At the beginning of the 19th century no continent seemed to Europeans so mysterious, so fascinating, as Africa. There were legends about great wealth and great kingdoms in the interior.
The abolition of slavery by the British - but not by other nations - provided fresh impetus to exploration. And the feats of the great missionary explorer David Livingstone stirred Victorian Britain.
In southern Africa the British took over the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch to protect their route to India. The Dutch, fretful of British rule, began to trek northwards but came into collision with the warlike Zulu nation. At Blood River the Zulus suffered a terrible defeat - but were not conquered.
The pattern of conflict is set: the land hunger of the white men - Dutch and British - versus the ancestral rights of the African. But - as will emerge in a later programme - the pattern of conflict will eventually widen into war between the white men themselves.
