The news from Natal is bad. Lord Chelmsford (General Thesiger)
has his hands full with Secocoeni, and the Europeans in the Transvaal and Natal begin to be suspicious that the Zulus intend a general massacre of the whites. Lord Chelmsford has accordingly requested a reinforcement of three regiments. They have not been sent, the Cabinet wanting all soldiers for Northern India, where they have provoked a war, and it is possible that the alarm is in part unfounded. The Zulus, however, have certainly better weapons than of old, and if they advance, the Government must procure additional force of some kind. They are arming the friendly tribes, rather to the alarm of the settlers ; and if they have officers enough, and do not let the artillery out of their own hands, that should be sound policy, but they need dark soldiers of a different race. Would it be impossible to levy a regiment in the Mauritius, where the Coolies
from the Nerbudda Valley will fight well enough ; or, as we have repeatedly suggested, to form a penal native regiment, consisting of Sepoys, imprisoned for purely military offences, for Cape ser- vice ? They would want nothing but officers, and a guard—to act as provost-guard—of fifty Europeans.
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