200 x 137 mm. Showing members of the Natal Native Contingent on parade under the command of an European officer. Donald R. Morris (1966) identified this company as part of Captain Barton's 4th Battalion (originally 2nd Regiment, 1st Battalion before Chelmsford's reorganisation). As the preparations for the war advanced and the imperial forces received no reinforcements from Sir Michael Hicks Beach, it was realised that, in spite of superior firepower, the Zulus outnumbered European forces around 7-1. The original suggestion of levying 7000 native troops, which had come from Lieutant Colonel Anthony William Durnford and had been turned down on the grounds of the political outcry that would come from arming black Africans, was thus taken up on Sir Bartle Frere's insistence. The results were generally disappointing. Original plans to instill esprit de corps by issuing the men with uniforms fell through and all the men were given was (as seen here) red rags to tie around their foreheads. Only about one in ten were issued with firearms, and those of old and motley patterns (the armed men in this group hold Martini-Henry's, but this photograph was probably taken after chelmsford's reorganisation of the regiments into battalions (Morris, 1966, p. 454). Finally the European officers and NCO's, with the honourable exception of the 1st Regiment of three battalions under the command of Durnford himself (killed at Isandhlwana) were generally the dregs of the community who had not already received a military posting.