Gwangju Dreaming

Part IV III: the Battle of Isandlwana

Lt. Col. Henry Pulleine was nearly 40 years old, yet had almost no combat experience before the Zulu War. Born, like the rest of his generation, in that awkward time for soldiers after Waterloo, he had proved himself a capable administrator in his years of service, and so Chelmsford felt fairly secure leaving the camp in his hands (it’s not like trouble was expected). Pulleine had the 1/24 battalion available, supported by two companies of NNC and two pieces of light artillery, to defend the camp. As the 2/24 marched out under the lord baron that morning, Pulleine was left to his own devices. He posted pickets atop the nearby ridgelines, had the men stand to, and then dismissed them to their breakfasts while he busied himself preparing to strike the camp and move on to Chelmsford’s position later that day or the next.

Back at Rorke’s Drift, at about 5:30 that morning a rider arrived from the column and delivered his message to Col. Anthony Durnford, commander of the II Column, charged with defending Natal against Zulu counteroffensives. Durnford, unlike Chelmsford or Pulleine, had long experience in Africa’s bush wars, and had raised a very effective mounted unit of blacks. He was a war hero, and had lost the use of his left arm in a fight against the Xhosa some years before. That had led to some abrasiveness in his relationship with the baron, who resented the younger man’s popularity amongst the frontier community. So, Chelmsford had stuck Durnford with the safe sideshow of guarding the border while he got all the glory of marching to Ulundi. Now, though, he called up II Column to reinforce the camp – the 500 men would do good service filling out the defenders in case of emergency. Durnford saddled up his men and moved out, unhampered by the unwieldy baggage train.

HIs arrival around 11 am was heralded by cheers and relief from the camp at Isandlwana, which had frankly been feeling rather abandoned after most of the fighting men had marched out. Durnford and Pulleine squabbled over who held command – Durnford, while senior, was also outside Pulleine’s chain of command in II Column, not III Column – but reports from the pickets atop the ridge to the north cut short that discussion. Hundreds of Zulu scouts and foragers had been seen milling about on the plateau to the north.

Both men were keenly aware of how exposed they were to the north – even from the top of Isandlwana, you can’t make out what’s going on on the Nqutu plateau – and were a bit anxious with all the army marching east and south. Durnford suspected that the activity might mean more amabutho lurking in the area, possibly intending to fall upon Chelmsford’s rear as he engaged the main impi. He resolved to take the initiative and put a stop to it, and ordered his men to ride out to the east and interpose themselves between the main army’s rear and any threat from the north. With Durnford was a little troop – 10 men – hauling experimental rockets, mostly useful only as psychological weapons. The colonel ordered the rocket troop to follow along behind him as best they could, dispatched two troops of riders to sweep the northern plateau, and then set off to the east.

Situation, approximately 11 am, 22 January

—

Chelmsford had a frustrating morning. His ‘relief column’ had arrived at Lonsdale’s bivouac after a two-hour march, only to find the commanders somewhat sheepishly reporting that the Zulus were gone. Irritated, he had set his men to beating the bush, hoping to flush the impi into the open for his decisive battle. Lonsdale, exhausted, gave his report and then set off to return to the main camp at Isandlwana.

A few scattered groups were seen – a hundred here, fifty there- and there were a few skirmishes in the morning, but nothing major. The visible Zulus withdrew to the east and the British pursued. By 9 am, Chelmsford himself had given up directing the action and settled down to breakfast, when a messenger arrived from Isandlwana reporting that large bodies of Zulu had been seen moving about north of camp. He dispatched a naval attache with a powerful telescope to spy out what could be seen of Isandlwana, 8-10 miles distant, but when the man reported that he could make out nothing other than that the cattle had been driven somewhat closer to camp, Chelmsford shrugged and had a nice breakfast with his officers. Soldiering – it was a good life!

The naval lieutenant would have stood atop the blue mountain at top center, looking west towards Isandlwana (out of frame to the right). The conical hill where the rocket battery is destroyed (spoilers!) is at center.

Breakfast finished, Chelmsford took his men back in hand and set them off in a flurry of orders to sweep the hills to the east some more, still seeking the Zulu. He also grabbed a man and ordered him to ride to Pulleine and get him started striking camp – this country seemed like a fine place for his next halt on the march. Just as the man rode off, another messenger galloped up in a flurry of dust. He handed Chelmsford a message: “For God’s sake come with all your men; the camp is surrounded and will be taken unless helped.” At the same time another messenger came to report that the Zulu were attacking Isandlwana in force.

Chelmsford was alarmed by this news – especially since one could now make out cannon fire, booming in the distance – but puzzled, too. Had he not left 1,000 men to guard the camp? Where was Durnford? 1500 rifles should be more than enough to see off any number of Zulu! He galloped to the top of a nearby hill and squinted back towards Isandlwana, the sphinx-shaped hill blue in the distance. He could see nothing from this distance.

The camp should have been able to take care of itself, but Chelmsford was starting to conclude that perhaps it had not been such a grand idea to split his army in half in enemy country, with the Zulu’s main strength at present still entirely unlocated. He gave orders and sent horsemen flying over the hils in various directions, trying to regather the column which had become massively scattered during the morning’s scouting. It took hours, but by about 3 pm, Chelmsford was regrouped and set off back towards Isandlwana, a march of 3-4 hours away.

As they marched, he met more desperate messengers, carrying unbelievable news: the camp had fallen! The Zulu had overrun it and were murdering anything that moved. Obvious nonsense – “I left a thousand men to guard the camp!” Chelmsford protested – but the next rider was not so easily dismissed: haggard, weary, and completely exhausted, Major Lonsdale himself, who had left Chelmsford that morning, came straggling in on a completely worn-down pony. He reported what he had seen with his own eyes, and confirmed that everyone’s fears were true:

Something terrible had happened at Isandlwana.

——

Ntshingwayo had kept his men closely under wraps the night of the 21st. While Chelmsford prepared to ride out to the southeast to reinforce Lonsdale and Dartnell, the impi had crouched in the ravine along the banks of the Ngwbini stream some distance to the north. No noise was made, no campfires were lit. A Zulu army could melt into the landscape when it wanted, and right now it very much wanted to lie doggo. They would wait out the 22nd – an inauspicious day for a battle, as it was a new moon – and attack at dawn on the 23rd, when the redcoats were strung out on the march.

But all armies, even Zulu armies, need to eat, and the Zulu carried no provisions with them. Food was instead supplied by foragers seizing cattle from nearby kraals and herding them back to the main force, so early in the morning on the 22nd small groups of these had slipped out to begin gathering in provision for the men. It was these foragers who had aroused Durnford’s suspicions upon his arrival at Isandlwana later that morning.

A group of boys had gotten their hands on a particularly juicy set of bovines and were urging them along the top of the Nqutu plateau, when over the crest rode one of Durnford’s scout troops, a small company of horsemen led by Lt. Raw. Raw and his men saw the meat on the hoof and the possibility of a bit of action (much better than dull guard duty on the Buffalo river!), and whooping, the horsemen swooped down on the boys.

Now, the top of the Nqutu plateau – all the land around Isandlwana, really – is wretchedly rocky and broken. The ground is strewn with boulders, rocks lurking in the tall grass capable of breaking a leg to the unwary runner or galloping horse. So, Raw and his men hardly rode like the wind, instead picking their way as rapidly as they could through the treacherous boulder fields towards the fleeing boys. The Zulu ‘little bees’ scampered away and dove over the lip of a ravine. Hard on their heels, Raw rode up – and halted.

In what I can only imagine was a supremely awkward moment, Raw looked down at 25,000 Zulu warriors, who were looking back at him, just as surprised. For a few frozen seconds, no one moved, then the nearest warriors starting shouting, “Usuthu!”  – “Kill!” The war cry of the Zulu. Raw calmly summoned a rider, and asked him, “Please ride to Col. Pulleine. Tell him I’ve found the Zulu army.” Then the nearest Zulu were boiling up the ridge, the horsemen were racing back, and the battle of Isandlwana had begun.

Here the strength of the Zulu system showed itself. No one had planned this battle to start the way that it did, and no one gave orders. But the men knew they were discovered and that the chance of surprise was blown. So they attacked without orders – but not as a mindless horde. The amabutho began naturally falling into their various places in the system, the men dividing themselves without orders, already assuming the correct plan of attack. Thousands swarmed across the plateau and down its southeastern slopes – the left horn of the buffalo. Thousands more charged due west, across the top of the plateau, and down the broken terrain on the fair side before beginning to hook south – the right horn. And the majority went right over, straight to the crest, and then started pouring down upon the startled British on the hill below – the chest and the loins.

Raw and his men did not flee pell-mell back to camp. Instead, they executed a disciplined retreat – they would dismount, fire off a volley from their carbines, and then leap back on their horses to ride another 100-200 yards, reloading as they did. The Zulu were not suicidal beserkers, and every volley would drive their leading elements for cover on the ground. The camp was four miles distant – some say that the Zulu were able to cover that span in 20 minutes, others that it took closer to forty minutes or an hour. Regardless, for that hour, Raw and his men conducted a fighting retreat, carefully picking their way back through the boulder field – a horse stumbling now meant swift death (some men did stumble – and died).

Looking east towards the conical hill and Chelmsford’s distant scouting party.

Back at camp, men looked up from their card games or their meals at the sound of gunfire, up on the plateau. They knew cavalry had gone that way looking for Zulu a few hours ago, and they had pickets up there now. The firing did not die away, as one might expect in minor skirmishing, but continued and even grew in intensity. Soon enough a man came galloping into camp – “Zulu!” he shouted (duh) – and raced to Pulleine, who immediately sounded the alert. As drum rolls and bugles played, men sprang up, seizing their rifles and helmets, and began falling into line. Pulleine had them head out of camp a few hundred yards and line up on the lip of a small rise, to cover some dead ground and prevent the Zulu from taking advantage of it. The time was about noon.

East of camp, struggling through the difficult, boulder-strewn terrain, was the little rocket battery vainly trying to keep up with Durnford’s cavalry. They had just passed a small, cone-shaped hill when the left horn of the impi came sweeping down the plateau and around the hill. The miserable rocketeers, lonely and abandoned, had just enough time for a started volley before the amabutho swept over them, iKwla flashing.*

Durnford had heard the firing and had just about achieved his desired tactical position, that is between Chelmsford and any Zulu threat to his rear. Quite exactly what he expected to do with his 300-odd men against tens of thousands of Zulu, now that he had gotten there, is unclear, and Durnford didn’t wait around. As the left horn overran the rocket battery, Durnford found himself the only organized military force on the plain, and so he pitted his men against the Zulu. The horsemen fought the same way Raw’s troopers did – firing, then retreating, then firing again.

View north from camp towards the ridge the Zulu appeared on. Conical hill at right.

At camp, the line of redcoats forming outside it saw the pickets on the ridgeline before them suddenly open an intense fire. They didn’t last long before all the men atop the plateau were streaming down in pell-mell retreat – and then, hot on their heels, Zulu shields began appearing along the crest. The chest of the attack appeared, and after a pause to regroup from their long charge across the plateau, the Zulus descended to launch a frontal assault on Pulleine’s line.

The redcoats were not the famous “thin red line,” mind you. Chelmsford taking half the damn army with him had made that deployment impossible – the camp was too large for a tight grouping of soldiers. Instead, the British riflemen at Isandlwana fought in a loose skirmish order, a yard or two between every man, as the companies spread out to cover the gaps in the line left by the absence of so many of their fighting units. Now less than 1,000 of them opposed 20 times their number in Zulu warriors.

