The True Story Book

It would be of little use to follow step by step all the events of that night. All night long the firing went on, varied from time to time by desperate assaults. All night long the little band of defenders held back the foe. All were weary, some of them were dead and more wounded, but they fought on by the light of the burning hospital, wasting no single shot. To and fro went the bearded clergyman with prayers and consolations upon his lips, and a bag of cartridges in his hands, and to and fro also went Chard and Bromhead, directing all things. By degrees the Englishmen were driven back, the hospital and its approaches were in the hands of the foe, and now they must retire to the inner wall of the cattle kraal. But they collected sacks of mealies and built two redoubts, which gave them a second line of fire, and let the Zulus do what they would, storm the place they could not, nor could they serve it as they had served the hospital and destroy it by fire.

At length the attacks slackened, the firing dwindled and died, and the dawn broke, that same dawn which showed to General Lord Chelmsford and those with him all the horror of Isandhlwana's field. Here also at Rorke's Drift it revealed death and to spare, but for the most part the corpses were those of the foe, some four hundred of whom lay lost in their last sleep around the burning hospital, in the bush, and beneath the walls of corn-sacks; four hundred killed by one hundred and thirty-nine white men all told, of whom thirty-five were sick when the defence began. The little band had suffered, indeed, for fifteen of them were dead, and twelve wounded, some mortally, but seeing what had been done the loss was small. Had the Zulus once won an entrance over the last entrenchment of biscuit boxes not a man would have remained alive. Surely biscuits were never put to a nobler or a stranger use.

The daylight had come and the enemy vanished with the night, retreating over a hill to the south-west. But, as the defenders of Rorke's Drift guessed, he had no intention of abandoning his attack. Therefore they knew that this was no time to be idle. Sallying out of their defences they collected the arms of the dead Zulus, then returned, and began to strip the roof of the store of its thatch, which was a constant source of danger to them, seeing that fire is a deadlier foe even than the assegai. They were thus engaged when again the Zulus appeared to make an end of them. Once more the weary soldiers took up their positions, and a while passed. Now they perceived that the Undi, which had been advancing, slowly commenced to fall back, a movement that they were at a loss to understand, till a shout from those who were engaged in stripping the roof told the glad news that English troops were advancing to their relief.

These were the remains of No. 3 column, moving down from Isandhlwana. Little did the general and those with him expect to find a soul living at Rorke's Drift, for they also had seen the sullen masses of the Undi retreating from the post, and the columns of smoke rising from the burning hospital confirmed their worst fears. What then was their joy when they perceived a Union Jack flying amidst the smoke, and heard the ring of a British cheer rising from the shattered walls and the defences of sacks of corn! Forward galloped Col. Russell and his mounted men, and in five minutes more those who remained of the garrison were safe, and the defence of Rorke's Drift was a thing of the past; another glorious page ready to be bound into that great book which is called 'The Deeds of Englishmen.'

Nearly six months passed before all the dead at Isandhlwana were reverently buried. Strange were the scenes that those saw whose task it was to lay them to their rest. Here, hidden by the rank grass, in one heap behind the officers' tents, lay the bodies of some seventy men, who had made their last stand at this spot; lower down the hill lay sixty more. Another band of about the same strength evidently had taken refuge among the rocks of the mountains, and defended themselves there till their ammunition was exhausted, and their ring broken by the assegai. All about the plain lay Englishmen and Zulus, as they had died in the dread struggle: – here side by side, amidst rusted rifles and bent assegais, here their bony arms still locked in the last hug of death, and yonder the Zulu with the white man's bayonet through his skull, the soldier with the Zulu's assegai in what had been his heart. One man was found, who, when his cartridges were spent, and his rifle was broken, had defended himself to the end with a tent-hammer that lay among his bones, and another was stretched beneath the precipice, from the crest of which he had been hurled.

Well, they buried them where they were discovered, and there they sleep soundly beneath the shadow of Isandhlwana's cliff.

