SKETCH OF THE KAFIR AND ZULU WARS, GUADANA TO ISANDHLWANA

A vivid and colourful account of the ‘Kafir’ and opening phase of the Zulu wars, written by Captain Henry Hallam Parr, an officer who was military secretary to Sir Bartle Frere, the chief British administrator in South Africa. After a brisk account of the British subduing of the Kafir tribes at Guadana, Parr gets into the more bloody business of the Zulu campaign in January 1879. An eye-witness, he describes the disastrous slaughter of Lord Chelmsford’s advance column at Isandhlwana, the greatest British military reverse at the hands of an African tribe. This defeat is balanced by the ever-heroic story of Rorke’s Drift; the Natal outstation successfully defended against a huge horde of Zulus by the Welsh 24th Regiment of Foot and some Royal Engineers, commanded by Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead. Parr’s writing is clear and lively, and he is an admirer of the military qualities and reckless courage of the Zulus as well as the British. The book is accompanied by excellent situation maps of both Isandhlwana and Rorke’s Drift.