RORKES DRIFT - VICTORIA CROSSES OF MONMOUTH

[Flying10uk]

[browningautorifle]

Isandlwana, Rorkes Drift, Amajuba and Spioenkop battlefiels. Absolutely worth while visit.

I envy your location to those. I'd love to go but it would financially ruin me. You on the other hand have the "Living" history there to guide you.

[Daan Kemp]

Many of those battlefields are empty, battles being far from civilisation luckily, or protected areas. Some of them, as in Ladysmith, are cultivated farms with only your map and GPS telling where it happened.

Visiting all the battlefields, e.g., of the Black Week provides perceptions not otherwise possible. I suspect the exchange rate might be a huge advantage to prices in SA. - two litres milk @ R25, loaf of bread @ R 13, petrol @ R 15/litre.

[Ovidio]

78 €cents per litre of "juice"... That is good.
Next time I'll drive more and fly less.
I like driving through your country, although I always try to keep an eye for possible trouble.
But I really like it!
Last time I stopped on my way from Cape Town to Ladismith at Ronnies Sex Shop. That was funny seeing a place like that in the middle of nowhere.
Info: it is a restaurant.
Great story behind the name.

[Daan Kemp]

We actually have very little 'trouble', just 'normal' crime you find anywhere. The Zulu impis don't march as they used to 100 years ago. If you have time listen to the song Impi by Johnny Clegg and Juluka, read the lyrics. Makes your hair stand up, curl, possible change colour.

The Zulu dynamics of Rorkes Drift and later are no more, but the oral history is still astounding in deepest Zululand.

[browningautorifle]

If you have time listen to the song Impi by Johnny Clegg and Juluka, read the lyrics. Makes your hair stand up, curl, possible change colour.

Impi
Johnny Clegg, Juluka
Impi! wo 'nans' impi iyeza
Obani bengathinta amabhubesi?
All along the river chelmsford's army lay asleep
Come to crush the children of mageba
Come to exact the realm's price for peace
And in the morning as they saddled up to ride
Their eyes shone with the fire and the steel
The general told them of the task that lay ahead
To bring the people of the sky to heel
Chorus
Mud and sweat on polished leather
Warm rain seeping to the bone
They rode through the season's wet weather
Straining for a glimpse of the foe
Hopeless battalion destined to die
Broken by the benders of kings
Vainglorious general and victorian pride
Would cost him and eight hundred men their lives
Chorus
They came to the side of the mountain
Scouts rode out to spy the land
Even as the realm's soldiers lay resting
Mageba's forces were at hand
And by the evening the vultures were wheeling
Above the ruins where the fallen lay
An ancient song as old as the ashes
Echoed as mageba's warriors marched away
Chorus
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Johnny Clegg / Johnny Clegg
Impi lyrics © Bmg Rights Management (france) S.a.r.l., Rhythm Safari Pty Ltd

[Daan Kemp]

The baritone "Illmpiii" makes the song, so absolutely Zulu. The chorus together, then the lead singer does the lyrics, then the chorus agrees and provides power to the lead singer to continue, then the chorus, and so it carries on.

[Surpmil]

I know its frowned upon and I wouldn't condone it, but what a place to do a metal detector sweep with some real gear, imagine the stuff it would yield!!

What would be interesting is a proper battlefield survey where the movement of individual men can be logged by examining the distinctive "forensic" marks on their cartridge cases and plotting them on a map to show the progress of the battle as was done at the Little Big Horn.

Too many battlefields have been ruined by magpies with metal detectors, to say nothing of other sites. Yes, detectors and detectorists have found amazing things that would never have been found otherwise - it is mixed blessing and like other powerful technologies we could mention, there is no effective control except the good sense and decency of the user.

As for Zulu methods, IIRC Shaka would have unsuccessful impis slaughtered en masse; a remarkably effective motivator that. In fact I believe in at least one case they decided there was really no point in going home again and went off to form their own tribe with aid of "borrowed" women from some tribes lower down the pecking order.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the largesse with medals at Rorke's Drift was to some extent, consciously or not, an attempt to distract from the debacle of Isandlwana.

Not enough Gatlings or canister.

[Daan Kemp]

The Isandlwana area is very open, no buildings or dwellings at all, easy to spot people wandering around. Some digging up and detecting have taken place over the many decades since the battle. However, the Zulus don't take kindly to any unauthorised movement around as the spirits of the forefathers haven't all gone to rest, even till today; I can vouch for that. That is why the area is still open and unpopulated.

The same with Rorkes Drift, although anything to find would be in and around the buildings where all the British casualties were cared for in any case. The Zulus, of course, took away all their casualties in both cases.

Cetshwayo was the Zulu king at the time of Isandlwana. He was dethroned and replaced when the British broke the Zulu military power later that year. Their arrangements subsequently still cause conflict in Zululand today.

The Matebele in Zimbabwe is the impi that left without permission. That is a different saga.

[Surpmil]

The Isandlwana area is very open, no buildings or dwellings at all, easy to spot people wandering around. Some digging up and detecting have taken place over the many decades since the battle. However, the Zulus don't take kindly to any unauthorised movement around as the spirits of the forefathers haven't all gone to rest, even till today; I can vouch for that. That is why the area is still open and unpopulated.

The same with Rorkes Drift, although anything to find would be in and around the buildings where all the British casualties were cared for in any case. The Zulus, of course, took away all their casualties in both cases.

Cetshwayo was the Zulu king at the time of Isandlwana. He was dethroned and replaced when the British broke the Zulu military power later that year. Their arrangements subsequently still cause conflict in Zululand today.

The Matebele in Zimbabwe is the impi that left without permission. That is a different saga.

Thanks, thought it might have been the Matabele, but wasn't sure. Zulu succession seems to have been much like Ottoman: whoever can murder their siblings first gets the throne.

What's your take on the assertions that all these tribes moved down into southern Africa after the arrival of the Dutch?