And now a few words more, and this true story will be finished. We conquered the Zulus at last, at a battle called Ulundi, where they hurled themselves in vain upon the bullets and bayonets of the British square. To the end they fought bravely for their king and country, and though they were savages, and, like all savages, cruel when at war, they were also gallant enemies, and deserve our respect. The king himself, Cetywayo, was hunted down, captured, and sent into captivity. Afterwards, there was what is called a 'popular movement' on his behalf in England, and he was sent back to Zululand, with permission to rule half the country. Meanwhile, after the conclusion of the war, our Government would not take the land, and a settlement was effected, under which thirteen chiefs were put in authority over the country. As might have been expected, these chiefs fought with each other, and many men were killed. When Cetywayo returned the fighting became fiercer than ever, since those who had tasted power refused to be dispossessed, until at last he was finally defeated, and, it is believed, poisoned by his own side, to whom he had ceased to be serviceable. Meanwhile also, the Dutch Boers, taking advantage of the confusion, occupied a great part of Zululand, which they still hold. Indeed, they would long ago have taken it all, had not the English government, seeing the great misery to which its ever-changing policy had reduced the unhappy Zulus, assumed authority over the remainder of the country. From that day forward, there has been no more killing or trouble in British Zululand, which is ruled by Sir Melmoth Osborn, K.C.M.G., and the Queen has no more contented subjects than the Zulus, nor any who pay their taxes with greater regularity!

But the Zulus as a nation are dead, and never again will a great Impi, such as swept away our troops at Isandhlwana, be seen rushing down to war. Their story is but one scene in the vast drama which is being enacted in this generation, and which some of you who read these lines may live to see, not accomplished, indeed, but in the way of accomplishment – the drama of the building up of a great Anglo-Saxon empire in Africa – an empire that within the next few centuries may well become one of the mightiest in the world. We have made many and many a mistake, but still that empire grows; in spite of the errors of the Home Government, the obstinacy of the Boers, the power of native chiefs, and the hatred of Portuguese, still it grows. Already it is about as big as Europe, and it is only a baby yet, a baby begotten by the genius and courage of individual Englishmen.

When the child has become a giant – yes, even in those far-off ages when it is a very old giant, a king among the nations – we may be sure that, from generation to generation, men will show their sons the mountain that was called Isandhlwana, or the place of the Little Hand, and a certain spot on the banks of the Buffalo River, and tell the tale of how beneath that hill the wild Zulus of the ancient times overwhelmed the forces of the early English settlers; of how, for a long night through, a few men of those forces held two grass-thatched sheds against their foe's savage might; and of how some miles away two heroes named Melville and Coghill died together whilst striving to save the colours of their regiment from the grasp of the victorious 'Children of Heaven.'

Now it may interest you to know that these last words are written with a pen that was found among the bones of the dead at Isandhlwana.

H. Rider Haggard.

HOW LEIF THE LUCKY FOUND VINELAND THE GOOD

THIS is the story of the first finding of America by the Icelanders, nearly five hundred years before Columbus. They landed on the coast, and stayed for a short time; where they landed is uncertain. Thinking that it was in New England, the people of Boston have erected a statue of Leif in their town. The story was not written till long after Leif's time, and it cannot all be true. Dead men do not return and give directions about their burial as we read here. We have omitted a silly tale of a one-footed man. In the middle ages, people believed that one-footed men lived in Africa; they thought Vineland was near Africa, so they brought the fable into the Saga.

Hundreds of years before Columbus discovered America, there lived in Iceland a man named Eric the Red. His father had slain a man in Norway, and fled with his family to Iceland. Eric, too, was a dangerous man. His servants did mischief on the farm of a neighbour, who slew them. Then Eric slew the farmer, and also Holmgang Hrafn, a famous duellist, of whom the country was well rid. Eric was banished from that place, and, in his new home, had a new quarrel. He lent some furniture to a man who refused to restore it. Eric, therefore, carried off his goods, and the other pursued him. They fought, and Eric killed him. For this he was made an outlaw, and went sailing to discover new countries. He found one, where he settled, calling it Greenland, because, he said, people would come there more readily if it had a good name.

One Thorbiorn, among others, sailed to Greenland, but came in an unlucky time, for fish were scarce, and some settlers were drowned. At that day, some of the new comers were Christians, some still worshipped the old Gods, Thor and Woden, and practised magic. These sent for a prophetess to tell them what the end of their new colony would be. It is curious to know what a real witch was like, and how she behaved, so we shall copy the story from the old Icelandic book.

