The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-05 00:00:00

•:"If;/ •
tO, ,t.•
.?` AUGUST 5) 1846.
7

they want wives, and must steal cattle to purchase them ;
they perceive their numbers increasing ; they r..btain
gun 3 and ammunition from the traders, wbo take in
return gum, hides, and ostrich feathers ; and, looking
upon the flocks and herds of Alhany and Somerset, they
doubtless say, with old Blucher, locking down on
London, from St. Paul's,—" What a plunder !" Peace
and plunder would be their first wish ; but, if you will
not suffer them to combine these two, then, war and
plunder is wish the second. To " Young Kafirland"
the chiefs and counsellors have given way; and hence
we are now fighting.
The real ground of war then is, that the Kafirs,
whether by war or peace, will carry on depredations,
and that the colony will not put up with depredations in
peace. The only alternative is war.
.Oneimportant point is to be borne in mind, as an in•
disputable fact, that, for the last seven yers—T might
go further back—but, for the last seven years, at a!)
events, no colonist, of any sort, size, or dcs.•ritition has
committed any act of violence or outrage in any part of
Kafir land.

The num.-A:ate ground of war was this :—A Kafir,
within the colony, stole a hatchet, and, being caught,
was sent to jail. While on Lis way, under a small escort
of Hottentot constables, sixty or seventy armed Kafirs,
of Botman's tribe, burst into the colony, attacked the
escort, hurried over the boundary the rescued prisoner,
and a constable, to whoa:, for safety, he had been hand-
cuffed, severed the hand of the constable, is ord( r to
free the prisoner from him, and then put the constable
to death with assegais. During the :,cuffle, a shot, from
one of the escort, killed one of the attacking party.
The gang belonged to Tola's people, who are again a
part of Botman's tribe, who again recognise the para-
mount authority of Sandilli, the head of all the Gaika
Kafirs, son of Gaika, the late Chief, by his great, or
Tambookie, wife : and in right of that origin, superior
to his elder, and far abler, brother, Macomo, the off-
spring of an inferior mother, not of the aristocratic
l'ambookie race.

Colonel Hare demanded the surrender and punish-
ment of the murderers from Tole, Botman, and San-
dilli. No Kafir ever gives a direct answer. But they
gave no satisfaction. An axe, they thought, was a
small thing to send a man to prison for. If one of our
people had been killed so had one of their people, and
the dead men weighed equally heavy. They thought
that no more should be said upon the subject. They
neither promised nor pretended that they would comply
with our demands.

Recent events had tended to give significance to this
conduct. Sandilli, a feeble young man, with no capa-
city, a shrivelled arm, a crooked leg, and a crooked
temper, had lately performed some strange pranks. By
treaty, he was bound to protect traders sojourning in his
country ; but he had gone to a trader's store, forced
him to open it, struck him for being slow, and had then
taken away such goods as he thoucht proper to select.
The same chief had carried off cattle from a missionary
station, and flatly refused to give compensation to a far-
mer whose cattle had been carried, by the thieves, into
his country. The diplomatic agent fq. the Gaika tribes,
Mr. Shetch, sent for satisfaction for these injuries. His
messengers found the chief in a passion. The cause was
this :

