Never may I forget the first fight I stood in at the side of Chaka.

It was just after the king had built his great kraal on the south bank of the Umhlatuze.

Then it was that the chief Zwide attacked his rival Chaka for the third time and Chaka moved out to meet him with ten full regiments, (1) now for the first time armed with the short stabbing-spear.
(1) About 30,000 men .-- ED.
The ground lay this: On a long, low hill in front of our impi were massed the regiments of Zwide; there were seventeen of them; the earth was black with their number; their plumes filled the air like snow.

We, too, were on a hill, and between us lay a valley down which there ran a little stream.

All night our fires shone out across the valley; all night the songs of soldiers echoed down the hills.