From Eshowe, it is possible to branch off towards Ulundi, the site of the Zulu capital in 1879. This is not the way the British came; after the relief of Eshowe in April 1879, they retired to the Thukela, and, heavily reinforced, made a second thrust by a more northern route.

The coastal sector was occupied during this phase of the war, and a number of crumbling earthworks mark the British progress, but there was no further fighting here. Instead, the modern road takes the visitor deep into the Zulu heartland, climbing through row after row of hills, before descending at last towards the emaKhosini valley - the place of kings - the cradle of the Zulu nation. The countryside around here is free of cane-cultivation and largely unspoilt, a vista of rolling hills which fade to blue in the evening mist.

This is where the ancestors of the Zulu Royal House lived, and where King Shaka was born; across the White Mfolozi river, also spanned by a modern bridge, was the great Ulundi complex of King Cetshwayo. Here on the undulating Mahlabathini plain stood the royal homestead of oNdini itself, and on the surrounding hills a dozen more royal settlements. It was on the south bank of the White Mfolozi that Lord Chelmsford established his most advanced camp of the war, and the stone redoubt built by British troops as a bastion to protect it still stands.

On 4th July 1879, Chelmsford crossed the river, and drew up his forces in a hollow square on the plain. The Zulus attacked him on all sides, but despite their desperate courage, could not penetrate the wall of British fire. When at last the Zulus wavered, Chelmsford unleashed his cavalry - the 17th Lancers - who chased them from the field. The British then set fire to the great circle of huts at oNdini, and retired back the way they had come.

Today, archaeologists have restored part of the oNdini complex. Although the original huts were made of perishable materials - thatch over a wooden framework - the floors, originally of crushed clay, were burnt to brick by the intense heat of the fire, and many have survived. Part of the king's quarters have been rebuilt over the original floors, including the king's personal hut, and exploring it can be an eerie experience.

The interiors are cool and dark on even the hottest day, and, squatting on the floor inside, it is sobering to think that the great council of the nation may have met on that very spot to decide their response to the British invasion, and plan Zulu strategy. A neat museum includes a number of relics from the war, as well as a variety of other material relating to the broader history and culture of the Zulu people.

A stone archway, topped with a silver dome, marks the site of Lord Chelmsford's square. Set into its walls are a number of plaques, including one which reads 'in Memory Of The Brave Warriors Who Fell Here In 1879 In Defence Of The Old Zulu Order'. Until quite recently, this inscription was, famously, the only memorial erected to honour the Zulu dead of the Anglo-Zulu War; in recent years, however, a number of others have been erected, though they are still far outnumbered by those to their British opponents.

Indeed, close by the arch are the graves of the British soldiers killed in the battle; the Zulus were never buried, and their bones were to be found on the battlefield for years afterwards. Once again, the position was a good one, lying on top of a rise in the middle of a plain surrounded by hills.

Once again, the Zulu movements would have been generally visible, and they were committed to attacking up a slope. A hedge of thorn surrounds the arch, planted roughly to mark the sides of the British square; although the alignment is not exact, it does at least give some idea of the size of the British formation. This may have been a large formation in military terms, but it still seems a very small patch of ground, half an acre of friendly soil, swallowed up by the hostile environment on all sides.

Although the balance of weapon technology lay decisively with the British, it must have required considerable courage to stand in line, with no protecting ramparts or laager, and face the Zulu masses. Small wonder that, even at Ulundi, the Zulus expressed their admiration for the redcoats who 'made a wall of their very bodies'.

A local homestead abuts the line of the square on one side, reflecting the fact that Ulundi is not just a forgotten battlefield, but was, until last year's elections altered the political geography of South Africa, the centre of the KwaZulu homeland, and that the area has changed a good deal in the last century. These changes are most apparent on the outskirts of the battlefield, where a Holiday Inn now stands close to the site of King Mpande's grave, whilst an impressive modern building nearby housed the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly.

Neat blocks of modern dwellings or shops nestle at the foot of the hills, with more traditional homesteads scattered in between. Road names recall the famous kings of the past -- King Dinuzulu Highway, and King Cetshwayo Highway -- and not far from the battlefield memorial stands the Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi Airport.

Yet, for all this, Ulundi still has a relaxed air about it, a decidedly African atmosphere, not entirely at odds with the surviving relics of its history.

From Ulundi the traveller can rejoin the road to the north, and head up towards the town of Vryheid, not far from the old Transvaal border. This was a turbulent region in the nineteenth-century, a corner of the socalled 'Disputed Territory', where the claims of the rival British, Zulu and Boer administrations overlapped, a frontier zone where settlement was thin on the ground, and authority thinner. Vryheid itself, established in the 1880s, was the centre of a short-lived Boer Republic won from the Zulus during the filibustering years which followed the Anglo-Zulu War.

Colonel (later Brigadier-General) Evelyn Wood, VC

In 1879, this was the theatre of operations of Colonel Evelyn Wood's Left Flank Column, and the fighting consisted of almost constant skirmishing, of raid and counter-raid, culminating in two pitched battles, at Hlobane Mountain on 28th March, and Khambula Hill on the 29th.

Visiting Zululand Part 1: Fort Pearson, Eshowe, Gingindlovu
Visiting Zululand Part 1: Ulundi
Visiting Zululand Part 1: Hlobane, Khambula