The republic., 1851-08-07
The KaMr War.

We are indebted to the Colonial office of
Great Britain for an accurate knowledge of
good many warlike tribes of savages whom we
should hardly have known, even by name, but
for the extensive operations of that branch of
the British government The head of that de-
partment must have an uncommonly clear head
of his own to keep tolerably correct account
in his memory of even the names of the differ
ent nations and tribes he has to treat with and
encounter, even though he had no charge of the
operations to be carried on against them No
Roman emperor, even in the proud days Of the
mistress of the World" when, in the grand
language of Milton, she received
| g. embassies from regions far remote
| In various habits the Appian road,''
ever had so great variety of "outsiders" to
deal with as the present head of the Colonial
office.
Among the most troublesome of the rough
customers that England has recently been en-
deavorlng to convert into dutiful subjects and
consumers of Manchester calicoes are certain
naked tribes of mongrels inhabiting southern
Africa, and known generally as Kaf1irs, al
though that is not the term which these swarthy
savages apply to themselves. We have had
but very limited knowledge, hitherto, of the
Kafirs, although it is nearly three hundred
years since Europeans first became acquainted
with that people by report.
| We do not know when the Cape of Good
Hope was first doubled' by eastern naviga-
tors, but probably by the Phenicians in the
| NJ ba he. ~
cred by christians, however, at the end of
the 18th century, and since then we have
been becoming more and more acquainted
with its inhabitants. Bartholomew Daz
called it "Cubo dos Tormentos;" but Vasco de
Cana bestowed upon it, in l497, the name of
''Cabo de Boa Experance," which seems to
have been regarded by the world as so suitable
a designation that it has never been rebaptised
by any other name since. The Portuguese did
not succeed in making settlement at the
Cape, although they made good many land
ings. The Dutch succeeded the Portuguese.
and the English East India Company attempt
ed to annex it to the British empire, in the
name of King James, in 1920 About thirty
years afterwards the Dutch East India Com
pany succeeded in making a settlement and
effecting treaty with the inhabitants, whom
they called Hottentots. The Dutch retained
possession of the Cape, although not without re-
peated attempts on the part Great Britain
to oust them, until Holland itself was taken
possession of by France, when England seized
the Cape as a French colony; and although it
was, by the peace of Amiens, restored to the
Dutch, England again pounced upon it in 1906,
took possession Of it, and it being granted to
that power by the peace of 1914, has remained
in the possession of England ever since The
colonists at the Cape of Good Hope led very
quiet life, growing enormously fat in person
and gradually extending their farms into the
interior, eastward, until they found themselves
in the neighborhood of the Kaffirs, race OF
darkies wholly unlike the Hottentots, whom
they first encountered at the Cape. The Kaf
frs are not an aboriginal race, but have the ap-
pearance Of mixture of the pure negro and
the Aslatic element; they are said to be lighter
IN complexion and less like the negro in fea-
lures than the Congo and other indigenous
tribes Of southern Africa. The Kaf1irs are
herdsmen, and feed chiefly on milk and the
flesh OF their cattle; they are divided into sep
arate clans, and each clan has its chief Nei-
ther the Kaffirs nor the colonists had any par
ticular right to the soil, both of them having
ousted the aboriginal possessor, and, when they
came in contact, there was an inevitable neces-
slty that one or the other should be declared
in the ascendancy The Beers infringed on
the Kaffir's land, and the Kaffir drove of
the Boers's fat cattle, and 80 the war be-
tween the antagonistic races commenced. Each