The Zulu’s view descending the plateau south towards Isandlwana.

Same view, January 2022

Still, morale was high. The Zulu descending the plateau were met by shellfire from the two field cannon, and crashing volleys from the Martini-Henrys of the 24th Regiment. A curtain of steel swept out around the British and cut down the Zulu. The amabutho went to cover, as any attempt to advance was met with a hail of rifle fire. On the left, the picket company – “A” Company, under Capt. Younghusband – made their way down from the plateau and onto the slopes of Isandlwana itself. In the center, the British line extended from west to east a few hundred yards, before bending to the south to cover the camp. Durnford was still invisible, out on the plain, trying his damndest to slow down the left horn, which had yet to appear to the main camp.

Troopers laughed and joked about the good day’s hunting, their initial shock wearing off as they saw that their rifles could indeed ward off the Zulus. By half twelve, the situation seemed stable – the main Zulu attack was pinned down north of camp along the base of the plateau, Durnford was holding off the left horn over on the British right. Around this time the messenger from Chelmsford arrived, instructing Pulleine to strike the camp and prepare to join him out east. Pulleine felt comfortable enough to reply, “”Heavy firing to left of our camp. Cannot move camp at present. Shepstone has come in for reinforcements and reports the Basutos [Raw and Roberts horse] are falling back. The whole force at camp turned out and fighting about a mile to left flank.” It was the last message he would send.

Up on the Nqutu plateau, Ntshingwayo exercised what control he could over a battle he had not intended to fight. From his position atop the ridgeline he could see the entire battle spread out below him – the amabutho in the center working their way towards the British firing line, taking advantage of every gully and crack in the ground for cover, over on the left his warriors driving the heavily outnumbered Durnford before them. Vainly the Zulu commander urged his men via gesture and runner to shift to the left, to outflank the redcoats and storm the camp from its open right flank, which was dangling in the air, apart from Durnford’s cavalry.

View from British camp to the east, where their left flank is in the air. Note the cairns…

The troopers under the one-armed colonel by now were back across the plain and tumbling into a big donga that ran near camp on the British right. It was a solid position from which to fight, and for a while their volleys again checked the Zulu left horn. Everything still seemed under control – but the British were unknowingly on the edge of catastrophe.

The standard British rifleman was typically issued 70 rounds of ammunition. Further issues of rounds were made from regimental ammunition wagons, stationed behind the lines or in camp. In the years after the disaster, some would allege that at Isandlwana this supply broke down – overly stingy quartermasters refused to issue bullets to any but their own companies, or that the lids on the boxes were screwed on too tightly. Later battlefield archaeology has shown most of these rumors to be false – with one exception: Durnford’s cavalry, holding the British right.

The big donga Durnford’s men were making their stand in was a solid half-mile or more from the camp. The left horn was pressing them closely, and the troopers had been fighting now for hours across the plain. Men were nervously patting their pockets, checking with their mates to see if they had any rounds to spare, and looking expectantly towards the colonel: ammunition was running out.

Durnford dispatched two troopers back to ride like hell to camp and round up some crates of cartridges. The two tore across the plain back to the slopes of Isandlwana – but then, chaos. See, Durnford had ridden up just that morning from Rorke’s Drift, and hadn’t much bothered about his supply train as he did so. The southern part of the camp was given over to a vast wagon park (the laager Chelmsford had refused to make), and now II Column’s supplies were hopelessly snarled in it. The first quartermasters the troopers found flat refused to give them any more rounds – those were the 24th’s, they would have to find their own. Helplessly, they scoured the vast tangle of wagons searching for their own – but by the time they were at last successful, it was too late.

As the steady volleys of fire from Durnford’s donga sputtered to a close, the men in the leading amabutho of the left horn sensed the change. The Zulu began to press more closely – some still fell, but much more sporadically. Within moments, the entire horn was once more in full charge, and Durnford decided to call a retreat.

Situation, 12:30, as Durnford retreats.

II Column’s retreat back towards the camp and ammunition opened up the British right flank to attack. The Zulu swarmed forward, taking the too-extended British skirmish line in the flank, iKwla flashing, and Pulleine realized his men were too far out. He issued orders for the entire line to fall back towards the camp, to reform a tighter defense there – but the Zulu were not fools. As the British troopers ceased fire and began to retire, the warriors leapt up from their covered places and charged after them. What ensued was a foot race back to the camp, the Zulu running like hell to get in among the British before they could re-establish their deadly curtain of rifle fire. Pandemonium ensued.

The neat lines of the 24th dissolved as Zulu and redcoat together came in among the tents. The imperial soldiers were reduced to fighting in isolated knots with bayonets as the Zulu swarmed around them. Many men fell on the run, never able to get back to the camp. Others did so, and gradually company squares started to form here and there. But it was already too late – the British were doomed. Some men tripped over anchor lines on the tents – any fall being met with swift death. Others backed up against the canvas walls, defending themselves until Zulu crept through the tents and slashed their way out the back. Drovers, cooks, stewards raced here and there, falling and dying as the wave of amabutho swept over the encampment.

The cairns that still stand today on the slopes of Isandlwana mark the places where British soldiers lie, buried where they fell. Pulleine, observing the disaster of what was the only battle he’d ever fight, ordered two subalterns, Lts. Melville and Coghill, to escape with the regimental colors, then by all surviving accounts retired to his tent, where he met his fate. Entire companies dissolved and were massacred as the Zulu fought their way through the camp.

Two patches of organized resistance remained – on the left, Capt. Younghusband’s A company withdrew across the shoulder of Isandlwana in good order, fending the Zulus off and making their way towards the southeastern corner of the hill. On the right, Durnford’s troopers provided a rallying point and many redcoats gathered around the one-armed colonel, who made a stand on the saddle just south of Isandlwana. As terrified teamsters, camp followers, NNC, and other hangers-on streamed past him to the south, it looked for a few heartbeats like Durnford might be able to make a stand and shield the retreat of a good portion of the British force.

Then the right horn arrived.

The Zulu right had made a wide swing through the hills to the west as the battle had progressed, all the way around the far side of Isandlwana. It had taken ages, but now thousands of fresh warriors poured right in at the British rear, cutting off all retreat. Durnford and his men formed one last square, surrounded and shrinking as men fell to thrown assegais or to random Zulu rifle fire**. Durnford himself was visible to the end, haranguing and encouraging his men, before falling himself to a Zulu bullet. Then the final rush came and overwhelmed the last few dozen survivors.

Durnford’s cairn, on the saddle just south of Isandlwana. Younghusband’s A company fought on the hill itself at top-center.

Up on the hill, Younghusband’s A company ran out of room to retreat as the right horn swept over the hill behind them. The Zulu report that, as the British fixed bayonets and prepared for a last stand, the inDuna (that is, a Zulu officer in charge of an amabutho) halted his men and allowed the British to prepare themselves for one last honorable fight. Younghusband sheathed his sword, and proceeded down the line of his survivors, offering each man his hand in turn and thanking them for their service. His farewells given, the British resolved to die like imperial soldiers and charged the Zulus with a roar. The fight was swiftly over.

At about 3:00 in the afternoon of the 22nd, a solar eclipse swept over the ruins of the British camp. The only living things in the camp were the Zulu warriors, who roamed around the tents and carriages, looting and pillaging, celebrating their great victory over the invaders of their country. To the southwest, panicked survivors, hotly pursued by the Zulu, fled down a ravine towards the nearest practicable ford in the Buffalo – to this day known as Fugitive’s Drift. There were no redcoats among them – the men of the 24th had died in their places. More than 1300 of the defenders died – 800 redcoats and sundry other camp followers, NNC, cavalry, etc. The Zulu dead are estimated to be about 1,000.

Lts. Melville and Coghill, with the colors, fled down this ravine with the Zulu hot on their heels and splashed across the river, which was running high. Melville fell from his horse in the difficult crossing, losing the colors. Coghill, safe on the opposite bank, threw himself back into the river and pulled his companion to safety – but in the process was wounded by a Zulu bullet fired from the far bank. The two men struggled onto the Natal side of the river and collapsed, Melville refusing to leave the injured Coghill’s side. The Zulu came upon them there and both men were killed. The colors were recovered from the river a few days later.

All told, a handful of whites – about 74 – managed to flee down the ravine and escape at Fugitive’s Drift. No one bothered to count the amount of NNC troopers who escaped that way, but it was some hundreds, as well as many of Durnford’s troopers. Among them was Lt. Raw, who had fought the Zulu all the way from the Nqutu plateau, across the plain of Isandlwana, and then escaped. He was one of only 5 British officers to survive the day.

The memorial to the Zulu dead takes the form of an honorary leopard tooth necklace, awarded to a warrior who showed bravery in defense of his people. The arms of the necklace mimic the horns of the buffalo encircling the British invaders on the hill above.

As night fell, the Zulu amabutho finished their looting and dispersed. It wasn’t until after dark when Chelmsford’s column came straggling over the plains. Zululand is dark at night, in a way that is difficult for those of us who live with constant electric light to appreciate. There was no moon and it was impossible to see more than a few feet. Chelmsford had his men camp in the ruins of the wagon park, unwittingly surrounded by the mutilated corpses of their comrades, and forbade anyone to leave camp – ostensibly due to the danger of attack, but more likely to prevent the harm to morale that would ensue from the men discovering the horrible fate of half the army. Chelmsford himself rode to the shoulder of Isandlwana and looked out to the west.

In the distance, he could see a red glow on the horizon.

Rorke’s Drift was burning.

Chelmsford’s view of Rorke’s drift from the shoulder of Isandlwana. The mission station is just behind the small hill at center.

*Amazingly, 3 survived by playing dead.

** The Zulu had been importing guns for decades, but didn’t use them in any organized fashion. Mostly they were used for harassing and skirmishing fire, the arm of decision was still the iKwla-armed regular infantry.

Part II. The Campaign

For appropriate mood music, have this video open and playing as you read:

Cetshwayo had no desire to fight the British. His uncle, King Dingane, had gotten his nose badly bloodied by Boer settlers 40 years before and had been assassinated for it. Cetshwayo knew that his impis would probably fare similarly in open battle. However, the British ultimatum was carefully couched so that he would have no choice but to refuse – especially the demands that he accept a British resident and disband his armies.

Zulu warriors, 1879 (note the red cloths tied around arms and heads – that indicates that these Zulu were actually NNC fighters. More on them later).

The Zulu army was the backbone of the kingdom’s society. It was not a professional military force, but rather a permanently maintained militia. Every Zulu man was recruited with others of his age cohort and formed into a regiment (or amabutho). These were a permanent establishment through the decades of his life – the amabutho lived together, trained together, worked together, and fought together year in and year out. The result was a force of highly cohesive, veteran amabutho.

They were well-armed for an African tribe, much better equipped than the Xhosa the British were used to fighting further south along the borders of Cape Colony. Forgoing missile weapons, the Zulu were armed with the iKwla, a short stabbing spear very similar in function to a Roman gladius. In another parallel with the Romans, the Zulu carried a five-foot long leather shield, which could deflect thrown missiles as well as being very handy in hand-to-hand combat.

Life in the amabutho was strictly regimented. Zulu warriors were required to be celibate* until the men were given permission by Cetshwayo to marry en masse. Until a warrior had ‘washed his spear’ in the blood of an enemy, many rights and privileges were denied to him. And, of course, the king retained right of arbitrary execution over any of his subjects who placed a toe out of line. Thus, the amabutho were extremely motivated and disciplined in battle – as the redcoats were shortly to discover.

