The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in Kaffirland

What a settlement for the starving Highlanders the Amatola Mountains would be! And what employment offers itself along the coast for the active Irish! If the Amatolas were devoted partially to agriculture, instead of pasturage, or to sheep-farming, with a view to the exportation of wool, there would be comparatively no temptation for the Kaffir, and a New Erin might rise, upon the eastern shore of this fertile country. Its very productiveness renders agriculture an uncertain speculation, in consequence of the small population: here again, emigration provides the remedy. It is to be hoped that the Royal Society will send hither intelligent and truthful individuals, who would make none but just reports of the capabilities of the colony. Coffee, sugar, and innumerable other articles might be raised here; flax, particularly, would be successful; and the discovery of coal at Natal, leads scientific men to infer that it is to be found elsewhere. At the Kowie, it is pretty well ascertained to be in existence. We learn from Natal, that the military there are intent on farming, the productive soil tempting many to purchase land, with the intention of settling. We might thin our dark mines of England, by sending men to South Africa, to work the treasures of her earth. It is, however, of the utmost importance, that the Emigration Societies should be particular as to the class of people selected.

Captain Hogg, 7th Dragoon Guards, has succeeded in raising another levy of about 200 Hottentots from the lower districts, who are expected at Waterloo Bay on the 10th of May. Lieutenant Forsyth, R.N., is relieved from his duties as a harbour-master at this bay by Lieutenant Connolly, R.N. Lieutenant Forsyth was appointed to this office at the Buffalo Mouth, 30th of April. The long-looked-for vessel, the “Frederick Huth,” has at last reached the Buffalo in safety, after a month’s voyage from Port Elizabeth, Algoa Bay. She was seen three weeks since off the Buffalo, and was driven back to Waterloo Bay. At last, she was again sighted eight or ten miles from her place of destination: a mist came on, and it was doubtful whether she could make her way over the bar. At length, the curtain of vapour, which hung between Colonel Van der Meulen’s camp and the ocean, was lifted up, and there at last lay the welcome ship at anchor. The landing of the cargo is progressing favourably, which is at this moment of great advantage to the troops, their provisions being at a very low ebb.

The first step taken by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Henry Young, has been to send the Chief, Umyeki, out of Graham’s Town.

“May 10th.—Further particulars have been received of the murder of the soldier of the 6th. Those on the spot, and most capable of judging, are of opinion that this horrible deed has been committed by Fingoes. It seems that, on the unhappy man’s cries being heard, the guard rushed to his assistance. A little pool of blood was observed near the spot where he had fallen, and he had been dragged some sixty yards along the road. A gun-shot wound in the body, and an assegai stab in the heart, had silenced his cries speedily. The spoor of three or four men was traced towards Peddie; and, as the murdered man had some tobacco about him, and an empty case, with a hatchet beside it, lay near him, it is supposed, that, having gone to fetch some stolen and secreted tobacco from the bush, he was waylaid by Fingoes and murdered, for the sake of the plunder. As no cattle were near the place, it is not likely that Kaffirs would be lurking there.

“We have an instance to-day, the 19th of May, of our enemy’s perseverance and determination, in the report from a patrol in search of stolen cattle. A private of the Rifle Brigade, having lost his way in the bush, heard Kaffirs approaching the spot where he lay perdu; thanks to his green jacket, he was enabled to watch the movements of the savages, without decided danger to himself. They approached a kloof, in which one of their number awaited them. The rifleman saw them handing their arms to the Kaffirs in the ravine, who concealed them in some nook selected for the purpose. Watching his opportunity, the soldier effected his journey back to the camp; and, on giving his information, Lieutenant Macdonald, and a party of the Cape Mounted Rifles, were sent out to search the spot, for the muskets and ammunition hidden. From this, it may be inferred that there are many similar depôts of arms in the bush.”

Chapter XVI.

Surrender of Sandilla

Sandilla came into Graham’s Town, as a captive, on Sunday, the 25th of October, 1847, closely guarded by a body of Cape Mounted Riflemen and 7th Dragoon Guards, under Captain Bisset and Lieutenant Petre, and attended by the Councillors, and his own brother, Anta (a young man of great talents and energy, and his chief warrior), he rode through the streets, just as the church doors opened to send forth the Christian observers of the Sabbath. Bare-headed, and with downcast eyes, his withered limb hanging below his kaross, marking him as the restless Gaika,—he who had issued his “word” from the mountain-side, over his wide-spread and beautiful territory, now passed on a prisoner, followed by a few Hottentot boys!