'When she came in the evening, with the man who had been sent to meet her, she was clad in a dark-blue cloak, fastened with a strap, and set with stones quite down to the hem. She wore glass beads around her neck, and upon her head a black lambskin hood, lined with white catskin. In her hands she carried a staff upon which there was a knob, which was ornamented with brass, and set with stones up about the knob. Circling her waist she wore a girdle of touchwood, and attached to it a great skin pouch, in which she kept the charms which she used when she was practising her sorcery. She wore upon her feet shaggy calfskin shoes, with long, tough latchets, upon the ends of which there were large brass buttons. She had catskin gloves upon her hands; the gloves were white inside and lined with fur. When she entered, all of the folk felt it to be their duty to offer her becoming greetings. She received the salutations of each individual according as he pleased her. Yeoman Thorkel took the sibyl by the hand, and led her to the seat which had been made ready for her. Thorkel bade her run her eyes over man and beast and home. She had little to say concerning all these. The tables were brought forth in the evening, and it remains to be told what manner of food was prepared for the prophetess. A porridge of goat's beestings was made for her, and for meat there were dressed the hearts of every kind of beast which could be obtained there. She had a brass spoon, and a knife with a handle of walrus tusk, with a double hasp of brass around the haft, and from this the point was broken. And when the tables were removed, Yeoman Thorkel approaches the prophetess Thorbiorg, and asks how she is pleased with the home, and the character of the folk, and how speedily she would be likely to become aware of that concerning which he had questioned her, and which the people were anxious to know. She replied that she could not give an opinion in this matter before the morrow, after that she had slept there through the night. And on the morrow, when the day was far spent, such preparations were made as were necessary to enable her to accomplish her soothsaying. She bade them bring her those women who knew the incantation which she required to work her spells, and which she called Warlocks; but such women were not to be found. Thereupon a search was made throughout the house, to see whether anyone knew this [incantation]. Then says Gudrid, Thorbiorn's daughter: "Although I am neither skilled in the black art nor a sibyl, yet my foster-mother, Halldis, taught me in Iceland that spell-song, which she called Warlocks." Thorbiorg answered: "Then art thou wise in season!" Gudrid replies; "This is an incantation and ceremony of such a kind that I do not mean to lend it any aid, for that I am a Christian woman." Thorbiorg answers: "It might so be that thou couldst give thy help to the company here, and still be no worse woman than before; however, I leave it with Thorkel to provide for my needs." Thorkel now so urged Gudrid that she said she must needs comply with his wishes. The women then made a ring round about, while Thorbiorg sat up on the spell-daïs. Gudrid then sang the song, so sweet and well, that no one remembered ever before to have heard the melody sung with so fair a voice as this. The sorceress thanked her for the song, and said: "She has indeed lured many spirits hither, who think it pleasant to hear this song, those who were wont to forsake us hitherto and refuse to submit themselves to us. Many things are now revealed to me, which hitherto have been hidden, both from me and from others. And I am able to announce that this period of famine will not endure longer, but the season will mend as spring approaches. The visitation of disease, which has been so long upon you, will disappear sooner than expected."'

After this, Thorbiorn sailed to the part of Greenland where Eric the Red lived, and there was received with open arms. Eric had two sons, one called Thorstein, the other Leif the Lucky, and it was Leif who afterwards discovered Vineland the Good, that is, the coast of America, somewhere between Nova Scotia and New England. He found it by accident. He had been in Norway, at the court of king Olaf, who bade him proclaim Christianity in Greenland. As he was sailing thither, Leif was driven by tempests out of his course, and came upon coasts which he had never heard of, where wild vines grew, and hence he called that shore Vineland the Good. The vine did not grow, of course, in Iceland. But Leif had with him a German Tyrker, and one day, when they were on shore, Tyrker was late in joining the rest. He was very much excited, and spoke in the German tongue, saying 'I have found something new, vines and grapes.' Then they filled their boat full of grapes, and sailed away. He also brought away some men from a wreck, and with these, and the message of the Gospel, he sailed back to Greenland, to his father, Eric the Red, and from that day he was named Leif the Lucky. But Eric had no great mind to become a Christian, he had been born to believe in Thor and his own sword.