Tactically, then, the Zulu were very dangerous in open battle, quickly closing to deliver shock attacks rather than reliant on missile skirmishing. Though the command and control system of the amabutho was rudimentary at best, the Zulu army attacked on a well-rehearsed pattern, the “horns of the buffalo”. Two younger amabutho would circle right and left of the enemy, forming the horns, then turn and drive the enemy on a central amabutho of more experienced warriors – the head. The wizened veterans of many campaigns formed the reserve, or loins, closing for the decisive final attack.

Strategically, the Zulu army was light and mobile, able to rapidly cross the rough terrain of Zululand and approach enemies virtually undetected. The men lived off the land, with virtually no baggage – camping and cooking gear was carried by the umbidi, the “little bees”, young boys who followed the army as best they could and joined their fathers and brothers in camps every night. The model Zulu war, then, saw army rapidly march out (the Zulu could run, barefoot, over 20-30 miles a day), find the enemy, and then fall upon him in a single decisive annihilating battle. The amabutho, as a militia force, would then disperse back to their homes.

The weaknesses of the Zulu system were several (apart from the technological disadvantage Cetshwayo faced). First and foremost, they were a militia. That meant that the warriors were also farmers, and in January they were urgently needed to gather in the harvest or the Zulu would starve. Furthermore, the army had no logistical system whatsoever – once the local area was eaten out, the army would be forced to disperse. These two factors meant that the army had no staying power – it had to win quickly, in a short campaign, or else be defeated. Tactically, however formidable the horns of the buffalo were, it was predictable. There was no hierarchy of rank in the Zulu army – amabuthos were led by their particular officers, and the army as a whole typically had a royal family member overseeing it, but there was no well-defined pyramidal structure as in Western armies. Zulu led more via prestige, and it was common for amabutho to ignore orders they felt disinclined to follow. Thus, the Zulu fought more or less headlessly, the army working through its tactical evolutions mechanically. They had a difficult time adapting to changing circumstances, or altering their tactics to try other approaches.

This was the system the BRitish demanded Cetshwayo disband, which of course he could not. The amabutho gathered every year and were used for public works projects, campaigns against hostile neighbors, or to enforce his writ within Zululand. It was the backbone of Zulu society – it could not simply be dismissed with a wave of Cetshwayo’s royal hand! Still, the Zulu king knew a war with the British was unlikely to be won, and he was desperate for a diplomatic solution. So, when the ultimatum was delivered, he agreed to give up the demanded hostages required by Frere, and to pay the fine in cattle, while asking for more time to negotiate a solution to the other demands. When that was refused, Cetshwayo began to muster his forces at Ulundi, his capital.

Knowing that the army could only stay in the field a short time, and needing an early decisive battle, Cetshwayo opted to keep the army close to Ulundi at first. He had excellent spies from renegades on the far side of the border, in Natal, and was well-informed about the British plan. The whites were gathering in several armies all along his border, but where did they intend to invade first? Which column was the most dangerous? When that question was answered, he would unleash his amabutho and crush the invaders, driving them out of Zululand. That done, he would then turn and defeat the other invading forces in detail.

Skirmish at Sihayo’s Kraal, January 12, 1879

The answer came on the 17th of January, 1879. Word came to Ulundi from Sihayo, the chief whose seizure of his renegade wives had provoked the war. His kraal, near Rorke’s Drift, where one of the British armies was gathered, had come under attack by the redcoats and he was fleeing with his people towards Ulundi. The action at Sihayo’s kraal settled Cetshwayo’s mind, and he ordered the army to march to the southwest, find the red-coated soldiers, and destroy them.

There is a broad valley that runs from Ulundi through the hilly terrain of Zululand almost all the way to the Buffalo river, the border with Natal. It forms a highway straight from the capital to one of the only fords over the river – a drift, in South African parlance. This particular drift was named after a missionary who had set up a station nearby, James Rorke – hence, Rorke’s Drift. The road from Rorke’s Drift crossed through difficult, hilly country, before emerging near the outcrop of Isandlwana and running through the Valley of Kings to Ulundi. Accordingly, it was one of the main routes of invasion of Zululand, and it was down this valley that the Zulu army moved over 3 days, quickly drawing near to Isandlwana.

The valley near its exit at Isandlwana, January 2022

On the night of the 20th, the Zulu commander, Ntshingwayo, a relative of the king, stood on a broad hill looking west. Isandlwana, a lonely outcrop of rock shaped like a sphinx, was visible in the distance – and below it the slopes were studded with white-canvas tents. The British army was in sight.

Ntingshwayo had a choice. To his left, a line of rocky hills extended south and west towards the Buffalo river. It was difficult terrain for the British to operate in, and the hills would shield him from view should he strive to invade Natal. It was also populated with several small villages that would provide food for his army, which was rapidly eating through its rations. However, Cetshwayo had expressly forbidden Ntingshwayo from crossing the border, instead charging him with attempting to negotiate a peaceful solution with the British and acting only in self-defense. So, he had no reason to try and invade the whites’ territory. To his right, across a broad valley, was another ridgeline – more broken, hilly terrain. It was less well-populated nad it would be more difficult to supply his men there, however, it would let him approach the camp on the slopes of Isandlwana more closely.

Ntingshwayo decided to avoid the southwest, not trusting all the locals who lived there, and instead swung his men across the valley to the north, bringing to the banks of the Ngwebeni stream just behind the plateau of the same name, by the afternoon of the 21st. He intended to rest his army there through the 22nd and then at dawn on the 23rd seek battle with the British, assuming no diplomatic solution had been found.

In the event, the British superseded his plans.

—–

Lord Frederick Thesiger, Baron Chelmsford, commander of all imperial British forces in southern Africa, had had an undistinguished career thus far. One of those soldiers regrettably born after the great war of his times (12 years after Waterloo), he had served solidly in the Crimea and in India but with little opportunity for glory. Since plodding through the cursus honorum of the British Army to commander in Africa, he had successfully fought a minor bush war with the Xhosa. It was that experience that formed his plan of campaign for the conquest of the Zulus.

Chelmsford did not fear meeting the amabutho in battle – quite the opposite, in fact. He had only about 7,000 regulars distributed in 9 battalions in all of southern Africa (the War Office had refused to send more troops to what was in essence a police garrison, worried [rightly] that reinforcements would encourage Frere to launch his damned war), but they were armed with the highly reliable and effective breech-loading Martini-Henry rifle. Disciplined fire from a battalion of redcoats would lay down a curtain of steel capable of warding off any number of iKwla**-wielding natives. Thus, open battle with the Zulu was to be preferred, letting him settle the business in a bloody afternoon. However, he would have to make sure that his regulars were well-supplied with food, water, ammunition, and other essentials for war in trackless Zululand – a formidable task. Each battalion, for example, consumed a ton of food per day, which would have to be hauled with them. Ammunition would have to be carried. Water was difficult to find in the country, and so he would need to invade in the wet season, when the dry watercourses (dongas, in South African parlance) would flow. All of this would have to be hauled with him, and his central column alone required more than 300 wagons

In turn, the wagons could create problems. Each would be hauled by a team of 16 oxen – sturdier, more reliable than a horse, and capable of feeding itself off the local forage, oxen were the ideal choice. But oxen are slow, and stubborn, and are not bred for work – to keep each team in harness continuously would see all his beasts dead before he’d made it a tenth of the way to Ulundi. No, the oxen would need to rotate, one day on, two days off – so each wagon would need not 16 but 48 beasts to haul it, meaning one column alone would require damn near 15,000 cattle to supply it. So, unlike the Zulu, any British column would be hideously slow on the march – and the slower they went, the more supplies they would consume, the more of the wet season they would lose, exacerbating the water problem, etc.

The supply problem fed into Chelmsford’s other great fear: that the Zulu would not fight him. The Xhosa made war via ambush and subterfuge, avoiding open battle and opting to raid British supply lines and frontier farmsteads. The Zulu, with their legendary stealth and mobility, might avoid his army entirely, slip around behind, and go pillaging in Natal as they had the generation before. They might even get as fars Pietermaritzburg, or Durban! With a war on thin enough political ice as it was, such a move might be a deathblow to his and the politicians Frere & Shepstone’s careers (and also literal death to lots of innocent colonials, but we’re focused on what’s important here).

So, Chelmsford adopted the obvious strategy for invading Zululand: he divided his forces. Obviously he couldn’t mass all 7,000 troops in one weighty column and smash ahead to Ulundi. Ulundi was nothing more than a pile of rocks on the ground – it could be razed entirely by the British, but the Zulu would just rebuild it as soon as the army left. Further, one huge column would have its wagon train stretch for miles upon miles – it would be so sluggish as to be almost immobile. The amabutho would slip around it and pillage to their heart’s content. No, he needed to spread his armies over multiple routes, to lower each column’s supply train to a manageable level. Plus, he would throw his net wide, and hem the Zulus in so no matter which way they turned, they would meet one of his armies coming in. Then the British would get their bloody afternoon, shatter the Zulu armies, press on to Ulundi, capture Cetshwayo, and put an end to the business before the Colonial Office even finished its meeting trying to decide what to do about Frere.

Chelmsford had, as stated, about 7,000 British regulars to work with, infantry and light artillery for the most part. He had virtually no professional cavalry, but was able to recruit volunteers from the local colonial and Boer population. These would provide essential scouting and screening duties in the trackless Zululand. Further, he had several thousand renegade Zulu to call upon – the Natal Native Contingent, identical in arms, equipment, and dress to their brethren across the Buffalo river, distinguished only by a red cloth tied around their arms.*** All told, he had about 17,000 men to confront the Zulu’s estimated 40,000-50,000 strong army (impi, in Zulu).

The good baron split his army into five. I Column, with one regiment of regulars, would invade up the coast road from Durban through Eshowe and approach Ulundi from the southeast. His main force, which Chelmsford assumed personal command of, III Column, would strike from the main crossing at Rorke’s Drift over the hilly border terrain and then straight up the valley of kings to Ulundi from the southwest. A final invading column, IV Column, would march from the Transvaal in the north and come upon the capital from the northwest. Meanwhile, one column of volunteer horse under one Colonel Durnford (II Column) would patrol the Natal/Zululand border, and a second (V Column) would keep an eye on the border between the Boer Transvaal republic and the Zulus – as much to keep the Boers from getting any funny ideas while the British had their hands full as to protect them from Zulu raids.

It is the fate of the central column under Chelmsford that has become legend. Its core was two battalions of the 24th Regiment of Foot, about 1300 regulars, all told. They were supported by various companies of mounted volunteers, Natal mounted police, etc, providing about 300 horsemen, and more than 2500 warriors of the 3rd Regiment, Natal Native Contingent. All told, there were roughly 4500 fighting men in the column, with a further 300ish camp helpers, drivers, sutlers, etc.

Saturday morning, January 11, 1879, dawned grey and drizzly – Natal’s rainy season, although it would definitely get hot later in the day. Chelmsford’s column lurched over the Buffalo at Rorke’s Drift as Cetshwayo’s deadline expired, and the invasion officially began. The terrain immediately on the far side of the drift, although the most favorable terrain for wagons, was hardly promising – steep hills and rocky, broken terrain made it apparent that Chelmsford would have to carve a road. So, the British pitched camp and began to dig.