Finding the water failing at Post Victoria. the Go-
vernor wished to change the site. Blockdrift, 'on the
Chumie River, was supposed to be an advantageous po
sition ; and, as it was beyond the ceded territory (where
we had, by treaty, a right to place forts) negotiations
were opened with Sandilli, for the purpose of obtaining
the necessary right. He proposed his terms, which
were under consideration, when the Governor considered
that a previous inspection, before closing the bargain,
would be desirable. By a misapprehension of orders,
what was intended for a mere inspection became a sur-
vey, by a small party. No intimation of the thing had
been given to Sandilli, who, therefore, had a right to
say, that, notwithstanding his offer, we had no authority
to view the offered property, without his permission.
Mr. Shetch's messengers arrived the day after the
surveying party. Sandilli received them at his Kraal,
or Great Place, which is close to the spot, and, having
heard them, returned a most insolent reply.—They
were to say, that the Governor was a rascal; that the
Lieutenant-Governor was a rascal ; and that Shetch
himself was a rascal. Traders and missionaries were
under his feet, and they must lie quiet there. He
would give no compensation for Ranbenheimer's cattle;
and if the Governor came to ask for it, his answer would
be, " there are my warriors." Shetch, he said, must
not sleep, till he had sent this message to the Governor.
And the tent there must go, and the party, also. There
must be no soldiers in his country; and Sheshago (Port
Victoria) also must be quitted. This was his word.
On hearing of this message, Col. Hare left Grahams-
town, and proceeded to Fort Beaufort, from whence he
sent a me=sage to Sandilli, to meet him, the next day,
at Blockdrift. In reply, the Chief sent him an apologetic
message hack. Ills old counsellors were not with him
when he had spoken foolishly to the former messengers,
and with the young men he had been a child among
children. He would come to the Lieutenant-Governor,
if the latter would guarantee his personal safety. This
was, of course, guaranteed.
Next morning came a message to his Honour, from
Sutu, Sandilli's mother, asking forgivenness for her son.
Colonel Hare, about three years ago, saved Sutu's life.
Tyali, a half-brother of Sandilli's, and a full brother
of Macomo's, had died. 'When a Chief dies, unless in
war, or great old age, his death is ascribed to witch-
craft. Under Macomo's patronage, a witchdance was
held; and the doctor, after snuffing about for the
party who had bewitched Tyali, ended by smellng
out Sutu, who had been Gaika's great wife, and
was the mother of the paramount Chief. That Macomo
had managed the matter, for his own ends, no reasonable
doubt can be entertained. Au informality in the cere-
monies required a new dance. In the mean time, Col.
Hare, contrary to Grotius and Vattel, and in derogation
of the independence of our allies, sent in troops, who
carried Sutu into the colony for safety, and thus saved
her from a lingering death. Some people blamed his in-
terference ; but, for my own part, I warmly approved of
it. It is terrible even to contemplate the torments of
those who are made the victims of that mixture of
trickery and superstition, compounded by the scoundrel
witch-doctors of Ksfirland ;—now devoured, by being
forced into a nest of red ants ; now roasted between red-
hot- stones ; now subjected to yet more capricious cruel-
ties. Poor Sutu ! the idea of roasting her was too bad.
She is the fattest woman in Kafraria ; and weighs better
than five-and-twenty stone.
I have mentioned Macomo. 'William Howitt, if I re-
member rightly, in his book on colonisation, says,—
" This Macomo seems to be a very fine fellow." This is
a mere matter of taste. His wish to roast old Sutu I
have told you of. For the last seven years, lie has been
dead drunk, in Fort Beaufort canteen for much more
than half his time. A missionary, in his neighbourhood,
remonstrated with him for killing one of his wives, in a
fit of drunken fury. He professed sorrow—(not that he
ever pretends to be a Christian)—and was very anxious
to know from whom the missionary had learned
the fact. And then Macomo, sinking the fox, came out
the lion, and avowed that his object was to put to death
the author of the information. But while sober,
which he seldom is, his faculties are superior
to those of any other chief. I saw him in Fort
Beaufort, last year, looking well, and showing no
signs that constant drinking had destroyed his con-
stitution, or dimmed, in any way, his clear and cunning
eye. Ile, and the four or five wives who were with him,
begged from me at once, as all chiefs, great and small,
invariably do. My interpreter remarked a good-look-
ing Gonah girl as a new wife, and asked how much she
cost ? Macomo answered, six oxen. He said she was
cheap, and seemed well satisfied with his bargain.
But, to return to Sutu and her message. It was con-
ceived in the figurative language, which is their prose,
and our poetry. The Lieutenant-Governor was a great
father, Sandilli was an erring child. The father might
be angry and punish ; but afterwards he would pity, and
protect. The Kafirs were very fearful about their land.
When Fort Wiltshire was built, in Gailea's time, it was
said that it was built to strengthen Gaika ; but, after-
wards, land was taken. The Lieutenant-Governor,
therefore, must have patience with Sandilli. This was
the word of Sutu. She sent it to save her child.
At the place of meeting, at Blockdrift, Colonel Hare
assembled a considerable force of horse and foot, and
some field•pieces. Right opposite advanced Sandilli, at
the head of 7,000 Kafirs mounted and armed with guns,
and a great multitude of men on foot. Fearful of being
surrounded, Colonel Hare extended his line upon which
the Kafir horsemen extended line, as well. The con-
ference was long, and, it would appear, satisfactory to
his Honour. Judging from the report of it which I have
heard, I could not participate in this sentiment. The
insolence was, in part, disavowed ; but the refusal to
give compensation—the arrogant claim to treat traders
and missionaries as he pleased—and the impudent de
ward, that no military post should remain even in the
ceded territory—were all maintained.
A difference of opinion exists as to the conduct of
Colonel Hare on this occasion. Some think that the
irregularity of our unlicensed survey demanded all pos-
sible forbearance from us. Others conceive, that San-
dilli's duplicity, upon the subject of his negotiation for
the site of a new post, only aggravated the insolence of
his general demeanour, and are of opinion that Colonel
Hare should have given him an hour to comply with his
demand for apology and redress, and, failing his com-
pliance, have sent some shells and the 7th Dragoons into
the midst of the masses collected, obviously for an osten-
tatious display of force. But others, viewing some late
passages in border war, are of opinion that it was very
fortunate we made no movement at Blockdrift, as the
probabilities are, from the disparity of force, and
the unexpected determination now shown by the Kafirs,
that they would have been worsted, and pursued into the
colony by a furious throng of savages, flushed with
triumph, ready to disperse in plundering hordes, and to
spread ruin and devastation over a country wholly un-
prepared to resist such an invasion. lam one of those
who take this view.
These events left the minds of all in a very feverish
and unsettled state. The colonists, in alarm, were
arming, to defend themselves from an anticipated
attack. There was a loud cry to the Government to
be firm ; and much was written and declaimed about
energetic measures, and dignified attitudes, and God
knows what beside. And then, the Kafirs, seeing the
preparations in the colony, began to prepare, too. Guns,
ammunition, assegais, and Veldt-schoen (field shoes)
were purchased by them, in every quarter in which they
; could be found. There was much mutual apprehension