How little could that wild creature comprehend the feelings of white men, as they watched him on his way! There was, of course, great satisfaction at seeing him thus secured; but all anger would have been as much thrown away on him as on the wild beast which it is necessary to cage. The cavalcade moved slowly through the streets, the Drostdy barrack-ground is reached, the soldiers on guard at last behold the man whom they have so long sought—the door of a large empty store is thrown open, and, in another moment, the fallen Chief sits down, in that dim space, with his followers. The free air and the bright sun make but little way through the narrow loop-holes, and the shape and aspect of his prison must offer a wretched contrast to the broad valleys and free mountain paths which the ill-advised and misguided Lord of the Amakosas has forfeited.

It was the useful green-jackets, the untiring Rifle Brigade, who worried Sandilla out of his hiding-place among the mountains. In June, the troops were about to hut themselves for the first months of the winter season, which, in this climate, is so uncertain as to render all calculations relative to military movements useless. Our enemy took advantage of this temporary cessation of hostilities to burn all the grass, from the Buffalo to the Kei, and to take his usual pastime in cattle-stealing. Happily, the Colony was tolerably well guarded, and the boundary vigilantly watched; the colonists, too, had not only much less cattle to lose, but took the precaution of drawing nearer the towns, with their families and property.

Sandilla remained in the neighbourhood of Fort Hare during the pause in our operations. On the other side of the Buffalo River, Páto was coquetting with the authorities, now sending Jan Tzatzoe with a conciliatory message, and now making his simple-minded brother, Cobus Congo, an envoy to our camps with a flag of truce, and hollow protestations. At last, he consented to come in and surrender himself unconditionally, as was required by the Government; but this step was prevented by a skirmish between our troops and Sandilla’s immediate followers. Páto, of course, changed his mind, to wait the result of this affair, handed over the stolen cattle to the care of Kreli, beyond the Kei, and sat down quietly to observe our proceeding.

The affair in question, which took place on the 15th of June, was as follows:—

Some colonial property (goats and horses) were stolen by Kaffirs from the Kat river settlement; the spoor of these was traced to the territory of Sandilla, who, with every appearance of good faith, returned them to Fort Hare. But, although he did this, he determined on turning the robbery to good account, and punished the thief by “eating him up,” appropriating his cattle to his own royal purposes, thus taking the law into his own hands; and, finally, refusing to give up the thief to the patrol sent for him by our authorities. This patrol consisted of two troops of the 7th Dragoon Guards, two companies of the 45th Regiment, small detachments of the Cape Corps, a Fingo levy, and eighty of the Kaffir Police. These were deputed to demand the thief, and a fine of three head of cattle, from the Gaika Chief. The cunning Sandilla “knew nothing of the thief,” the goats “had been found straying.” The troops secured the Chief’s cattle; but, on their return towards Fort Hare, were waylaid by the Kaffirs in great numbers. These called out, “You have done well to come to the old graves,” alluding to the battle at Burn’s Hill, in April, 1846; and, following the troops nearly to Fort Hare, they succeeded in re-capturing almost all the cattle, exclaiming, as they retired with their prize, “By and by, you will learn wisdom, and not come again.”

Lieutenant Davis was in command of the Kaffir Police, so successfully organised by him, on this occasion. These men “fought bravely, and did good service against their countrymen,” “a fact,” says the Graham’s Town Journal, “which only shows that, when self-interest is sufficiently influential, they will sacrifice those of their own blood with as little remorse as they will the colonists.” (Their treachery has since been plainly manifested.) Lieutenant Russell, of the Kaffir Police, was killed, at the early age of twenty-three; eight or ten casualties, killed and wounded, occurred on our side, and several of the enemy are supposed to have fallen.

The Christian Kaffir, Kama, who had served us well during this war, against the Tambookies, remonstrated when called upon to fight against the Gaikas. He was willing, he said, to defend the white man’s property and rights, and this he did with the remnant of his tribe, but he begged the Government would not insist on his attacking his own people in their haunts. Kama and his little band have not eaten the bread of idleness during the war; cattle have been rescued by them, positions defended, and safe escort to travellers afforded.