On the 12th, the NNC, supported by 4 companies of the 24th (in case they got into trouble), launched an attack on Sihayo’s kraal. Sihayo was the chief who had provoked the whole war, in British eyes, by his repeated violations of the border. His kraal was sited in a rocky gorge just off the northern flank of the column and would need to be cleared out to secure the line of march – plus, it’d be a nice bit of first blood. The skirmish was short and easy, settling the British mind that this campaign would be more of a glorified hunting expedition than a serious battle against a dangerous adversary.

While the British crawled through the hills, survivors from Sihayo’s kraal fled to Ulundi and raised the alarm. Soon, all the amabutho were aroused and streaming towards III Column.

Isandlwana from the southeast. The British came through the small saddle on the left. The Zulu army is lurking a few miles away atop the plateau at right.

After days of difficult travel, the British army straggled around the hill of Isandlwana. This striking hill was compared to the Sphinx by the men of the 24th, who had fought in Egypt. It looked grim and ominous, looming out of the plain, but Chelmsford was not troubled by superstition. Isandlwana provided good firewood for his camp, access to water, and was in a secure location – the hill itself shielded the camp from attack to the west, and its sightlines to the east (the road to Ulundi) and south were excellent. A plateau to the north did offer some opportunities for concealment, but that was easily remedied via pickets on the heights. By the afternoon of the 20th, camp had been laid out while the wagons straggled up.

That same afternoon, Chelmsford reached the slopes of Isandlwana, staring across the same valley that Ntshingwayo, head of the Zulu impi far to the east, was even now looking down on. The baron conducted a personal reconaissance to the south and east from the hill, and though he saw several villages with Zulu milling about, no sign of the main force was seen. He expected the arrival of the Zulu army any day now, and so Chelmsford decided to launch a major scouting effort the next day.

Meanwhile, several of the Boer volunteers in camp had approached Chelmsford and warned him that he needed to laager his wagons – that is, to pull the wagons into a ring around the camp as a makeshift fort. Generations of battling Zulus had taught the Afrikaaners that this was the only safe way to campaign. But Chelmsford could not. Laagering a small Boer kommando of a few hundred fighters was a very different proposition than laagering 5,000 of Her Majesty’s troops. His wagons were employed in hauling supplies to and from Rorke’s Drift – he did not have the numbers to spare. Nor could the ground be entrenched – the terrain at Isandlwana is hard and rocky. It would take a week to fortify the camp and the British would not be at Isandlwana a week. This was a temporary halt while supplies were got up and the terrain ahead scouted, nothing more. Remember, Chelmsford was on a time limit. He had to reach Ulundi before his supplies and the wet season gave out, and his advance was already too slow. So, Isandlwana remained unfortified.

The road from Isandlwana to Rorke’s Drift. Though the distance is short – the mission station is just behind the hill at center – the rocky & hilly terrain made the British advance agonizingly slow.

The baron’s main concern was his right flank. The plain in front of Isandlwana was boxed in on three sides by hills and ridges – to the north, a few miles to the east, and to the south. The hills east and south of the plain would screen any Zulu force attempting to slip past III Column and invade Natal by one of the lower drifts. The possibility of invasion constantly occupied his mind. Before dawn on the 21st, Chelmsford dispatched Major Lonsdale with nearly his entire NNC contingent – more than 2,000 men – to scout to the south and east and seek out the main impi. Then, he followed up by detailing Major Dartnell with 150 mounted men from the Buffalo Border Guard, the Natal Mounted Police, the Newcastle Mounted Rifles, and Natal Carabineers – nearly all of his light cavalry – to ride due east and then turn and sweep south to meet up with Lonsdale’s renegade Zulus. Thus, the entirety of the British scouting effort – including all of its light infantry and cavalry – was directed in entirely the wrong direction. The main Zulu army, quietly resting in the valleys to the north of Isandlwana, was entirely undetected on the 21st.

British scouting efforts on the 21st and 22nd. Isandlwana is just to the left of the white square at left center (the British camp).

The area to be scouted was immense, and the terrain very difficult. Dartnell led his cavalry over the hills and out of sight of camp, and very soon found himself in trouble. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Zulu in the hills – either warriors operating independently of the main army, or, as some allege, amabutho deliberately planted there by Ntshingwayo to draw off British attention. However it was planned, the Zulu alarmed Dartnell, who several times nearly found himself surrounded with his horsemen. He linked up with the NNC under Lonsdale coming up from the south, and sent a slightly shrill message back to Chelmsford, announcing that he had found the main Zulu column and was forting up for the night.

Now, Dartnell and Lonsdale had both been ordered to return to camp by nightfall – Chelmsford certainly didn’t want his light infantry and cavalry to be caught out there alone without the support of the regular line infantry. But the message came so late in the day that there was little the baron could do – it was already growing too dark for the men to return to camp in the light, and straggling over the hills in the utter darkness of Zululand at night (believe me, in my experience there you can’t see your hand in front of your face without a light source – and the night of January 21 was a new moon!) was a recipe for ambush and disaster. Irritated, he granted permission for the men to bed down on the far side of the hills.

At 1 in the morning on the 22nd, a further messenger arrived from Dartnell. By now on the edge of panic, Dartnell and Lonsdale reported hundreds of campfires visible in the darkness, a patrol was nearly cut off by roving Zulu in the night, and twice the skittish NNC had stampeded from imagined night attacks. Dartnell begged for infantry support in the morning – if Chelmsford sent reinforcements he could be certain of his battle with the main Zulu army. Perhaps tired, short on sleep, or simply having his expectations confirmed, Chelmsford prepared for a dawn march.

What the terrain looks like on the ground – looking east from the British camp. Dartnell and Lonsdale are camped beyond those hills on the right. The Zulu, of course, are behind the ridge on the left.

When day broke on the 22nd of January, the baron moved out. He took with him the 2nd battalion of the 24th – half his redcoated infantry. He left the remainder, the 1st battalion, to guard the camp from any raiders lurking about, and sent word back to Dunford with II Column at Rorke’s Drift to come up and support the camp. Then he set off to seek the enemy and decisive battle.

Thus, at about 8 in the morning, the British army was scattered all to hell and back around Isandlwana. In the furthest eastern advance, Dartnell and Lonsdale crouched in their temporary bivouac, surrounded by imagined foes with the light cavalry and native auxiliaries, roughly 1,000 men. Marching to their relief was Chelmsford with half his regular infantry and more natives, nearly 2500 combatants. Encamped at Isandlwana itself was his other battalion of infantry, camp guards, and sundry followers totalling about 1100 defenders. Hastening up from Rorke’s Drift a few kilometers away was Durnford’s column of a few hundred cavalry. Finally, lurking just to the north of the main camp, and as yet undetected, was the main Zulu army of about 25,000 men.

Everything was in place for one of the greatest debacles in British colonial history.

*more or less
**The British wrongly dubbed them assegais
*** In the heat of battle this distinction was often overlooked by jumpy British regulars

Note: The next couple of posts are re-posts of writing I did elsewhere. I thought it would be sensible to rehost it and revive my blog a bit, doing a bit of historical writing.

I recently had the chance to visit another obscure battlefield in a far corner of the world, and so I thought I’d repeat the effort. Read on for a tale of wicked invasion and bloody battle, of greed and ambition running into defiant courage, of man’s folly and incompetence – but also his heroism.

The Battle of Isandlwana

Today, sheep graze in the shadow of the hill of Isandlwana.

The sphinx-shaped hill is in far-distant country, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest major city of Durban, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. To get there, I had to wind up and down hills on gravel roads littered with obstacles – massive potholes capable of swallowing a small car, herds of cattle wandering to and fro on the ‘highway,’ the omnipresent taxis careening past the switchbacks. It’s a hair raising journey, and nothing at all like the quiet and easy train ride out to remote Sekigahara, the last obscure battlefield I visited.

Life in Zululand, or KwaZulu in its own tongue, carries on today much as it has for over 200 years. The Zulu still live in villages of small rondavels gathered around the chief’s house. The main source of wealth is still livestock, left free to graze where it will on the rolling hills. The hills themselves are largely untouched by agriculture, outside the massive eucalyptus tree plantations, since most of Zululand is game reserve. In the royal palace, the king of the Zulus still carries out his duties – albeit today the succession dispute rocking the royal household is now fought in the courts in Pietermaritzberg rather than with spears out in the hills.

The valley of Isandlwana is no different. The distinctive hilltop looks over a plain dotted with Zulu villages. Young boys chase goats around the gravel roads, women carry water from the sparse wells in this dry country back to their rondavels, and scarcely a car ever passes through the pastoral landscape (no surprise, getting here with all 4 tires intact is a hell of a task).

Isandlwana from the Nqutu ridge, January 2022

As I arrived on the ridgeline overlooking Isandlwana on a sunny January day (this time not alone, as I was in Sekigahara, but somehow having convinced my wonderful wife to trek with me hours out into the African wilderness to see this field), I saw the Zulu children playing on the slopes of the hill. It’s grassy, with a few scrub trees and bushes, and rocky, the entire landscape dotted with boulders. I wondered if the kids recognized the significance of where they were playing – for on the shoulder of Isandlwana there are visible dozens upon dozens of small white stones piled into cairns.

Every single cairn marks the grave of redcoated soldiers. Every cairn is the final resting place of one of the men of the 24th Regiment of Foot. Nearly 124 years ago, the 24th was wiped out on the slopes of this hill by the armies of Zulu king Cetshwayo, in one of the worst colonial disasters ever to overtake British arms. This quiet valley and the cairns of stones, ignored by the young people playing among them, is the scene of the greatest victory in Zulu history – and the last gasp of an independent people before conquest, subjugation, and decades of apartheid.

Over the next few days in this thread I would like to share the story of what happened here, and what came afterward.

I. Strategic Background

The British Empire in 1878 was indisputably the premier power of the world. From the small, rain-swept island off the coast of northwest Europe, conquering fleets and armies had issued forth time and again to plant the flag in the wilds of North America, across the Caribbean, to hold the Mediterranean in a vise at Gibraltar, Malta, and Egypt, to throw open the gates of China’s Celestial Empire, to bring all of the Indian subcontinent under its sway, to seize the entire continent of Australia, and, lately, into the deepest heart of Africa. The Royal Navy held this sprawling, disparate empire together with hundreds of the most modern warships in the world, far outclassing any potential rival, and the Royal Army, though small, was perhaps the most disciplined and professional infantry fighting force in the world.

But for all that, this empire was a patchwork one. There were simply too few British gentlemen of quality to completely administer the hundreds of princely states, kingdoms, renegade republics, penal colonies, frontier towns, garrison isles, and dependencies in the vast territory that swore allegiance to Victoria. Instead, the British ruled with a light hand, dependent upon local allies and compliant puppet rulers to ensure London’s will was done.

Southern Africa in 1879. Natal and Zululand are at far right.

Nowhere was this patchwork more evident than in the British-ruled areas of southern Africa. A half-dozen major states dotted the area, all more or less officially ruled by Her Majesty. In reality they were an unruly, squabbling pack of siblings as inclined to fight each other as to trade. The Cape Colony and Natal were built around their magnificent harbor cities of Cape Town and Durban, respectively, and were the most British in character. In the high veldt, the stubbornly independent Boers had established their own republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State, though they nominally accepted British suzerainty.* In between were dotted African statelets and kingdoms – Lesotho, Eswatini, Transkei, and, significantly, Zululand. The man appointed to oversee this nonsense, Theophilous Shepstone, was officially titled the Secretary of Native Affairs in Natal. Basically he was the poor sap in charge of handling all negotiations between the Boers, the Zulu, the Sotho, the Swazi, the Khosa, and a dozen other tribal groups in South Africa.

