ROMANCE OF WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5496, 28 June 1879, Page 7

ROMANCE OF WAR.

THE ZLOBANE MOUNTAIN, AirJFAIR : ; GRANDIER'S STORY. Kambdxa Camp, April 17, 1879.—Since last writing from here, naturally the chief theme, of conversation baa been the attack and unfortunate issue of the 23th March, and the splendid victory which crowned our efforts on the following day. Bat these topics have faded into insignificance dince yesterday evening, when at first it was rumoured that another of Colonel Wetherley 'a Border Hr.rsiemen had managed to escape from the Zlobane massacre, and had found his way into ejmp. For once rumonr turned out to be truthfnl, and as soon as. the fortunate fugitive was released from ieiog interviewed by the commanding and staff officers of the column, I managed to see him in the hospital, whither he had been sent, in order for him to recover himself a little after his unnsual fatigue. Earnest Grandier, a native of Bordeaux, in France, joined Colonel Weatherley's Border Horse in Pretoria, three months ago, and with the rest of that ill-fated corps, started on the 27th for the patrol, of which the lamentable utory has been told already. When the few who escaped from the fatal gorge had gained the open ground at the foot of the tnonntain, Grandier picked np a comrade, also a Frenchman, named Baudoia, and carried him some little distance on his horse. But soon feeling that his tired horse would be unable to save them both, he, being fresher than his comrade, relinquished to him the horse and took to his heels. After running on for a couple of miles or bo, he fell, utterjjr exhansted and almost in a state of unconsciousness, in the grass, and lay there more dead than alive. He was roused, bmyever, from his lethargic condition by feeling himself grasped by the legs, and npon opening his eyes, he saw himself surrounded by five or six natives, and gave himself up for dead. " I seemed to feel the assegais already entering my body and quivering in my fle3D," ho sail. However, the savages die nothing iroise than strip him of all his clothes until he remained stark naked, and feel him all over to see whether or not he was injured. Grandier, who understands a little of the Zulu language, overheard them then settling that they would send him to Cetewayo as a present. He was told to rise, bu,t found himself still unable to make any effort, and only after they had dragged him 100 feet or so he managed to gain an upright position and walk. lie was taken back the same road he had come, and perceived, strewn all along the path, the bodies of his comrades, so frightfully mutilated that he could only recognise a very few, amongst which wore those o£ the poor colonel and his bugler. He was brought to that part of the hill which was first attacked, and where he found a large portion of the impi encamped, the indunas and Umbelini in the centre, and to theno he was brought, and bound head and foot. Oα the following morning, when the impi was on its road to attack the camp, he was left under gaard in the mountain until the return of the beaten army. Meanwhile, the body of one of Wetherley's corps, a man nsined Bernhardt, who had been killed and buried early in the action, had been disintered, and the Zulus, having stripped the body, were fighting over the clothea they had taken off it, and the blanket in which it had been enveloped. Early next day Grandier was sent, under escort and on foot, quite naked, to the kiDg's kraal. Cetewayo having left Ulundi, he was taken to a military kraal, some twelve miles further inland, to which the king had retired, and which, like all military kraals, was surrounded by a high wooden palisade, some eight feet high and two thick. The king resides in a. bouse "like one in which Boers dwell," said Grandier, placed in the centra of the kraal with the natives' huts all ground it. "When the interview occurred between king and prisoner the royal personage was nearly as naked as his captive, with the exception of a cloak that bore a suspicious resemblance to a tablecloth with fringed edges. Cetewayo wa? seated on a mat, and his inquiries were chiefly directed with a view as to whether Grandier could unspike che two cannons captured at Isandhlwaca, and if he was able to do so he was promised many oxen and fine kraals, and that he would be considered a great man by the Zulns. Fortunately Grandier was able to eay, with a clear conscience, lhat he was quite unable to do so, and he added, even if he could have managed it, he would never have done so, even had death been the com. sequence. When the etrength of the British wnE touched upon, and the prisoner said how many more thousands and hundreds of thousands of men the English could send from beyond the sea, Cetewayo merely laugLeil, and said that he intended killing all -she English, with the assistance of Secocoeni act?, the Boers, and when they had driver, them into the aea he would slay every Boer, and then divide the land and cattle with his ally. During the eight daye the unfortunate prisoner remained at the king's kraal, he was allowed twice a day to ba led to mealie-fielda, where ilia hands were unbound, and arheim (which was held by a Zulu) attached to his foot, and he was thus permitted to feed on green mealies. Five' mounted Zulus arrived one day, and brought tho news that Umbelini had succumbed to his wounds, received on the 29 th of March. On learning these tidings, Cetewayo criad ;,loud, and all in She kraal did the same for some time. Then Grandier wae called up again, and was told that he would be eent back to iTmbelini's people, for them to torture him to death, in revenge for their chief's death. Cetewayo also told him how he would be cat into small pieces, showing him, with an. as3egai, from finger to ahoulder, the parts that would be first chopped off. The king then Baid that if he could only catch Somtseu, Sir Theopbilus Shepstone," he would cut hie head off, and asked, parenthetically, what was done in England with the heads of criminals when cut off. When told his prisoner really didn't know, he merely laughed, as if it were a good joke. The interview was held through an interpreter, who was a Zulu, but who spoke English better than the prisoner, and who held in his hands some English newapapera—one of which was a European Mail, and another, some Natal paper which he had been reading to the king when the prisoner was brought uo. Grandier says he met a Delsgoa Bay nigger (Portuguese nigger he calls him), at the kraal, who was employed mending guns for tho Zulus, and had already, in six months, amassed a fortune of 200 head of cattle. Thousands of head of cattle were to be seen all over the country, and their tracks resembled waggon roads, so well beaten were they. The king had but 150 to 160 men with him in the kraal, all married men, and seemingly of great importance in the councils. The kraal itself was not situated in the mountains, bnt in a considerable plain, with forests rising behind it in the distant mountains towards the sea. The country round about is wooded. But to return to our prisoner. He was despatched, nnder escort of two men, one armed with a rifle, and the other only witE assegais, bound at the wrists, on his return journey to the Zlobane. Fearing to be tortured to death, he tried to enrage his captors, in order to goad them to pat him to a speedy end, and feigned fatigue in order to make them drag him along. At a mealie-field where they halted, tired and heated, the guards loosened the hands of their captive in order to let him eat, when, watching an opportunity whilst one guard was engaged in taking a pinch of enuff, he seized an assegai which had been incautiously placed on the ground, and Btabbed the guard who had the gnn through the chest, pinning him to the ground. The other ran off as fast as be could travel when he saw the white min in possession of his arms, and after a terrible journey of two days and a-half he was picked up by two of Baaf's men in a state of great exhaustion—but happy at again Ueing with his comrades, and determined to remain and have his revenge for the indignitiee he was made to Buffer, whenever we may advance further into Zululand. Such is the wonderful tale of his escape, and reads more like a portion of a sensational novel •■than'aniMjoounfJ of real life.— Cape Argus, Hay 6. .■ -. .