up, pastures began to deteriorate through overstocking and people began
to interfere with the customary movements of cattle. By the end of the
eighteenth century, strong chiefdoms were subduing their neighbors and
incorporating them into loosely structured kingdoms.P Then came the
first great drought of the century, which people remembered as the time
when "we were obliged to eat grass."29
Bythe 1810S,
there were two rival kingdoms in the area: the Ndwandwe
kingdom, led by Zwide, and the Mthethwa kingdom, led by Dingiswayo,
81