Ten years before our story begins, in Canada, the British had been able to weld a similarly disparate group of colonies into one Dominion. Quebec, Ontario, the Maritimes, and even the sparsely settled western frontier provinces had been federated and placed under unified rule in Ottawa. A similar scheme might ease the British headaches in South Africa, a land they had never really intended to rule.** And so in 1876 a new High Commissioner for South Africa was appointed: Sir Bartle Frere.

Sir Henry Bartle Frere, chief architect of disaster

Frere’s mission was simple: To peacefully unify South Africa under a white minority rule, while the black majority provided labor in the lucrative sugar plantations and diamond mines springing up around the country. The blacks would extract wealth to help swell the coffers of the Empire, the whites would keep the peace and allow London to more or less ignore that distant corner of the world, and Frere would find himself the first Governor-General of the united South Africa as a feather in his cap. The scheme was simple and lucrative.

The one sticking point was the Zulus.

The Zulu kingdom was the most powerful African state in the history of southern Africa. The history of that land is too detailed to get into here, but suffice to say that Zulu, under their king Shaka and his powerful army, had carved an empire in blood out of the rolling veldt in southeast Africa. They had defeated all rivals and driven all their neighbors out of the kingdom in the Mfecane, the “Scattering.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mfecane). However, in one of those twists of which history is so fond, into this vacuum, this desolated wilderness devoid of people due to the Zulu blood wars, had stumbled probably the most unlikely group of people imaginable in southern Africa: white farmers, Dutch nomads, wagon-riders with their entire homes and families in tow. The voortrekkers, on their Great Trek fleeing British oppression in the Cape, had come upon the Zulu.

The Zulu and Boers introduce themselves to one another

Well, one thing led to another, wars and glorious battles were fought, treaties were signed and broken, there was betrayal and bloody massacre, murder and revenge, heroism and cowardice on both sides, but when the dust had settled the Boers and the Zulu had forged out a peaceful-ish coexistence, with the Boers in their republics of Transvaal and Natalia on one side and the Zulus in kwaZulu, “Zululand,” on the other. Then the British had promptly annexed Natalia with its splendid port at Durban and proclaimed the new colony of Natal.

Anyway, as the British colony in Natal grew and prospered from its foundation in the early 1840s to the late 1870s, the Zulus remained a lurking menace to the north. Natal was a fabulously fertile and green country, home to many and growing lucrative sugar plantations, but the whites who came to grow sugar and grow rich had a serious labor problem. Whites had no desire to come and work the malarial fields. Indians were tempted over from the subcontinent and alleviated some of the issue – to this day Durban is the largest Indian city in the world outside India itself – but the main source of manpower was always the Zulu.

However, the Zulu kingdom had forbidden its men to work with the British. Anyone caught working south of the border was declared a traitor and could expect brutal execution if he returned home. That tended to hamper recruitment efforts. Even so, some men would slip across and work for a while – but the idea of long-term commitment did not appeal. Farmers would wake up in the morning to discover that their field hands had carefully considered the matter and come to the conclusion that they’d earned enough money – and had lit off back home in the middle of the night, to slip home with their guns or their cattle (valid forms of payment in a kingdom not really accepting of cash currency) and take up their old lives.

Cetshwayo, King of the Zulu

Even worse, the Zulus, as a powerful, independent African kingdom, was a terrible example to all. Why, other blacks would look to the Zulu and think that perhaps they also could rule their own states! Perhaps even stand up as equals to the white man. The king, Cetshwayo, by his very existence made negotiations with blacks all across southern Africa immensely more difficult. As Shepstone put it, “”Cetshwayo is the secret hope of every petty independent chief hundreds of miles from him who feels a desire that his colour shall prevail, and it will not be until this hope is destroyed that they will make up their minds to submit to the rule of civilisation”. It was a horrifying thought, and Frere and Shepstone were resolved to do something about it.

Now, Home Office in London had strictly forbade him from getting any damn-fool ideas in his head about war with the Zulus. The empire had concerns enough in Eastern Europe and India and was not at all interested in yet another frontier war in Southern Africa with a people with unpronounceable names and funny clothes. Frere received these instructions, nodded gravely and said he understood, and went about provoking a war behind his bosses’ backs anyway. Hell, the whole thing would be over before London got wind of it anyway. Trot the boys up to the border, have one short sharp battle with the fuzzies – put the fear of God and the Martini-Henry rifle in ‘em – grab the Zulu king and Bob’s your uncle. What would Home Office do, apologize and give Zululand back?

To sum up: The British Empire wanted to unify South Africa to solve its administrative and labor problems, but they did NOT want an expensive and unnecessary war to get it. The local bigwigs, Frere and Shepstone, however, figured they could sort things out before the hippy pacifists in London could object to the favor they were being done.

So Frere, with the connivance of Shepstone, in 1878 began to manufacture an excuse to invade and annex Zululand. Now, this is Africa – deep in Natal, the borders got fuzzy, rivers changed their course or ran dry in the winter, and there’s for damn certain hardly any good maps. So, very helpfully for Frere and Shepstone, no one was quite certain where the border between the Zulus and Natal actually was. A few incidents were seized on – the Zulus dragging a fugitive wife of one of their chiefs from their refuge in Natal back over the border to be treated in the usual Zulu fashion, ie, brutally executed, then the Zulus doing exactly that thing again, and a third incident involving a lost surveying party – and the two servants of Her Majesty Victoria in Durban had everything they needed for a war (if you squinted very hard): they prepared an ultimatum outlining these “grievances” to Cetshwayo, the Zulu king, rounded up a handful of other paper-thin excuses that could be seized upon and declaring that obviously the only acceptable resolution was the total disbandment of the Zulu army, payment of massive fines in cattle, and accepting a British Resident, among other things. They rode up to the border with Zululand at the start of summer, December 11, 1878, handed the letter to a few confused Zulu border guards, and dashed away. Cetshwayo was given 30 days to comply.

In the meantime, around October or November, Frere had sent a few letters by the slowboat to London, absently mentioning in his reports that he intended to get an explanation from the Zulu for the ‘outrages’ committed against Natal. London, scarcely paying attention (having sternly and repeatedly warned Frere not to provoke a damnfool bush war in South Africa), equally absent-mindedly replied not to push things too far, certainly don’t do anything like issue ultimatums or other ridiculous nonsense like that. By the time London’s reply reached Frere, oopsie, he’d already started the redcoats across the border.

Cetshwayo, when he received the ultimatum, was scarcely aware that the countdown against him had already begun. He could hardly comply, of course, since the British were more or less demanding his complete annexation, but he knew his chances in a war with the Empire were so slim as to be nonexistent. Cetshwayo desperately offered to negotiate over these “grievances” (most of which he was hearing about for the first time), to no avail. The 30 day limit expired and on January 11, 1879, the British army began crossing into Zululand in multiple areas.

The Anglo-Zulu war,  war neither London nor Ulundi had wanted, had broken out mostly due to the conniving ambition of Sir Bartle Frere. He, of course, had greatly exceeded his orders, but so what? One short sharp fight and the war would be over and all London would be able to do is give him a medal for his glorious conquest.The Zulus were brave and proud warriors, but they were armed with spears and shields, against crack British redcoats. What was the worst that could happen?

*In practice the Boers hated the British – they had fled deep into the interior of Africa in an effort to escape their rule around the Cape – but with the threat of the Zulus they grudgingly accepted British ‘protection.’ It would take multiple wars over the next 25 years to fully bring the Boers into the empire.

**The British had seized the Cape from the Dutch in 1804 to keep the crucial way station out of French hands. Things had gotten a bit out of hand from there as they stumbled into the various other colonies in the area.

Getting back on the ferry was a minor adventure. At first we batted around hte idea of hanging out at the beach with Snow until heading into town to catch the ferry at seven pm, but eventually settled on just getting there early and spending time at the terminal. 

We took the cab to the same terminal we had debarked from three weeks before, but a concerned man met me outside. In our pidgin Korean/English and lots of hand gestures, he at first cheerfully asked us if we were bound for Wando or for Mokpo. When I indicated that it was neither, but in fact Yeosu, his eyes widened in concern. “No Yeosu! Terminal Seven! Seven!” That was odd – I could see the Gold Stella docked behind hte terminal. But the boards inside the building (which I checked after leaving the man) all read Mokpo or Wando. No Yeosu ferries. 

Near as I could figure, there was more than one terminal. I walked out of the port, over hundreds of meters of concrete, through the hot sun, and down the street. On one side was a sheer cliff, covered in thick tropical greenery over the black basalt, stretching up hundreds of feet. On the other side was mile after mile of port and dockyard facilities – gates, drydocks, shipping containers, warehouses, boat yards, all behind thick iron fencing. After slogging through the port for about half an hour, I found an unobtrusive building with a small sign labeled “departures” outside. 

Sure enough, it was the Yeosu ferry. I hiked back, grabbed Kaj, Snow, and the luggage, and we hired a cab to cart us the five-minute drive to the proper terminal. ALso, our ferry left at 4:45, NOT 7. If we’d gone with our beach plan, we would have missed the boat, literally, and had to do some serious improvisation considering the complicated chain of hotels and tickets dependent upon us being on time.

Anyway, after some negotiation at the counter (I had contrived to lose the ticket stub, as well, really coming through with flying colors today), we were reluctantly allowed to board. WIth my arms loaded down with Snow’s crate and all our luggage, Kaj had to flash my passport multiple times to the various checkpoints as we headed out to the ship, a journey which included squeezing myself and all our bags onto a tiny mini-bus packed full of Koreans and weaving BACK through all the port buildings (on the far side of the fence this time) to our original terminal, where we boarded.

The journey itself was uneventful. We had the pet room to ourselves, Kaj somehow consented to watch Gettysburg with me, since I had it on a portable hard drive for complicated reasons, we went for walks around the ship, played together in the arcade (a fighting game, I won, a racing game, we both lost, what a ripoff, and a noraebang booth, because it’s Korea), and watched the sea slide by until we came up to Yeosu that night. 

There, we lugged our, er, luggage off the ship and met up with a young Korean man. Kaj had a friend from school named Hye-Jin, who she had been very close to. Hye-Jin invited us to spend the night in Yeosu at her apartment and sent her son, a boy of about 19, to retrieve us. He led us a few blocks from the ferry terminal and up to her apartment, then made himself comfy on the couch, having surrendered his room to us.

Snow stayed up late with Kaj to bark at Hye-Jin’s cat and dog, but we all ultimately had a good sleep, exhausted from the single day on the ferry. It was my first time in a Korean apartment. The place was clean and spacious, with every available room having floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over Yeosu. The floors were hardwood, the walls mostly lined with plastic or wooden cupboards – every possible space was used for storage in the space-starved Korea. Everything was light and airy, and much nicer than the cramped Korean apartments reserved for foreigners.

The next day, we headed out to the train station around noon, and said goodbye to Hye-Jin’s son, whose name I cannot remember. A kind old man seized our bags at the platform and insisted on walking them to the train for us. And the train ride itself was comfortable – Snow was very well-behaved. 

