[ANGLO-ZULU WAR]: RORKE JAMES: (1827-1875) Irish-born settler in southern Africa, from 1849 the owner of a farmstead and trading post on the border with Zululand in the Colony of Natal that became known as Rorke's Drift and was the site of the Battle of Rorke's Drift during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. An extremely rare A.L.S., James Rorke, two pages, folio, Buffalo River (Rorke's Drift), 23^rd October 1858, to F. T. Pelley (?). Rorke transmits a report to his correspondent concerning several individuals who had crossed the Buffalo River to join a party against the inhabitants of Utrecht, a town in KwaZulu-Natal, explaining 'Several persons have been over the river but I believe they went to try and conciliate the two partys, they took no arms with them, several that went through from the upper part of the district to join spies took arms with them and sided with the inhabitants of Utrecht' and further adding 'I shall therefore warn them for the future to abstain from such proceedings. If they act otherwise I shall take notice of the same'. With a contemporary docket to the verso. Autographs of Rorke are extremely rare in any form as a result of his untimely death by suicide. Some light age wear and a few tears to the upper edge, only very slightly affecting the text, G