92 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. XII. 



CHAPTER XII. 



HISTORY OF CHAKA, SURNAMED "THE BLOODY." 



But Moselekatse, with all his crimes, is no more 

 than a humble follower in the sanguinary footsteps of 

 Chaka, the liege lord from whom it has already 

 been shown he revolted. The reign of that inhuman 

 despot, of whose singular career I purpose giving a 

 brief outline,* was stained by a succession of enor- 

 mities of so deep a dye that the blood curdles in 

 the recital. Even in the annals of savage nations 

 his atrocities stand forth pre-eminent. He was a 

 fiend in human form, to whose vices and crimes 

 history, neither ancient nor modern, can furnish the 

 slightest parallel. 



The family of this monster, whose name in the 

 Sichuana language signifies " The battle-axe," 

 was ever remarkable for its conquests, cruelty and 

 ambition, and emerged from a tribe originally in- 

 habiting a district about Delagoa Bay, of which 

 tradition informs us the first king was named Zoola. 

 Essenzinconyarna, the father of Chaka, made his 

 way from the primitive location of his ancestors to 

 the Umferoche Umstopic, or white river (a branch 

 of the river St. Lucie), and colonizing within sixty 

 miles of the coast kept the neighbouring tribes in 



* Collected chiefly from Isaac's Travels in Eastern Africa. 