On Sir George Berkeley reaching Fort Hare, on the 22nd of June, Sandilla sent him a few cows as a peace-offering for his late offence, saying, that “the account was fairly balanced in the late affray with his people—two being killed on either side; and he therefore hoped nothing more would be said about it.” Sir George Berkeley returned to Graham’s Town a few days after, and it being determined to trust no longer to Sandilla’s promises, it was resolved to commence active operations against him in August or September. Meanwhile Sir Henry Pottinger published a proclamation, dated 7th August, declaring Sandilla a rebel, and no longer under the protection of the British Government, and calling on all to assemble in Commandos against him; the final clause related to the neutral tribes, and closed in these words:

“I do strictly, solemnly, and unqualifiedly enjoin and command all persons heaping allegiance to her Majesty, to refrain from molesting such neutral (or friendly) Kaffirs, and to consider the protection of them and their lives and property to be a paramount duty.”

So, now, this headstrong savage became a hunted outlaw. He who had vowed to drive the white man to the sea,—that white man who should not “taste of the Tyumie waters,”—had not now a resting-place for his head!

The remembrance of an interview I once had with Tola (Tola, Dodo, Eno, Moshesh (Moses), will be recognised as patriarchal names) occurs to me at this moment. It was in a picturesque spot near Colonel Somerset’s residence at Post Victoria, in the centre of a large bower, which had been constructed round some splendid trees. What had once been a fair pasture land for Tola’s herds, was now worn with the tread of soldiers’ feet; the stir of the camp filled the air which once breathed over a comparatively silent space, and not far from us a band played Irish tunes, to which Tola’s Kaffir councillors and attendants listened with a grave silence, unmoved at the grotesque attitudes of Hottentot children. On a rustic bench sat Tola, with his kaross wound round him; his face resembled that of a wolf—his eyes glaring and the teeth projecting, and his hair, dressed with red clay, looked more like a knitted worsted wig than anything else. There were other ladies present besides myself, and also some officers. I asked Tola if he belonged to the war-party? He replied, it was only the young men of Kaffirland who were for war,—he loved peace. He is the freebooter of his tribe!

“Why,” I asked, “are the young men permitted to raise their voices above the old ones?”

“The young men are numerous, and hold the assegai.”

“Well, have the old men no power to restrain them from throwing it?” I inquired. “If so, Young Kaffirland will soon have the voice in council, and there will be little wisdom.”

Tola sat in deep silence many minutes, and then observed, “It is true.” He afterwards asked the interpreter how it was that white women spoke with the minds of men? A female offering any opinion at all was a source of astonishment to him. The Kaffir women are, however, remarkable for shrewdness; but this is seldom exercised but upon great occasions, and then only by witch-doctresses, who profess also to have the gift of prophecy.

All this time that Tola was professing to deprecate war, he was filling his kraals with colonial cattle, sending out marauding parties (gipsies), and collecting ammunition.

An English paper states, “it is said that the attack on the escort in charge of a Kaffir prisoner, was absolutely planned, by Bothman and Tola, on the market-place at Fort Beaufort.” That it was planned there, and carried into execution an hour or two afterwards, I know, and that Tola was the planner. Bothman is an inferior Chief and quite dropsical. We one day met him out riding; he begged us to raise our veils, which we did, laughing, and he acknowledged the courtesy by a sound between a bark and a sigh.

When the movement of the troops was anticipated by Sandilla, he named Macomo’s son, Kona, as his successor, in the event of his death. Of Kona’s wife, an anecdote, illustrative of her shrewdness, was told me by the Acting Quartermaster-General at Block Drift. During a foray made on a Kaffir kraal in that neighbourhood, the enemy fired on our troops, and managed, ere the fire was returned, to screen themselves behind some of their women. Among these was Kona’s wife. Some days afterwards, she presented herself to Capt. Scott, 91st Regiment, Acting Quartermaster-General, saying that Colonel Hare had desired her to ask him for rations, in consequence of her previous suffering and distress. As a token of the truth of her statement, she produced a biscuit which Colonel Hare had given her, desiring her, she said, to show it to Captain Scott, in proof of her assertion. Rations were issued to her, and she enjoyed them till Colonel Hare counter-ordered them, never having mentioned the subject to her: he had merely given her a biscuit when he met her, as she complained of hunger!