Next year Leif's brother, Thorstein, set out to find Vineland, and Eric, first burying all his treasures, started with him, but he fell from his horse, and broke his ribs, and his company came within sight of Ireland, but Vineland they did not see, so they returned to Ericsfirth in Greenland, and there passed the winter.

There was much sickness, and one woman died. After her death she rose, and they could only lay her by holding an axe before her breast. Thorstein, Eric's son, died also, but in the night he arose again and said that Christian burial should be given to men in consecrated ground. For the manner had been to bury the dead in their farms with a long pole driven through the earth till it touched the breast of the corpse. Afterwards the priest came, and poured holy water through the hole, and not till then, perhaps long after the death, was the funeral service held. After Thorstein rose and spoke, Christian burial was always used in Greenland. Next year came Karlsefni from Iceland, with two ships, and Eric received him kindly, and gave all his crew winter quarters. In summer nothing would serve Karlsefni but to search again for Vineland the Good. They took three ships and one hundred and sixty men, and south they sailed. They passed Flat Stone Land, where there were white foxes, and Bear Island, where they saw a bear, and Forest Land, and a cape where they found the keel of a wrecked ship, this they named Keelness. Then they reached the Wonder Strands, long expanses of sandy shore. Now Karlsefni had with him two Scotch or Irish savages, the swiftest of all runners, whom King Olaf had given to Leif the Lucky, and they were fleeter-footed than deer. They wore only a plaid and kilt all in one piece, for the rest they were naked. Karlsefni landed them south of Wonder Strands, and bade them run south and return on the third day to report about the country. When they returned one carried a bunch of grapes, the other ears of native wheat (maize?). Then they sailed on, passed an isle covered with birds' eggs, and a firth, which they called Streamfirth, from the tide in it.

Beyond Streamfirth they landed and established themselves there.

'There were mountains thereabouts. They occupied themselves exclusively with the exploration of the country. They remained there during the winter, and they had taken no thought for this during the summer. The fishing began to fail, and they began to fall short of food. Then Thorhall the Huntsman disappeared. They had already prayed to God for food, but it did not come as promptly as their necessities seemed to demand. They searched for Thorhall for three half-days, and found him on a projecting crag. He was lying there, and looking up at the sky, with mouth and nostrils agape, and mumbling something. They asked him why he had gone thither; he replied, that this did not concern anyone. They asked him then to go home with them, and he did so. Soon after this a whale appeared there, and they captured it, and flensed it, and no one could tell what manner of whale it was; and when the cooks had prepared it, they ate of it, and were all made ill by it. Then Thorhall, approaching them, says: "Did not the Red-beard (that is, Thor) prove more helpful than your Christ? This is my reward for the verses which I composed to Thor the Trustworthy; seldom has he failed me." When the people heard this, they cast the whale down into the sea, and made their appeals to God. The weather then improved, and they could now row out to fish, and thenceforward they had no lack of provisions, for they could hunt game on the land, gather eggs on the island, and catch fish from the sea.'

Next spring Thorhall the heathen left them, laughing at the wine which he had been promised, and sailed north. He and his crew were driven to Ireland, where they were captured and sold as slaves, and that was all Thorhall got by worshipping the Red Beard. Karlsefni sailed south and reached a rich country of wild maize, where also was plenty of fish and of game. Here they first met the natives, who came in a fleet of skin-canoes. 'They were swarthy men and ill-looking, and the hair of their heads was ugly. They had great eyes and were broad of cheek.'

The Icelanders held up a white shield in sign of peace, and the natives withdrew. They may have been Eskimo or Red Indians.