P RICE SD.

and distrust. Sooner or later, it was clear, that war
must come. Hence the outrage which I have before
described, and the effect which, owing partly to its
own inherent grossness, and partly to the particular
time at which it was perpetrated, it instantly produced.
Colonel Hare then publicly announced. his determina-
tion to chastise our turbulent and faithless neighbours,
and vindica!ed the insulted power of the colony.
The Queen's troops on the frontier are somewhat
over three thousand men. Colonel Hare devolved upon
a yeomanry force the defence of Grahamstown ; made
other arrangements for relieving the regular forces, in
other places
and, dividing the army into three divi-
sions—one at Fort Beaufort, one at Fort Peddle, and one
at the Kat River—reported himself ready to move into
Kafirland, or, at least, into the ceded territory, and wrote
to the Governor, in Cape Town, to declare thewar.
To conduct military operations, Khan you are eix
hundred miles from the scene of action, is irnuossible.
Seventy. five is late to take the field. But the Gevernor
at once recognised the necessity of proceeding imme-
&ately to the frontier, which he reached in the Admi-
ral's ship the President, placed at his disposal.
In this hasty and imperfect sketch, I cannot stop to de-
scribe the events which have since occurred ; but, I re-
gret to say, that their general result is unfavourable to
the colony. Our enemies are more numerous, more for-
midable, more active, and more determined, than had
been anticipated ; and our preparations for resisting
them have proved very incomplete.
I have already referred to our actual line of boundary,
the Great Fish River. Opposite Fort Beaufort, and in
that direction, arc the Gaikas, the most warlike and
worst conducted of all the Kafir nation. Between the
Gaikas and the sea, down towards the mouth of the Fish
River, are the Tslambie and Congo tribes. On the other
side of the Gaikas, and stretching thence Eastward, lie
the Tambookies,—a numerous, but comparatively paci-
fic class. Crossing the Kye, and alcng its left bank, you
have Creili, the successor of the Hintze, the most power-
ful potentate amongst the whole of the Amakosa Kafirs;
and between Creili and our new settlement of Port Natal,
spreads out a fine and fertile country, inhabited by
another branch of the Kafir family, under Faku. With
all these Chiefs the colony had treaties of friendship and