We were not sorry to hear that the women of Kaffirland began to dread an invasion of their kraals, and threatened to strike work. They were tired of the war, they said. Although they have no voice, their assistance in the Ordnance and Commissariat departments is invaluable. Poor wretches! no wonder they dreaded another year of privation and toil.

The advantages of the opening of the Buffalo River were particularly manifested in the facility with which the “Rosamond” steamer landed troops and ordnance stores there, on the 28th of July, in the space of two hours and a half, in perfect safety; and the 90th thus accomplished in little more than a fortnight, a journey which, by the old route, could not have been performed under at least six weeks, and most probably two months.

A tradition has been handed down among the Kaffirs, similar to a superstition entertained by the Burmese. To the latter, it had been foretold by their priests that, as soon as a vessel without sails, or rowers, should be seen in the Irawaddy River, Burmah would fall. The appearance of the “Enterprise” steamer in their river daunted their spirits, and contributed in a great measure, to discourage the Burmese troops. The Kaffirs relate, that a prophecy exists among them to the effect “that when sea-waggons shall make their resting-places in the mouth of the Buffalo, Kaffirland shall die.”

The 20th of August had been originally fixed for the march upon the Amatolas, but unavoidable delays occurred, which might have been disadvantageous, but that time was given for the grass to grow which the enemy had burned. The Cape Corps, with the addition of several young officers, left Graham’s Town in high spirits at the prospect of “smelling powder,” but the Burghers were, in most instances, unwilling to take the field, notwithstanding the promise held out to them, that the cattle they might take should become their property.

In September, all became anxious for the march of the British troops upon the Amatolas. Various reports were afloat, some of them probably having originated among the Kaffirs themselves. Sandilla was said to be assembling his warriors; Páto and Kreli were to combine their forces; and many other similar rumours, not to be relied on, but sufficiently alarming to the inhabitants of isolated farms, were circulated.

Sir George Berkeley left Graham’s Town for the front; Colonel Somerset marshalled his people along the Buffalo line; and on the 17th of September the army was fairly set in motion, with its face towards one great rallying-point, the mountains of the Amatola, which were to be entered at three given points, viz, by the Burgher and Native levies, under Major Sutton, Cape Mounted Riflemen, and Captain Hogg, 7th Dragoon Guards, from Shiloh, upon the upper part of the Amatola; Colonel Somerset, with the Cape Mounted Rifles, from King William’s Town; and Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, with reserve battalion 91st Regiment, a strong detachment of the 45th, and some Burghers, from Fort Hare. I subjoin, as much more graphic than any description of mine, the following account of the “gathering” of the Reserve Battalion, 91st, at Fort Beaufort, on the morning of their march to Fort Hare, where they were to take up their position previously to their movements on the enemy’s territories. The extract is from “a letter addressed by a young soldier to his friend.”

“The Colonel (Campbell) and our men left this on the 17th, and after scouring every hole and corner in the Amatolas, succeeded, I believe in killing some fourteen Kaffirs. Colonel Campbell took the pipes with him, gaily decorated with ribbons and a flag. The drums played them out with ‘The Campbells are coming.’ They were all in good spirits; and, as they passed the barracks from the main square, the men who were left behind commenced cheering them, and they returned it with a will. I don’t think there was one left that would not gladly have gone to the field at that moment, especially under such a Commander as Colonel Campbell. After searching the kloofs, the division ascended the hill, where the Kaffirs were so civil to us at first, and, not seeing the enemy, they had a dance at the top, the pipes playing a national tune, to which – danced the Highland Fling, just to begin the performance.”26

After eighteen months’ warfare, with so harassing and treacherous a foe, it was something to see men start again with such spirit for their work.

Sir George Berkeley made good use of the unavoidable postponement of the march upon the enemy. The camps were well stored with provisions and ammunition, supplies were laid in for a hundred days, and everything was made ready for military movements, when the time should arrive for them. Thieving went on, but the Colony escaped another irruption, owing to the boundaries being well garrisoned.

