334 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
smaller parties of farmers who were advancing 
towards this district, and their precarious situa- 
tion was soon made known to the English party 
resident at the bay, when the latter determined 
upon a movement on Dingaan, to support the 
cause of the emigrant farmers, but they being 
few in numbers, took with them a body of seven 
hundred Zulus, four hundred of whom were 
armed with guns, having learnt to use them in 
their hunts of the elephant and buffalo. This 
party, which placed itself under the command 
of Mr. E. Biggar, crossed the Tugela at its 
mouth, and advanced a few miles across that 
river, when they attacked and destroyed the 
town of Tatabasooke, while the Zulu forces hid 
themselves in the Matikoola and Imsimdoosa 
rivers ; but advancing a little further they were 
suddenly surrounded, and attacked at break of 
day by three divisions of the Zoolah army. 
After a desperate and murderous engagement 
almost every European or man of colour be- 
longing to the party here lost his life ; a fearful 
number of the Zoolahs were also killed, but of 
the English population of the bay, E. Biggar, 
Blankenberg, Cane, Stubbs, Eichard Wood, 
William Wood, Henry Batt, John Campbell, 
Thomas Cambell, and Thomas Garden success- 
ively fell, and only one or two Europeans suc- 
ceeded in fighting their way through these 