Five hours across the country, one last time, to Seoul. We lurched through the train station (the same I had passed through a month before, taking Snow to the vet), and down to a taxi stand. The taxi took us to our hotel for 5 days in Seoul, but damned if I could find the place – I got out at the requested address, walked all around, squinted at various buildings (all high-rises as busy traffic and pedestrians hurried by – this was Seoul!), and eventually sent the cab away. I found the place squirreled away down an alley and up on the fifth floor of a building later. 

Namsan Forest, Seoul, was right in the shadow of Namsan Tower, visible from our window (there was only one window in the room, out in the bathroom which was basically a balcony). We didn’t see a human being when we checked in. Instead, I walked into the lobby, squinted at a sign, and dialed the number listed there. The man said he’d send me a text instead. A few minutes later, my room and dorm code came in on the phone. Shrugging, we checked ourselves in. 

We never once glimpsed another human during our entire stay at the hotel.

THe location was fantastic, right in the heart of Myeongdong but a little off the main roads so it was quiet. We explored the neighborhoods, finding little restaurants, walking the dog on the lower slopes of Namsan, going on adventures. We took Snow on the subway all the way to the vet one day (necessitating one VERY long transfer). We were disappointed in our hopes of a McDonald’s breakfast (Koreans sleep in late and the local McDonald’s, the first i’d seen in months, didn’t open until 11), but instead had a great waffle/pancake breakfast at another place nearby. One day we walked to Myeongdong Cathedral, one of the oldest Catholic churches in Korea, dating back to the 19th century. Another we took the cable car up to Namsan Tower and had a romantic evening up on top of the mountain. We went to the Korean War memorial and museum. 

The biggest issue was getting our luggage, msot of which we’d left in Yeosu. The transport company we had intended to use was on strike for the month, leaving us a bit high and dry. Kaj spent hours and hours on the phone, but eventually she managed to convince Mary (her replacement at the apartment) to drag the bags down to the first floor. There, a courier found them and loaded them onto a KTX train to Seoul. In Seoul, another courier had taken them and stashed them in an office. We turned up at the station a few days before we had to leave Korea, wandered lost for a while, found the office squirrelled away in a distant hallway on the upper floors, and met Young-Sam. This man, one of the workers at the local KTX office, ahd spent a few months living in Toronto and spoke solid English. He was also incredibly helpful, and after a few minutes of listening to our story promised to take care of everything. He arranged for the bags to stay at the office until our departure day came, then we just had to meet the courier outside Incheon airport, and check them right in with the airline. Nothing could be easier. We gratefully left the office, grabbed some ice cream from the basement department store on the way out, and sat outside to watch the sun set over Seoul (and a man doing a one-man dance party in front of us). 

Another adventure was attempting to get Hanbok photos done. Kaj really wanted it as a memento of our time in Korea, so one day we ventured out on foot to find a studio. The first place we found, hidden near the Chinese embassy, was closed. So we walked a kilomter or so (it was a beautiful September morning in Seoul) to another spot. Also closed. We ventured into the basement of a skyscraper, full of narrow shops squeezed around dank hallways, to another studio. Closed (covid). We came back up onto a nice tourist street, wide and leafy, and regrouped at a little tea shop. Then tried a fourth place. Also closed. Despairing, we walked to Gyeongbukgong palace (shockingly old hat to me by now, my third or fourth visit), found a very expensive family photo studio, and another guy that wanted bookings a week in advance. Kaj was crushed and took a taxi back to the hotel to rest, I walked the two kilometers home through the streets of the capital just so I could take in Seoul one final time. 

However, I found online that night a place that would take us, IF we booked two days in advance. Our flight was in, er, two days. BUT it was an early-morning flight! So if I booked right away we could go that morning. 

The last thing to do was COVID tests to fly. We went to a nearby university hosptital – huge tents set up outside. No one spoke Engish, but they were able to shuffle us to where we needed to go anyway in the parking lot. The tests were pricy, a bit surprising since in the US they had been free for me. They also were uncomfortable as a rooster in a pond, but they had to be done. 

The morning of our final day in Korea, we got up early, and took a cab to our hanbok. We hopped off near the eastern wall of Gyeongbokgung, and walked through some alleyways near the Polish embassy, finding a little house tucked away unobtrusively. Inside were a few small sets and rack after rack of hanbok. We were expected, and, it being so early (not even 9 am, and Koreans sleep late, remember), we were the only customers. 

Hanbok is traditional Korean clothing, dating back to the Joseon dynasty (the last state to rule a unified Korean peninsula, from the 14th century down to the 1890’s). For men, the dress consists of a long, sleeveless coat embroidered in finery worn over a loose shirt, with loose, puffy pants and slippers. It is customarily completed with a hat indicating one’s rank or profession. Women wore a blouse over a large embroidered hoop skirt. 

Kajal looked absolutely breathtaking when she emerged for our photoshoot. Her skin glowed next to a stark white blouse, set off by a scarlet dress. Her hair was pinned behind her head, and fell in rippling black waves towards her shoulders. I thought I looked rather dashing myself but she outshined me by a country mile. For forty minutes we goofed off together on the set, following the photographer’s enthusiastic directions, laughing, and forgetting all the stress of travel for a while. It was nice. 

Then it was back to the hospital (ushered in by the same smiling old man as the day before – he recognized us), grabbing our tests, and then back to the hotel to grab Snow. Then a looooong taxi ride (the taxi, summoned via app, was almost taken by the wrong couple) out to Incheon hotel. Then Snow was loaded aboard his crate by the pet shipping service. We would not see him for two weeks. Then to the airport ourselves, and then a long wait. 

Eventually, long after night fell, we checked in, passed through security, dozed at the gate, and then at 1 am on Thursday, September 16, left Korea behind – maybe for years, maybe forever.

The last month has been so busy – for reasons which will shortly become clear – that I have scarcely had time to write, but I desperately, desperately want to before hte memories fade. It’s been 47 days since I wrote, so I owe 4700 words. I also have pictures to accompany all this, but that will come later.

So Jeju, Seoul, and now South Africa have been a whirlwind. It’s a safe assumption to make that if you wonder where I am at any particular moment, it’s probably trapped in the midst of a desperate crisis with a happy ending at the back of it. Let me try and hit some of the high points.

Jeju was relaxing and idyllic as it promised to be. Our hotel, the VIllae Resort, sat about a 40 minute drive from the main city on the island. The bus dropped you by a desolate patch of highway, cars whizzing past a bare meter or two from your soft, eminently-squishable body, and you had to trudge along the side for a bit until you came to a narrow road winding up into the greenery. Thence, it was past a few farmer’s fields, a slag yard with two angry-looking dogs on a rather weak-looking chain, and finally winding past several construction zones until you caught the scent of salt on the air and the sound of waves in your ears. Then you found the Villae Resort, a hotel lined with the same black basalt that all buildings on Jeju seem to be founded on, and a few spartan but comfortable rooms a short walk from the coast. Around there were only other hotels and a few touristy restaurants, with a single 7-11 inside the hotel to supply basic needs.

To get anywhere was a hike, as you can imagine. I would walk Snow in the mornings past a horse paddock and on to the coast road, where he would amuse himself chasing the wharf roaches and trying to make friends with crabs. The waves would pound the black rock beneath, while Korean couples walking their dogs or taking selfies by the sea were constantly wandering by. The beach was a short taxi ride away – we stopped and got donuts once – and was big, broad, and sandy. Snow loved to run in the sand, but absolutely refused to touch hte water, not even crossing a so much as a centimeter to join us on a sandbar. Koreans learning to surf bobbed in the waves, I tried to soak in some sun (Kaj insisted that I be tan when we met her family, she couldn’t bring a pale-as-a-ghost white guy home), there were a few places nearby to bring food for a picnic, it was nice. 

Some days we’d venture further afield. We took a two-hour bus ride winding around the flanks of Halla-san to the O’Sulloc Green Tea fields (one restaurant – a small jam store of all things, scarcely big enough to hold the owner and two customers at once – had a massive queue outside that grew and grew as we watched, until nearly two dozen Koreans were milling around on the streets of the little village the bus stop was in. We vowed to return to check it out. We never did), wandered the fields, watched people, took photos, drank the tea, then promptly got lost on the way home and had to call a cab after wandering rural back roads for a bit. Another day we road into Jeju City itself, found the best beef restaurant either of us had had in Korea, walked a short (I insisted) or a long (she insisted) distance to a public park and museum, which was regrettably closed but had neat rocks outside, and then hauled ourselves back home.

One day we [REDACTED].

I pushed myself hard up the punishing mountain slopes, carefully timing my pace to the frequent mile markers on the trail, but it was hard, hard, hard. I quickly found myself getting worn down, but I kept going, reaching the assigned checkpoints one fater another in good time. Sometimes I had to sit and gather my strength on the trail, then march double-time through the next section. Wearily, I staggered into the assigned checkpoint at 11:58, where a smiling guard waved me towards the summit.

I looked at the three kilomters of uphill hiking remaining, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor today. Instead I came back down over several hours, hitched a bus ride home, and stumbled back to the resort (remember those winding roads?) just after dark, where I fell into bed. 

In this fashion we whiled away the time on Jeju, until the 9th of September.

To Jeju

I’m writing this one from a lovely coffee shop overlooking the Yellow Sea. A typhoon just passed over the island of Jeju, where I’m staying, and so the strong winds have whipped the waves into a frenzy. The rollers come in and hammer the black volcanic rocks that make up most of the island’s coast, and the spray sometimes looks high enough to reach some of the lower balconies of the various hotels and pensions that line the shoreline. The clouds have been low all day, hanging over the ocean so that you can hardly see more than a few hundred meters over the water. Let me explain. No, there is too much – let me sum up. 

The last week and a half since Snow went to Seoul has been so busy! 

Friday Kaj got out of quarantine, after her COVID test (naturally) came back negative. Despite two negative tests and 13 days of quarantine after a passing contact with someone who a few days later tested positive, the government still insisted she remain quarantined until noon the next day. Just in case. 

Anyway, we had a proper Friday date for the first time in two weeks. Early Friday we took the train down to Suncheon, to a little cafe overlooking a lake named Mackenzie’s, advertising itself as an American-style restaurant. Then we went nuts. Bacon, eggs, sausages, French toast, pancakes, hash browns, bottomless coffee – a breakfast spread to delight anyone. 

After a long, lazy brunch, we took the train all the way to the final stop – Yeosu Expo. 

Yeosu Expo has a brand new exhibit, Arte Museum Ocean. It’s advertised as a new digital art experience, perfectly suited to cater to Koreans’ love of taking photos and showing them off on social media. Good thing I never do that.

Anyway, the exhibit actually was super cool. There are ten rooms that you wind through, each with its own theme. You start in Blossom, a few different rooms overflowing with multicolored lights and mirrors, meant to evoke wandering through a flower. Next comes Ocean, a massive animated wall and floor of ocean waves striking a beach while the aurora borealis flickers overhead (we sat in this room for a long time and just enjoyed it). After Ocean you venture into a large hall evocative of the bottom of a streambed, with massive waterfowl the size of houses occasionally striding through, plunging beaks as large as a kayak into the water to go after the fish swimming around. Next is the Night Jungle, two exhibits. One lets you meet photorealistic depictions of African wildlife, which Kajal enjoyed even though she’s from Africa, and the other lets you draw your own elephant, lion, deer, or fox, and add it to a digital scene. 

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Rooms 5-7 were Waterfall – a large mirrored hall with a waterfall made of digital bits pouring everywhere, stretching into infinity, Moon, which mostly just had a very large rabbit in a nod to Chinese folk tales, and Stars, a room we spent ages taking photos in due to the huge number of glowing ‘stars’ filling the available space and constantly flickering in every color of the rainbow. 

