Captain Gardiner, though often horrified and sickened by the sights he was obliged to witness, remained for a month, and then, after accompanying the king on his march, and seeing some astonishing reviews and dances of his wild warriors, made another effort; but the king referred him to the two indunas, and the indunas were positive that they did not wish to learn, either they or their people. They would never hear nor understand his book, but if he would instruct them in the use of the musket he was welcome to stay. Dingarn pronounced, "I will not overrule the decision of my indunas;" but, probably looking on the white man as a mine of presents, he politely invited Gardiner to return.
So ended his first attempt, and with no possessions remaining except his clothes, his saddle, a spoon, and a Testament, he proceeded to the Tugela, where he met his friend Berken, who had made up his mind to settle in Natal, and he set out to return to England for the purchase of stock and implements; but the vessel in which he sailed was never heard of more.
Captain Gardiner remained at Port Natal, which in 1835 consisted of a cluster of huts, all of them built Kaffir-fashion, like so many hollow haycocks, except Mr. Collis's, which was regarded as English because it had upright sides, with a good garden surrounded by reeds. About thirty English and a few Hottentots clustered around, and some three thousand Zulus, refugees from Dingarn's cruelty, who showed themselves ready and willing to work for hire, but who exposed their masters to the danger of the king coming after them with fire and assagai. Hitherto on such an alarm the whole settlement had been wont to take to the woods, but their numbers were so increasing that they were beginning to erect a stockade and think of defence.
To this little germ of a colony, Allen Gardiner brought the first recollection of Christian faith and duty. On Sunday mornings he stood under a tree, as he had been wont to do on the deck of his ship, and read the Church Service in English to such as would come round him and be reminded of their homes; in the afternoon, by the help of his interpreter, he prayed with and for the Kaffirs, and expounded the truths of the Gospel; and in the week, he kept school for such Kaffir children as he could collect, dressing them decently in printed calico. He began with very few, partly because many parents fancied he would steal and make slaves of them, and partly because he wished to train a few to be in advance and act as monitors to the rest. The English were on very good terms with him, and allotted a piece of land for a missionary settlement, which he called Berea, and began to build upon it in the fashion of the country.
Fresh threats from Dingarn led the settlers to try to come to a treaty with him, by which he was to leave them unmolested with all their Kaffirs, on their undertaking to harbour no more of his deserters. There was something hard in this, considering the horrid barbarities from which the deserters fled, and the impossibility of carrying out the agreement, as no one could undertake to watch the Tugela; but Captain Gardiner, always eager and hasty, thinking that he should thus secure safety for the colony and opportunities for the mission, undertook the embassy, and set forth in a waggon with two Zulus and Cyrus, falling in on the way with one of the grotesque parties of European hunters, who were wont to go on expeditions after the elephant, hippopotamus, and buffalo, with a hunting train of Hottentots and Kaffirs in their company. On whose aspect he remarks truly:-
"I've seen the savage in his wildest mood,
And marked him reeked with human blood,
But never so repulsive made.
Something incongruous strikes the mind
Whene'er a barbarous race we find
With shreds of civil life displayed.
There's more of symmetry, however bare,
In what a savage deigns to wear,
In keeping with the scene.
These, each deformed by what he wears,
Like apes that dance at country fairs,
Seemed but a link between."
Dingarn proved to be at Congella, another circular town or kraal, on the top of a hill. He gave a ready welcome to the Captain, and his presents-some looking-glasses, a pair of epaulettes, and some coloured prints, especially full-lengths of George IV. and William IV. The collection in a place such as Natal then was must have been very hard to make, but it was very successful, and still more so was the Captain's presenting himself in his uniform when he went to propose the treaty. Dingarn said he must look at it before he could do anything else, and fully appreciated the compliment when the sailor said it was his war dress, in which he appeared before King William. He agreed to the treaty, but declared that the English would be the first to break it. The Captain answered that a true Englishman never broke a treaty, and that any white man who deceived was not the right sort of Englishman; and the king responded that "now a great chief was come, to whom he could speak his heart." Captain Gardiner tried to impress on him that it was the fear of God that made himself an honourable man, and to persuade him that the knowledge of the "Book" would make him and his people still greater; and the next time of meeting set forth an outline of the morality and promises of Revelation. Dingarn was attentive, and said they were good words, and that he would hear more of them, but in the meantime Gardiner must go back to Natal and see that his people kept the treaty. It was a good deal more than he could do. A Kaffir inkosikase, or female chieftain, who, with two servants and three children, was fleeing into Natal at the time of his return, was sent back, with all her companions. The poor creatures pleaded hard that the Captain would accompany them and save them, and he returned with them, and interceded for them with all his might, but soon found they were being starved to death. "Their bonds must kill them," said Dingarn. A second great effort resulted in a little food being sent, and a kind of promise that their lives should be spared; but this was only made to get rid of him, and they all perished after his departure.
Deserters, as Gardiner called the fugitives to reconcile the surrender to his loyal English conscience, were hardly such as these: they were the only ones ever sent back, and the loose wild traders, who he ought to have known would never be bound by treaties, were at that very time enticing Kaffirs, who could be useful as herdsmen and labourers, across the frontier. This led to great indignation from Dingarn, and he declared that no Englishman save his favourite great chief should come near him.
Meantime Gardiner was assisting an assembly of traders and hunters who had decided on building a town-all shaggy, unkempt, bearded men of the woods, who decided the spot, the name, the arrangements, the spot for church and magistrate's house, by vote, on the 25th of June, 1835, the birthday of the town of Durban, so called after Sir Benjamin D'Urban, Governor of the Cape, while the Portuguese name of Natal passed to the entire territory.
The dispute with Dingarn continuing, the Captain was again sent to negotiate. This time he was received in the royal mansion, a magnified beehive, where the king was lying on a mat with his head on one of the little stools made to act as pillows, with about fifty women ranged round. As to the matter in question, Gardiner was able to declare that, in the white settlement itself, no deserters had found a home since the treaty, and that none should do so; Dingarn said he considered him the chief of the whites there, and should look to him to keep them in order. Gardiner explained that he had no authority. "You must have power," said Dingarn. "I give you all the country of the white people's ford." This was a piece of land extending from the Tugela to the Nouzincoolu, from the Snowy Mountains to the sea-in fact, the present whole colony of Natal. A smaller portion, including the district about Natal, was to be his own immediate property. Dingarn was perfectly in earnest, and thus intended to make him responsible for the conduct of every individual of the motley population of Natal, declaring that he should receive no trader who did not bring credentials from him. It was as curious a situation as ever commander in the navy was placed in. All he could do was to return to Durban, explain matters to Mr. Collis and the other traders, and then set out for the Cape to consult Sir Benjamin Durban.