The Ruined Cities of Zululand

Heat and fever weigh on the officers at Bellary Fort as Captain Hughes discusses his approaching leave. Set in 1856, this opening establishes a world of regimental conversation, difficult marches and hunting plans. Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley gives his adventure narrative a documentary frame: the preface traces its material to information supplied by his brother and describes old ruins, buried gold and mysterious stone slabs in southern Africa.

The later river scenes linger over a different kind of movement. Boats travel along the Zambesi and Shire, carrying passengers past wooded banks, cultivated plots and distant mountains. Dona Isabel plays her guitar, while camp meals and accounts of hunting bring pauses to the expedition. The combination of military life, landscape description and tales exchanged among travellers gives readers a view of older adventure writing, including the colonial assumptions that accompany its interest in unfamiliar places.