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The last three rooms were Wormhole, a black and white room that messed with your head as you dove through a tunnel, Wave, which is, uh, exactly what it says on the tin (I was a little let down by wave), and then the gallery.

I loved the gallery, spending probably 40 minutes there until the exasperated staff kicked me out so they could close. It’s a large hall, the largest in the exhibit, and constantly shifts. Sometimes it takes you on a journey through the seas around Yeosu, above and below the water, which was lovely and immersive. But I really loved the art gallery. Starting from the Renaissance and working its way to the early 20th century, the hall would shift every 5 minutes or so to display the works of some of the greatest masters in striking clarity. You could see the works of Michaelangelo, Monet, Manet, Matisse, Van Gogh, and others, all at 1:1 scale. Digital reproductions, of course, but I didn’t mind. The decor of the hall would change to reflect the period of art being displayed, as would the music to properly suit the atmosphere. I wandered up and down for ages trying to look at everything. If they hadn’t kicked me out I probably’d still be lost in there. I think every art museum should have a room like that. 

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The week since was hard for Kaj. She spent 4 wonderful years here in Korea, but it was at last time for her to return home to her family in South Africa – with a dog and a man in tow, so it’s not like she was going back empty-handed. Her dog is super-cute, if nothing else. Anyway, that meant packing up her home, giving away or tossing whatever she couldn’t carry, and bringing all of her earthly possessions into a few small suitcases. We worked at it through the week, while also traveling to say goodbye to the important people in her life before she said goodbye for good. 

Thursday and Friday were her last days at school, and then on Saturday and Sunday we raced to make the last preparations. 

See, we can’t fly Snow until September 17th, but are getting kicked out of the apartment at the end of the weekend. So, she decided to make a virtue of necessity – for most of our last three weeks in Korea, why not head to the sunny island of Jeju and have a mini vacation? Snow would be a pain to fly, but there’s a ferry that leaves very early (as in, 1:00 am) every morning from Yeosu and makes landfall on Jeju by 7:30 am. We could get a small cabin for ourselves and Snow, and sail to an island getaway for a few weeks. 

Sunday was the hardest day. Friends she had made – Zoe, Monica, the Old Man in the Park (more on him another time) came to say their last goodbyes. The entire apartment lost the life and character it had while Kajal was living in it, and gradually became a sterile, anonymous, lifeless thing as her belongings vanished into the suitcases or into the trash. Finally, at about 10:30 pm, I took Snow downstairs for the final time while she lingered to say goodbye to the old place. I don’t know exactly what emotions ran through her heart as she looked at what had been her home for three years one last time, but I do know how my heart broke to leave my Gwangju apartment after only one year, so it can’t have been easy. Eventually, though, she joined us, gave me a wistful smile, and we called a cab for the port. 

At the ferry terminal, even at midnight, it was crowded as dozens of people queued to board the Gold Stellar, the large ship waiting to take us all to Jeju. It was big, probably 300 meters long, 100 in beam, with three passenger decks (including a well deck for cars) and two more for the engine and bridge crews.

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Snow was in his crate, a bit fearful from all the chaos as we walked through line after line, and hauled him and our bags up the gangplank and on board. There, we managed to squeeze into an elevator (Snow’s first elevator ride in his life), then came through a surprisingly nice lobby with numerous little chairs and tables and couches. We had to head out onto the deck and then around to the “pet room” for the 6-hour voyage. 

The Gold Stellar has a few cabins for its passengers. Third class is a massive open air hold, with a few lockers and absolutely no furniture or other accommodations. Passengers claim a patch of floor and make themselves as comfortable as they can, most people laying out pillows and blankets and trying to sleep. Second class offers you a private cabin with a TV and some plugs, but is otherwise the same. First class presumably has such luxuries as a chair or a bed, but they didn’t let riff-raff like me see such grandeur, so all I can do is conjecture. Anyway, the only place to bring a pet is in a special third-class cabin.

The pet room was about 15 x 15 feet, two hard floors separated by a walkway sunk a few inches into the deck. There’s a single wall of lockers with life jackets, and two interior hatches lead to a room lined with cages for large dogs, and a pet shower with exterior access to a small exercise yard. We shared this tiny space with at least 5 other families and fully ten dogs. Apart from Snow, cowering in his crate, there was a large German shepard, another shepherd mix, two Pomeranians, a poodle, a Shih-Tzu, and several other dogs (small and fluffy, as Koreans like). We staked out our small corner with our luggage, but hte dogs were in close quarters and most were clearly unused to travel. They barked and whined and cried, sniffing and straining to investigate each other, hiding in their crates, peeing, whatever their little doggy brains conjured up as the most appropriate behavior at the moment. One had a delightful habit of barking madly at anyone who came or went in the cabin – which was often, with more than a dozen humans present. 

At twenty past one, we sailed away from Yeosu for good.

Snow was good, not barking, but he hated his crate and begged and cried to be let out. Kajal’s soft-heart won over my own callousness and he spent much of the voyage cuddled between us. The cabin was lit by harsh fluorescent lighting and obviously was loud and crowded, but I still somehow dozed for most of the nighttime journey, waking up as the sun rose and we neared Jeju. 

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Kajal is more personable than I am and chatted with the couple across the way, where the man spoke pretty good English and was equally friendly. They were traveling with a dog near Snow’s size, and the two became fast friends that morning (before being parted for all time, alas – that’s how life goes sometimes, Snow). Stiff and sore from the uncomfortable night, it was with considerable relief that we docked. Then it was another winding journey back through the ship and down to the rocky, volcanic shore of Jeju island, and a cab to our home for the next few weeks. 

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Anyway, that’s my current situation. The heavy cloud has become rain as I type this, and we need to start thinking about leaving this comfy coffee shop, with its large, overstuffed couches and lovely view of the sea, and scrounging up something to eat. I hope you are all well, friends, and I’ll see you all soon! 

August 12

Well, that was good finger-crossing. I am presently on a train crossing the Han River in the heart of Seoul, headed back down to Yeosu after scarcely 3 hours in the capital city. 

Within moments of finishing yesterday’s diary, Shin Dogs got in contact with me. “We’ve found a flight for you on September 17th. But that means you need your 35-day blood test tomorrow. Can you make it to Seoul?”

I could. 

So, I got up early this morning and walked Snow in the park. He was happy and frolicked in the wet grass, chasing his own tail, and generally had a blast. I hope he enjoyed it, because he was not going to enjoy what came next. 

When we got back to the apartment, we crammed Snow into his crate. I was really worried about how he’d handle it. Would he cry? Bark? Bite and scratch? He was confused and anxious, but trusted me for now. Then I called a cab and headed to the train station, catching the 9 am Korea Express to Seoul. 

Snow’s crate was deposited at the back of the car in the cargo area and I settled in a few rows away, with a book and Paper Mario: The Origami King for company. But the dog wasn’t having it.

I heard little whines and cries coming from the rear. I looked back and Snow was huddled in the crate, staring around for a familiar face. I reassured him, and offered him a nice treat to chew. Then went back to my seat.

Immediately the crying resumed. 

Sighing, I came back and sat down next to him for a while, then tried to creep back to my seat. No dice. More crying, getting ever louder if I tried to wait him out and see if he’d settle down. Feeling very much like a young parent flying with a child, I grabbed my book and sat down on the floor next to Snow. As long as he could see me, he was calm. He curled up in the crate next to me and slept. 

So, for 3 hours I sat on the floor of the cargo area, as we rolled through Suncheon, Jeonju, Gwangmyeon, and on to Yongsan station in Seoul. I tried to keep thoughts of Train to Busan out of my head. But Snow was so, so good as long as I was with him. 

Yongsan Station was big and loud, but not nearly as confusing as Hakata Station or Toyko Station had been. I hauled my furry cargo out of the station and paused outside for a water and petting break. Then found a cab willing to drive me the 17 kilomters to the vet.

Inside, the vet’s office had a lone dog on patrol (a somewhat chubby sausage of a beast), supported by 3 cats. THey were all intensely curious about Snow, who shrank back into his crate and tried to pretend he wasn’t there. There was a single orderly and the vet, who spoke excellent English. We met, talked about my needs, and he assured me he’d take care of everything (at a price that made my eyes bug out. International pet travel is not cheap). 

Then we had to fetch The Beast. Snow had by now worked out that the train and taxi rides had been nothing more than an elaborate ruse to get him to The Vet and he refused to exit the crate, hurling himself into the rear. When I had to bodily haul him out he scratched and gave serious thought to biting, but eventually bowed to the inevitable. He was weighed (11 kg, jeez), measured [and found wanting], and then vanished into the rear of the office for whatever dark tortures and secret rituals it is that vets inflict on pets. 

He emerged not ten minutes later, no worse for the wear, and we made our way back to a taxi and back to the station.

At Yongsan, I realized I’d been there before, almost a year to the day (I came to Seoul LAST August 12, too, thinking I was leaving Korea for years) – there was a ShakeShack in the station. My friend Lily is so obsessive about Shake Shack that she literally knows every one within a thousand mile radius (the Philippines, Taiwan, Seoul, and Busan, basically), and has visited most of them. We had come the year before to try their splendors. 

Ayway, that aside, I got another train, boarded, and hoped that they’d let me let Snow sit next to me (in his crate). He’s there now, and we’re coming up on Gwangmyeong station. Hopefully no one wants this seat I’m using for the pooch, who is at present sleeping, his trust in me complete once again despite my betrayal at The Vet. 3 more hours to home

August 11

The Snow Monster is proving difficult. 

The issue is flying a dog internationally – particularly from an Asian country, particularly to South Africa. Particularly during a pandemic. See, we’ve been trying to plan our exit from Korea to her home of South Africa, and obviously we can’t leave a third of our family behind when we go. But arranging the flight has been throwing up wrinkle after wrinkle for us. 

In general, there are three ways to fly a pet: 

1)As a companion on the flight, in a small carrier that fits on a seat or under one. 

2)As excess baggage – the crate is checked and the animal is flown in the cargo bay.

3)As manifest cargo – with no humans on the flight, just as part of a regular cargo run to a country. 

Now, South Africa will only accept pets flown into the country as Manifest Cargo. That means that Snow can’t fly with Kajal and I, but must travel on his own. So, step one was to arrange the flight. There’s a company in Korea that she’s been working with that would contract the flight details for us – but they will only place the animals on a single airline that they trust: Dutch airways.

So, in order to get from Seoul to Joburg, Snowball has to fly via…Amsterdam. 

Step two is his crate. First, the dog had to be measured so that a custom crate could be built (at great expense) – he couldn’t fly in a plastic crate bought off the shelf. Nose to tail, ears to paws, waist – try and work out how many centimeters the crate must be. So, Kajal measured him and gave one set of measurements for the crate. Then, I measured him, and got a completely different set of measurements. Snow hates anything that isn’t built for dogs. He shrinks and cowers when I bring him his harness for his twice-daily walks in the park. Trying to get him to hold still for a tape measure? Impossible – such vile tortures could never be inflicted on such a poor, innocent pup as Snowball! But with much wrestling, we got some approximates and sent him the measurements. 

Then the airline changed the rules. 

Crates went from requiring “a few” centimeters of clearance over the ears to requiring fully ten centimeters. So he needed a new crate. And new measurements. 