The winter was mild and open, but spring had scarce returned, when the bay was as full of native canoes 'as if ashes had been sprinkled over it.' They only came to trade and exchanged furs for red cloth, nor did they seem to care whether they got a broad piece of cloth or a narrow one. They also wanted weapons, but these Karlsefni refused to sell. The market was going on busily when a bull that Karlsefni had brought from Greenland came out of the wood and began to bellow, whereon the Skraelings (as they called the natives) ran! Three weeks passed when the Skraelings returned in very great force, waving their clubs against the course of the sun, whereas in peace they waved them with it. Karlsefni showed a red shield, the token of war, and fighting began. It is not easy to make out what happened, for there are two sagas, or stories of these events, both written down long after they occurred. In one we read that the Skraelings were good slingers, and also that they used a machine which reminds one rather of gunpowder than of anything else. They swung from a pole a great black ball, and it made a fearful noise when it fell among Karlsefni's men. So frightened were they that they saw Skraelings where there were none, and they were only rallied by the courage of a woman named Freydis, who seized a dead man's sword and faced the Skraelings, beating her bare breast with the flat of the blade. On this the Skraelings ran to their canoes and paddled away. In the other account Karlsefni had fortified his house with a palisade, behind which the women waited. To one of them, Gudrid, the appearance of a white woman came; her hair was of a light chestnut colour, she was pale and had very large eyes. 'What is thy name?' she said to Gudrid. 'My name is Gudrid; but what is thine?' 'Gudrid!' says the strange woman. Then came the sound of a great crash and the woman vanished. A battle followed in which many Skraelings were slain.

It all reads like a dream. In the end Karlsefni sailed back to Ericsfirth with a great treasure of furs. A great and prosperous family in Iceland was descended from him at the time when the stories were written down. But it is said that Freydis who frightened the Skraelings committed many murders in Vineland among her own people.

The Icelanders never returned to Vineland the Good, though a bishop named Eric is said to have started for the country in 1121. Now, in the story of Cortés, you may read how the Mexicans believed in a God called Quetzalcoatl, a white man in appearance, who dwelt among them and departed mysteriously, saying that he would come again, and they at first took Cortés and his men for the children of Quetzalcoatl. So we may fancy if we please that Bishop Eric, or one of his descendants, wandered from Vineland south and west across the continent and arrived among the Aztecs, and by them was taken for a God.13

THE ESCAPES OF CERVANTES

MOST people know of the terrible war, waged even down to the present century, between the Christian ships cruising about the Mediterranean and the dreaded Moors or Corsairs of the Barbary Coast. It was a war that began in the name of religion, the Crescent against the Cross; but, as far as we can learn from the records of both sides, there was little to choose in the way that either party treated the captives. A large number of these were chained to the oars of the galleys which were the ships of battle of the middle ages, and sometimes the oars were so long and heavy that they needed forty men to each. The rowers had food enough to give them the strength necessary for their work, and that was all, and the knowledge that they were exerting themselves for the downfall of their fellow-Christians, often of their fellow-countrymen, must have made their labour a toil indeed. Often it happened that a man's courage gave way and he denied his faith and his country, and rose to great honours in the service of the Sultan, the chief of the little kings who swarmed on the African coasts. The records of the Corsairs bristle with examples of these successful renegades, many of them captured as boys, who were careless under what flag they served, as long as their lives were lives of adventure.

All the captives were not, however, turned into galley slaves. Some were taken to the towns and kept in prisons called bagnios, waiting till their friends sent money to redeem them. If this was delayed, they were set to public works, and treated with great severity, so that their letters imploring deliverance might become yet more urgent. The others, known as the king's captives, whose ransom might be promptly expected, did no work and were kept apart from the rest.

It was on September 26, 1575, that Miguel Cervantes, the future author of 'Don Quixote,' fell into the hands of a Greek renegade Dali Mami by name, captain of a galley of twenty-two banks of oars. Cervantes, the son of a poor but well-descended gentleman of Castile, had served with great distinction under Don John of Austria at the battle of Lepanto four years earlier, and was now returning with his brother Rodrigo to Spain on leave, bearing with him letters from the commander-in-chief, Don John, the Duke of Sesa, Viceroy of Sicily, and other distinguished men, testifying to his qualities as a soldier, 'as valiant as he was unlucky,' and recommending Philip II. to give him the command of a Spanish company then being formed for Italian service. But all these honours proved his bane. The Spanish squadron had not sailed many days from Naples when it encountered a Corsair fleet, and after a sharp fight Cervantes and his friends were carried captive into Algiers.