 Chard posted the British soldiers around the perimeter, adding some of the more able patients, the 'casuals' and civilians, and those of the NNC who possessed firearms along the barricade.The rest of the NNC, armed only with spears, were posted outside the mealie bag and biscuit box barricade within the stone-walled cattle kraal.The approaching Zulu force was vastly larger; the uDloko, uThulwana, inDlondo "amabutho" (regiments) of married men aged in their 30s and 40s and the inDlu-yengwe "ibutho" of young unmarried men mustered 3,000 to 4,000 warriors, none of them engaged during the battle at Isandlwana.