So we wrestled the dog again and sent him the revised measurements. Then he replied, shocked at the new numbers. We double checked. We had measured him wrong. We sent him the numbers for a third time and he accepted those, and began working on a new estimate for his crate. It was much more expensive than the last one. Well, whatever.

Step three was to get the dog medically prepped. He needs a rabies certificate, five other vaccines, a blood test, and a medical clearance to fly. 

Now, it takes specialized training and equipment for a vet to carry out a blood test to international standards. Was our little provincial vet in Yeosu, a kindly old man who spoke not a lick of English, up to the task? No, of course not – we would need to find a capable vet, one who spoke English so we could explain the situation. In the whole country, there were two – one in Busan and one in Seoul.

So the Monster needs to get to Seoul or Busan. BUT! He’s too big to travel in a little mesh bag anymore, like he did when he was a tiny puppy. Snow is 10 kg of active dog now, and needs a big, heavy crate. He needs a car, or cargo space – not a bus. We don’t have a car and are dependent upon public transit, so that means the only option is the train. Furthermore, the train doesn’t run direct from Yeosu to Busan – we’d need to transfer, dragging the big, inconvenient crate between trains, to get there. Therefore, Snow would have  to go to Seoul on two separate occasions for his blood test and for his medical clearance. 

Another problem rears its head: Snow hates the crate. He’s never spent the night in it, or even an hour. So he needs to be trained. Otherwise he will cry and scratch and bite and whine and generally tear himself to pieces over the course of the 4-hour train ride (forget about the more than 24 hour plane journey to the far end of Africa!). Kaj and I lock him in once a day, and feed him treats, and tell him what a good boy he is. He seems to accept it, not panicking too much, but he is clearly mistrustful of the crate and is very hesitant to go in. Hopefully we can manage when the time comes. 

Now, the blood test needs to be done within 30 days of departure. That means the blood is taken, flown on a specialized transport to South Africa, where they carry out their tests, and the results flown back to clear him to fly, and then he needs to leave within 30 days. So we can’t just stroll in any old time – it has to sync with the flight. 

Okay, os when’s his flight?

Ah. That’s also tricky. See, the company only flies via Dutch airways. The airline only flies animals on Fridays, due to COVID (how this prevents the spread of COVID is beyond me, but I could say that about a thousand different asinine, useless measures around the globe). And thousands of American servicemen and expat teachers are coming and going from Korea in August, and many of them are flying their pets. Bottom line: There’s no flights in August. 

So, we need to wait for the company to find us a flight. Then, 35 days before that flight, we need to load Snow into his crate, buy train tickets, and get to Seoul on the morning train. Then we’ll take a cab to the vet and get his blood drawn. Then back into the crate, back into the cab, back onto the train, and back to Yeosu. Then get his other certificates, then get those translated into English by a notary. Then, 10 days before the flight, back to the crate, back to the train, back to Seoul, back to the cab, back to the vet, to get his medical clearance. Then reverse all that (crate-cab-train-Yeosu-home), then reverse it again (crate-cab-train-cab-airport) to fly him.

All done at that point, right? 

Well, no. Once in South Africa, since Asian countries are known to be, er, ‘recent’ dogs-as-pets countries (that is, they rarely eat dogs anymore and now accept them as companion animals), the authorities mistrust the dog’s disease-free-ness, and require them to spend two weeks in quarantine (much like how Korea mistrusts foreigners and requires us to spend two weeks in quarantine, vaccine or no vaccine, negative PCR or no negative). This is done in a special facility in Cape Town – conditions aren’t great but Kajal assures me we can bribe the workers to get better treatment for Snow.

Then, and only then, we can welcome our dog to his new home in sunny Durban.

SO, that’s where we’re at. Waiting on a flight – we already had to delay our own departure from the country once, since we would have had to abandon Snowy. The company assures us he can make something happen by the end of September. I hope so, since my visa is up on September 22 and I’ll have to leave the country by then! So we wait, and pray.

“If they told you it was going to be hard, would you still want it?”

Of course I still want it.

Fingers crossed, friends!

Living in a foreign country can be confusing! The laws and customs are very different to what you might be use to, and Korea is no exception. In fact, in many ways it’s totally alien to an American from the Midwest. Fortunately, though, I’ve been living in Korea off-and-on for more than a year now (albeit with a lengthy break), and I have picked up some of the less obvious cues for life here. It can be a whirlwind here, but if you keep these unwritten rules which I have written below in mind, you’ll be just fine:

Brad’s Unwritten rules for life in Korea:

1) NEVER park on the public road in front of a restaurant and block traffic. Unless you’re eating inside, then it’s fine. Go nuts.

2)On the other hand, you can park in front of a convenience store at any time of the day, regardless of traffic. Just remember to put on your blinkers! As long as you’re just grabbing smokes it’s okay (or if you drive a luxury car). 

3)The best places to park is in the handy open space just in front of every crosswalk, anywhere. It’s free real estate! 

4)If you don’t want a parking ticket, please be sure to let the authorities know by turning on your hazards! Your parking meter is now as long as your battery holds out. 

5)ALWAYS wear a mask in public! Unless you need to cough, smoke, spit on the ground, or talk on the phone, then pull that sucker down.

6)If you want to turn at an intersection and someone is in front of you waiting for the light, just honk at them. They’ll eventually politely inch forward and risk their lives in the middle of hte intersection for you so you can shave a few seconds off your commute.

7)Never, ever, ever get even the tiniest speck of food from your chopsticks on the side dishes, or you will get sick, and die. 

8)If you come to a queue, wait in it. Unless you think your business is super important, then go ahead and cut in front to explain things to the clerk. As long as you’re older than everyone else in line no one is allowed to complain. 

9)Riding in the subway is tricky! Be sure to relax and enjoy it – the customary method is to remove your shoes, rub your tired feet, and proceed to grab every single bar in sight. 

10)Sometimes, you will find an empty seat next to you on the subway. You may be under the misapprehension that this is for human beings. It is not. It is for your bags. Take advantage! 

11)Sometimes there’s just too much traffic and you might feel tempted to drive in the oncoming traffic lane. Be sure to turn on your hazards when you do this! 

12)Don’t sneeze in public. Gross!

13)If you need to spit, be sure to do it right out onto the street. 

14)Talking loudly on public transit is a no-no, as long as that language is English. If it’s Korean (and you’re older than everyone else on the bus), go nuts. 

15)Riding a motorcycle means you can do anything. Sidewalks, crosswalks, intersections, traffic lights, signs – these are mere suggestions for lesser mortals. You are a god and have Goobne to deliver.

16)At the supermarket, you must stand shoulder to shoulder with the person in front of you in the queue as they pay. Bonus points if you get out your own card and start waving it around as they try to bag their groceries. 

17)If you are female, do not be anyone’s first customer of the day. This is bad luck and you will be responsible for cursing them with poor business that day. 

18)Don’t sleep with a fan on or you will literally die.

19)Never, ever, ever open the windows on the bus. This will let in fine dust, which is very unhealthy! It is better to keep the bus sealed tight, where it’s safe, with the coronavirus. 

20)It is customary to wait directly in front of the elevator doors. When the elevator opens, be sure to shove your way on quickly before anyone gets off, otherwise you’ll have to wait and that’s super boring. 

21)Elevators come faster if you push both the “going up” AND the “going down” call buttons. 

22)When the subway comes, shove your way on as soon as the door opens. You’re in a hurry and need to get places! 

23)Cell phone reception is poor in the subway. The best place to catch up on your missed emails and messages is at the very top of the escalator at the exit. 

 24)Everything that goes wrong is probably a foreigner’s fault, somehow. 

25)If you are a foreigner and complain about anything ever in Korea, you need to learn to mind your place and be a more respectful guest. Also, you should probably go home. Also, all those things happen in other countries, so stop complaining, you bitter old misanthrope. 

27)If you live in Korea and have no complaints about here, you’re nothing more than a Koreaboo and need to grow up. You’ll get jaded eventually. 

And that’s really all there is to it! It’s really not so hard to live here, just keep these simple rules in mind and you can never go wrong. 🙂 See you all next time! 

Another hot Monday in Yeosu. By now I have sufficient personal experience to recognize that the 31 C outside temperature is “hot as balls.” I’m not sure why it feels so much hotter than 90 F would be, but it is. It might be the humidity – with the East China Sea on three sides of Yeosu, there’s a constant blanket of moisture hanging over the city. The fine dust in the air gives convenient purchase to the water vapor, and as a result the sweat sticks to your body, giving absolutely no cooling effect whatsoever, and making you quite smelly in the bargain. Even more annoyingly, Koreans have no body odor even when they sweat like a long-tailed cat on a Cracker Barrel front porch, so deodorant is very difficult to come by in this country. So I get to be the hot, uncomfortable, smelly foreigner most of the time, too.

Anyway, the weekend was full of adventure – perhaps not in the places I went, but definitely in the person I spent it with. Kaj and I haven’t had the chance to spend time with each other in 11 months, and as I’ve said before I think that she is my true adventure. So, Friday night we went on a date – our first since August. We made our way to the Megabox theater (alas, no popcorn sold because everyone knows popcorn spreads COVID) to see Black Widow. It was my first time seeing a Marvel movie in the theater since…I wanna say Avengers 2, the entirely forgettable one* about the weird robot, and there’s like a flying city at one point. Anyway! Black Widow was enjoyable enough – I enjoyed the cold open a lot, Jim Hopper really carries a lot of scenes, some of the action scenes and cinematography were a bit creative (I particularly liked one rooftop chase), and the movie was groping towards a decent theme about family (Vin Diesel nodding in approval). Much more enjoyable was the person I was watching the movie with, which I imagine is true of most things.

Saturday, what was most memorable to me was she took me to a coffee shop called the Balcon de Yuel, a 5th-floor establishment overlooking Yeosu harbor. The shop had a huge, open floor plan with modern, spartan decor – lots of white, floor to ceiling windows, and eclectic furniture arranged near the windows to give views over the water. We nestled into a couch with tropical smoothies out on the namesake balcony, with books and time. I could see out for miles over the water, looking out on the bay, surrounded by little islands like pearls on a necklace – Baegyado, Jedo, Gaedo, Geumjukdo, and the ever-dear to my heart Dolsando, blue in the distance. On the water, jet skis, sailboats, and parasailers jostled for space, often tugging squealing young people on an inner tube (or, in one case, an inner kite that frequently leaped off the waves and glided through the air for seconds at a time). The breeze blew off the sea and for an hour I was perfectly content – one of those moments in life where you want absolutely nothing to change. 

Sunday, we rode the bus together to nearby Suncheon for church. I’d been attending online for months, so it was nice to finally meet many of the members in person. We talked about Job – my favorite book of the Old Testament, one of my favorite pieces of literature period, and one about which I have many Thoughts. I’ll set them down in this space sometime, but in my opinion, Job – which is perhaps rivalled only by the Epic of Gilgamesh or the works of Homer for sheer age – is one of the most comforting and reassuring poems ever written. 

Anyway, I’m settling into the rhythms of life here in Yeosu while we count down the days to South Africa. She is at work, while I busy myself fixing up minor defects in the apartment, planning for upcoming travels, and reading Prit Buttar’s history of the First World War’s Eastern Front, with the important side business of finishing my iced Americano in this coffee shop and writing this goofy diary. The Americano, alas, is exhausted, however, and so are my words, so I should probably venture out into the appalling open-air sauna of the streets of Yeosu and make my way home. 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends!

*Like that narrows it down