The Commander-in-Chief having waited till the great machine was prepared to work, set it in motion, and, on the 20th of September, each division was at the post appointed for co-operating with the others. All was well arranged, and Sir George Berkeley gave good evidence of his generalship in his determination not to make an advance without a large force, well provisioned, and unencumbered with baggage. There were three grand divisions; these encamped on their allotted ground, and from their camps sent forth their patrols into the mountain passes, without waggons, and in the lightest marching order.

Chapter XVII.

Prospects of Peace

The rain fell in torrents throughout the Colony, but this did not deter the patrols from advancing on the enemy’s country. As the Kaffirs did not think it wise to show themselves to such large bodies of troops, nothing took place, at first, but a conflagration among the huts and kraals of the contumacious Gaikas; it was, however, well-known, that they had not left their hiding-places. Towards the Mancazana, some houses were fired, probably in retaliation, and the usual system of cattle-lifting, though to less extent, was carried on in the Colony by gipsy parties of the enemy.

In the meantime, old Sutu, Sandilla’s mother, sent word to Sir George Berkeley that Sandilla was “the Governor’s dog,” etc, etc; that, “if the Government would accept his submission, he would behave better,” and so on. These messages were like all the rest—hollow and designing. The Kaffirs under Tyalie, a petty Chief, having captured twelve hundred head of cattle from Sandilla, claimed a right, as British subjects, to retain them, according to the Governor’s notice; but, as this was suspected to be a ruse adopted by Sandilla himself, the troops under Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, Reserve Battalion, 91st Regiment, were sent forward to secure the cattle.

Several Kaffirs, caught in the act of stealing were brought into King William’s Town; and, after receiving one hundred lashes, were dismissed. Prison rations were thus dispensed with, and these Kaffirs became, for a period a least, a warning and a mockery to their tribes. In Kaffirland, as in China, disgrace is attached to a thief, not for stealing, but for being found out.

The division under Major Sutton, Cape Mounted Rifles, and Captain Hogg, 7th Dragoon Guards, which had moved from Shiloh, captured two hundred head of cattle in the Amatolas, and killed a few Kaffirs; with the loss, on our side, of Serjeant Phillips, Cape Mounted Rifles, and formerly of the 91st.

Although incessant rains deluged the country, the troops continued healthy. In reply to Sandilla’s messages, Jan T’Jatzoe was desired to intimate to him that no terms would be listened to from him but those of unconditional surrender.

This T’Jatzoe, to whom I have before alluded as a Kaffir who had been exhibited in England (at Exeter Hall, at Sheffield, etc, in 1836) in the false character of a Christian Chief, played a cunning part during the war of 1846-7, and was actually engaged in the attack on the waggons at Trumpeter’s Drift. The British public were completely imposed upon by this savage heathen, for such he is, and ever will be. On his return from England, whither he had gone, or rather been taken, in direct opposition to the orders and wishes of his father, a petty Chief27, he was asked many questions by his tribe, concerning the country he had visited.

“Was it large?”

“Yes, it was large; but the people were so numerous they found it small.”

“Were they so very numerous?”

“Yes; England was like a huge piece of meat covered with flies crowding upon each other.”

“What surprised him most?”

“The waggons which travelled without oxen or horses.” (Railway carriages.)

“Ah,” said Macomo, after a conversation of this kind with T’Jatzoe, “I have always told our people, that there was no use in trying to conquer the white man. It is like little boys attempting to shoot elephants with small bows and arrows.”

Macomo, with all his people were removed to the neighbourhood of Algoa Bay. He was opposed to the war, from policy, from the beginning; but when once the cry was raised in the mountains, he immediately assumed the command, being the General of the Gaikas, and, when sober, an able warrior and councillor. He was glad when an opportunity offered of surrendering himself, the charms of the canteen superseding the desire for glory among his tribe; but he used every means to remain on his old location. His appeal was pathetic enough, but we have profited somewhat by our experience in the “word of a Kaffir.” “Here,” said he, stretching his hand over the beautiful territory, “my father, a great Chief, dwelt; these pastures were crowded with cattle”, stolen, of course; “here I have lived to grow old; here my children have been born; let me die in peace where I have so long lived.” These entreaties, however, could not be listened to for one moment; and, as a last trial, his daughter, Amakeya, the beauty of Kaffirland, made her way to the tent of Colonel Campbell, 91st Regiment, who, totally unprepared for her appearance, was yet more astonished at the sacrifice she offered, if her father’s sentence of banishment might be rescinded.