Our war was with the Gaikas. With none of the
others had we any ground of quarrel ; and- one of the
Gaika chiefs bad long separated himself, by good
behaviour, from the rest, and had been admitted to a
separate treaty, at his own request. This was Eno, who
died since the war began, being, as is supposed, nearly
one hundred years of age. He was friendly to the last.
Shortly before his death, he paid Colonel Hare the
greatest compliment a dying chief could pay, by sending
a messenger to say that he trusted to him to see him
buried, and not to leave his body in the bush. Every
attention was paid to the old chief, by the colonial
authorities, civil and military, near his Kraal. He is
succeeded by his son Stock—called after Stockcnstrom—
as the Kafirs pronounce his name.
For some days after they entered the ceded territory,
the troops, instead of meeting any opposition, did not
see a soul, save now and then' a mounted Kafir,
engaged in reconnoitering. But, some mismanagement
gave a new turn to affairs. An immense train of
baggage waggons (the necessity of which I have
never heard explained) was brought through the bush,
stretching for miles, and guarded by a couple of
hundred soldiers at each end. One of the middle wag-
gons stuck in a drift or ford, and stopped the huge pro-
cession. Down rushed Kafirs in thousands, starting
from the bush, like the mountaineers of Roderick Dhu.
The leaders, and drivers, and soldiers opened a fire; but
it was soon silenced by the close and continuous rattle
of the Kafir musketry ; and the upshot was the capture
of between 50 and 60 valuable waggons, with their oxen,
and much food and clothing, worth not less than 10,0004
The enemy drove off the oxen, plundered the waggons,
and then burned them. Rescuing the ammunition wag-
gons with difficulty, the troops retreated, pursued and
harassed by the Kafirs to their very encampment. The
things captured were rare trophies. Sable gentlemen
arrayed themselves in military coats, and proud of their
upward splendour, disdained to wear any other article of
clothing. whatever. They attacked the medecine chest,
eating blistering plaster, and, it is said, swallowing the
laudanum. But, besides all these, there was not a little
food, which they carried off to their fastnesses in the
Amatola mountains.

