that the Boer Republic will last.” And again on the 13th October I wrote to her: “I am very glad the English Government has answered the Boers in firm language.... In a few years, however, we shall have to take over the country.”

This forecast would have been absolutely correct had it not been that the discovery of gold kept Mr. Kruger and his associates in power for eighteen years.

Although I anticipated the Convention would be ratified, I took precautions, and bought, in different parts of Natal, a number of oxen and a great quantity of mealies, at normal rates, without attracting attention.

I was satisfied with my preparations for secret service. As I wrote to Mr. Childers: “I ought to learn what goes on South of the Vaal; one man is entirely with us in heart, and I have two more I can buy. I had a Zulu in my service who brought me information from near Ulundi in 1879, and he was always accurate, although it is more difficult with the Boers.”

I enjoyed on the 4th of November a long ride to Langabalele’s location. I had been suffering from intestinal complaints for eight days, induced by overwork, and I thought, and as it proved correctly, that I should get better from change of air and exercise, so Slade and I left after lunch and rode to Weston on the Mooi River, 42 miles. Next day, leaving at 4.30 a.m., we covered 71 miles before two o’clock; I settled a land question,232 overruling the decision given four years previously, and then rode 42 miles into Maritzburg by seven o’clock. It was a good day’s work, 110 miles in 14½ hours. My Aide-de-camp complained that he had to carry a chemist’s shop for me, for besides a phial of medicine the doctor had made up for me, I had a bottle of essence of ginger and chlorodyne.

At the end of November I enjoyed another interesting ride by Rorke’s Drift and Isandwhlana to the Ityatosi and back. I started Major Fraser, the Assistant Military Secretary, and the Aides-de-camp on the Saturday, and left with Sir Redvers Buller after church on Sunday, riding as far as Burrups, about 50 miles, and starting at three o’clock on Monday, crossing the Tugela, and afterwards riding up the Buffalo River, we reached Rorke’s Drift, another 60 miles, in time for dinner. The heat was great, and the skin peeled off our noses and eyelids.

Next morning I conducted Sir Redvers over the battlefield of Isandwhlana, which he had never seen, and we had the story told by combatants who took part in the fights; Englishmen of the Natal Police, by Basutos, by friendly Zulus fighting on our side, and by two or three mounted officers of Cetewayo’s army, which overwhelmed our forces. Their respective accounts tallied exactly; indeed, it seems as if uneducated men who cannot write are more accurate in their description of events than are the Western nations.

When Sir Redvers was quite satisfied that he knew all about the battle, he turned back, and went straight to Umsinga, I riding to the Ityatosi, where I had sent a photographer whom I had engaged to photograph the spot where the gallant Prince Imperial fell. This added another 50 miles to my journey beyond Rorke’s Drift, where I dined on Monday night. Leaving after dinner, I joined Redvers Buller about 2 a.m., and rested for an hour at Umsinga, then, starting for Maritzburg, 80 miles distant, we arrived in time for dinner.

I had left the Sivewrights233 in Government House, and found they were giving a small dinner party, not anticipating my return till the following evening; so telling the butler to lay an additional plate, I sat in the Governor’s place as they entered the room, much to their astonishment.

On the 12th of December, at ten o’clock at night, while listening to a selection of Sacred music which the Colonel of the 21st Royal Scots Fusiliers had arranged that the band should perform for my pleasure, I got a telegram from Lord Kimberley, saying: “I shall have much satisfaction in recommending you for the appointment of Governor of Natal.” I thought over it till six o’clock next morning, and then replied: “I appreciate highly the expression of your confidence, but must respectfully beg leave to decline.”

I had ascertained some weeks earlier that the future Governor would not be permitted to command the troops, and decided not to accept if I got the offer, writing to my sister on 30/10/’81: “I propose to return through Egypt. That country must fall to us, or to France, or both, and it is as well I should have a look at it.” The last week of my stay in the Colony showed plainly that the unfavourable impression regarding my conduct had died out, and indeed had been succeeded by a kindly sentiment for which I am still grateful.

Although the work had been unceasing, yet I had had the assistance of loyal and capable comrades. Sir Redvers Buller had taken all military details off my hands, while Major T. Fraser, R.E., afforded me the help of his fertile brain in Political matters. Captain Sandeman, the private secretary, had saved me from many mistakes as regards Natal affairs; while Lieutenant Slade, R.A., not only took all the trouble of entertaining upwards of two thousand guests in the three months off my hands, but gave me a slip of paper every Monday morning showing the numbers, and the cost per capita.

My visit to Isandwhlana was of great interest, the fall of the heroic Colonel Durnford, R.E., and the stand made by Natal policemen who stayed to die with him, in order to cover the retreat of the guns on the 22nd of January 1879, was the more touching in that he had spoken in terms of the conduct of the Police in the suppression of the Native outbreak in 1874, which had made him for some time unpopular in the Force.

I presented medals to a corps of Volunteers at Durban, many of whom had served in the war, and took the opportunity of speaking to the Colonists on the occasion of this parade,234 which to some slight extent may explain the enthusiastic send-off I received at the end of December.

Kind friends, agreeing to forget the unpleasant memories following the disaster on the Majuba, vied with each other in offering me entertainments, the Burgesses of Durban presenting me with a beautiful vase and cups. The ladies said, “You may give him as many dinners as you like, but we must give him a Ball,” and I went from one which followed the Farewell Dinner to me, direct on board a Union Steamship Company’s vessel, which carried me to Lorenzo Marques, and there a few days later transhipped into another vessel, visiting Inhambane, Quillimane, Mozambique, and Zanzibar; we saw as much as was possible in a short time of Naples and Rome, and I resumed command at Chatham on the 14th February 1882.