Chap. XIII.] SOUTHERN AFRICA. 107 



But with this horrible and fiendish slaughter, 

 terminated the unexampled reign of the bloody- 

 minded Chaka. He had now subdued all the 

 tiibes, and laid waste the whole country, from the 

 southern and western provinces lying about Delagoa 

 Bay, as far as the nation of the Amaponda, two 

 hundi-ed miles south-west of Natal, and had begun 

 to contemplate an attack on some of the frontier 

 tribes. He, however, manifested the greatest appre- 

 hension of coming into collision with the white 

 people, whose hostilities he was avowedly afraid to 

 excite, and to whom, in his own country, he was 

 hospitable from motives of prudence — and this con- 

 sideration alone had restrained him from attacking 

 those tribes that had thrown themselves under the 

 protection of the Cape Government. Death arrested 

 his merciless and ambitious career. He fell, as he 

 deserved, by the hand of his own subjects, and by 

 none was his fate mourned. 



The assassination of Chaka had long been medi- 

 tated by his brother Dingaan, and the diabolical 

 massacre just detailed hastened the execution of 

 his design. The tyrant was sitting one evening 

 after sunset, with one or two of his principal chiefs, 

 admiring the vast droves of sleek cattle returning 

 to the kraal from pasture, and probably contem- 

 plating the murder of innocent beings, when he was 

 startled by the audacity and unwonted demeanour 

 of Boper, his principal attendant, who approached 

 him with a spear used for slaughtering oxen, and in 

 an authoritative tone demanded of the old chieftains. 