Encouraged by this signal success, the enemy became
more darirg ; and their greater daring led to more suc-
cesses. The troops, in fact, were outnumbered, and
brought to act on the defensive ; and then the Kafirs,
delayed by no commissariat, driving no huge train of
waggons, and greedy for the plunder of our scattered
homesteads, rushed in plundering parties into the colony,
cutting off stragglers, stopping the mails, and scattering
the contents, and sweeping off cattle with a celerity
altogether wonderful. Farmers and their families were
soon flying for protection to all strong positions ; their
hou-es were being burnt in all directions. With the ex-
ception of forts and towns and some well situated and
strongly fortified farm-houses, the whole of Albany, and
much of Somerset and Uitenhage, were in possession of
the enemy.
The effects of all thh speedily bc..-ne visible. Tho
war with the Gaikas is now a war with all Kafirland.
The Gaikas point to the plunder derived from the capture
of the waggons—to the droves of colonial cattle brought
in ; and incite the cupidity of the rest, by the spectacle
of their triumphs. It is not in Kafir nature to stand
this. The consequence is, that the war-cry has been
raised by Pato and the Tslambies ; that the Tambookies
are wavering, almost certain to declare against us ; and
that Creili is rumoured to have entered into the con-
federacy.
To meet the mighty danger in which the colony is
placed, the most active measures have been resorted to.
Martial law has been proclaimed throughout the entire
colony. The Burgher force of every district, from
Colesberg to the Cape, has been called into the field.
All persons and all property are placed at the disposal of
the Government, in this great emergency. Now, in the
winter season, the farmers and their people are called
away, from sowing time, to march hundreds of miles to
the seat of scar, receiving but scanty food, and sleeping
nightly in the open air. Horses, fire-arms, waggons,
&c.,—all are, under the pressure of necessity, seized, and
applied to the equipment and conveyance of the in-
habitants. It is a struggle for life or death. To secure
a favourable termination of it, we require to array a
large proportion of our adult population on the frontier.
The Burghers are advancing; but, what with horses
and oxen knocking up, they are advancing but slowly.
When the present levy reaches the frontier, the Governor
will be at the head of the largest force ever assembled in
this colony—say, 12,000 inhabitants and 3,000 troops.
More of the latter are soon expected. The head-quar-
ters of the 90th, from Ceylon to England, put in for
water to Simon Bay, and were instantly sent round to
Algoa Bay. The other division is expected to touch;
and, if so, they will share the same fate; and the 45th
Regiment, from Rio 'Janeiro, is looked for daily.
Of the ultimate result I entertain no doubt. We
shall beat the enemy; but it will be at a cost to the
Home Government, to the Colonial Government, to the
frontier inhabitants, beggared by the invasion, to the
inhabitants generally, whose property has been seized
for the public service, and to the colony at large, which
will suffer fdr want of hands to till the ground at this
the proper season of the year;—to all these interests
success will be purchased, at a cost which it is frightful
to contemplate. We must count it, not by thousands,
but by hundreds of thousands—#*hapa by millions.
God grant us a good deliverance!
The loss of life on our side has not been great, whilst
the Kafirs have fallen in considerable numbers. Both
are consequences of one cause. Since the war of 1835,
the Kafir has changed his weapon. Then, be used the
assegai—now, be fights with the musket. But he has
rarely anything better than a Birmingham article—
made, like Hodege's razors, to sell, not shoot—with
which he blazes away, doing small damage, but dreaming
that he is doing wonders. Encouraged by this notion,
he is more daring than before; and is, therefore, more
frequently shot down. It may safely be asserted, that
more Kafirs have already fallen in this contest than fell
throughout the entire of the last war. When (as must
soon be the case) their ammunition fails, and they must
again have recourse to the assegai, it may be expected
that their confidence in themselves will be lowered ;
while there can be little doubt, that our Burghers will
then proceed with more fearlessness through the bash
than they do at present.
I believe the Governor's plan to be, to await the
coming up of a large irregular force to support the
troops, then to divide the latter into two bodies—one,
under himself, to enter the ceded territory of Fort
Pedaie, and the other, under Colonel hare, to proceed
to Fort Beaufort. In the meantime, we see, by the last
arrival from Grahamstown, that Sir Andreas Stocken-
strom has been appointed Commandant-General of the
Burgher force—a nomination which has restored the
confidence of the public in the proper conduct of that
body. Leaving people enough to protect Albany and
Somerset from any flank march of the enemy, our forces
will penetrate the Amatola mountains, where the Gaika
and colonial cattle are, and where the enemy must be
found in masses, and must fight.
But, at present, all is despondency. Burning houses
literally redden, every night, the skies of Albany and
Somerset; and immense numbers of cattle are driven off
More the faces of our troops, too weak to turn out from
shelter. Not less than 60,000 head of cattle have been
thus carried away, whilst the destruction of sheep has
been immense. The enemy are cruel, always destroying
the wounded, and uniformly disfiguring the dead.
We soon hope for better things. Unlike the last war,
this war has no opponents. Mr. Fairbairn, son-in-law
of Dr. Philip, and proprietor of The Commercial Ad-
vertiser, a political writer of rare talents, who strenu-
ously opposed the last war, strenuously supports this ;
and the name of Sir Peregrine Maitland will be taken
as sufficient security for the necessity of the war, by a
large class in England, who might canvass the conduct
of another Governor with more severity. The prayer
of every one is, that this war, so disastrous, so expen-
sive, so harrassing, and so likely to prove protracted,
may so terminate as to prove to be the last of our con-
flicts with these people. A Kaffir war every ten years
would ruin us. As it is, this war will throw us back
five-and-twenty years.

GLASGOW SUBSCRIPTION TO COBDEN.—We learn that
at a preliminary meeting of the Anti-Corn-law League, held
yesterday, eight gentlemen put down their names for two
hundred and fifty pounds each, making two thousand pounds
to commence with—Glasgow Saturday Post,