Part 2, 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 Chief (Note 1), 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.
I have elsewhere mentioned Amakeya as the belle of the camp at Fort Hare, and no doubt she had been sufficiently reminded of her charms to make her sensible of the value of them. She made her strange offer in all the consciousness and pride of beauty; and, with her finely-moulded arms folded before her, she spoke without hesitation, for she was guided by motives worthy a lofty cause—motives, how desecrated! how degraded! Poor Amakeya!
“If her father might remain on his own lands,” she said, “she would be the sacrifice and guarantee for his future good faith towards the white man. She would leave her own people, and follow Colonel Campbell; his home should be hers; she would forsake all, and dwell with him. This was her last word, her final decision, and she would abide by it.”
It may here be observed, that the young girls in Kaffirland are brought up with strict notions of female propriety; to forfeit their reputation, is to entail on themselves severe punishment, and on their families perpetual disgrace.
Amakeya’s motives were not unappreciated by her hearer, but the proposal was, of course, rejected, with every consideration for her position, and the circumstances by which she had been actuated; and she departed with her father on his journey. We may fancy Amakeya taking a last look at the green places wherein her childhood had been passed, and finally sitting down among a strange people, in sight of the “great waters.” A new and wondrous spectacle to that mountain-girl must have been that mighty and pathless sea.
On the 4th of October, an express arrived at King William’s Town, containing the information, that the division under Colonel Somerset had captured one thousand head of cattle, and a number of horses and goats, at a sweep, and had killed eight of the enemy. The division under Colonel Campbell had also been successful in capturing cattle among the Gaikas, as well as some horses, and in killing some twenty of the enemy, and laying waste his country. The detachment of the 45th, under Major Hind, did good service with Colonel Campbell’s column; and afterwards accompanied the head-quarter division to the Kei, together with two companies of the Reserve Battalion of the 91st, under Captain Scott and Colonel Campbell, with Lieutenants Dixon and Metcalfe.
The same work went on, from day to day. Now, our troops captured cattle from the Gaikas, who, it was ascertained, were a good deal disorganised (Macomo foretold this, saying “they could not fight when he was gone”); and now Páto’s I’Slambies slipped away with the oxen pastured near our camps and bivouacs. The rains poured on, and the troops, though healthy, suffered from the unusual cold. There was nothing to be done with the enemy but to worry him; which was attended with dreadful harass to us.
As was conjectured, by those who knew the character of the Gaikas, Sandilla and his people had not entirely abandoned the Amatolas; the Chief had secreted himself in one of the deep valleys of those mountains, near a stream called by the Kaffirs, the “Wolf’s River.” The nature of the ground secured him from the approach of cavalry, but it was just the place for the operations of the Rifle Brigade. Sir George Berkeley’s plan of patrolling the country, and falling back on camps well stored with provisions, in the very neighbourhood of Sandilla, soon drove the rebel Chief from his haunts. Abandoned by many of his people, his crops destroyed, his dwelling burned, his cattle scattered among those he could not trust, and deprived of Macomo’s support, he found himself constantly exposed to the fire of our troops, and at one time, it is said, he dared not venture to slake his thirst at the stream for four-and-twenty hours. Thus worn out, without the slightest advantage to himself or his nation, he resolved on surrendering; and, sending to King William’s Town a message to the effect that “he was driven to this step by the prospect of starvation,” some bread and meat were forwarded to him by his envoys; and, on the 19th of October, the troops in the camp, commanded by Colonel Buller, Rifle Brigade, looked anxiously, through the mists of a stormy day, for the expected prisoner. He came at last, followed by eighty of his people; and, after an interview with Colonel Buller, “an escort of dragoons, which had been in readiness,” was ordered to accompany Captain Bisset, Cape Mounted Rifles, and Lieutenant Petre, 7th Dragoon Guards, with the captive Chief, and the necessary dispatches from the Lieutenant-General commanding, to Sir Henry Pottinger. Captain Bisset, on that day, the 20th of October, rode 120 miles.
Sandilla admitted that he had been nearly taken by a patrol of the Rifle Brigade, acting with Colonel Somerset’s division, on the 12th of October. The party had lost their way while skirmishing; but for this, he must have surrendered to them, or been shot. He afterwards told Colonel Campbell, 91st, that on one occasion they had been within 1200 feet of each other, the Chief watching Colonel Campbell from the bush. When passing, as a prisoner, near the camp of this officer, Sandilla stopped his horse, and, calling to the former “My friend, my friend, come hither!” begged to shake hands with him. Colonel Campbell’s good advice to the misguided Gaika had been unheeded, and the latter now acknowledged the truth of what the Colonel had told him, that “it was madness to fight with the white man, who would not be conquered, even though the war were to last for ever.”
In the announcement by Sir Henry Pottinger, that the surrender of Sandilla had taken place, His Excellency the High Commissioner records “the high sense he entertains of the zeal and energy with which the operations against Sandilla had been carried on under the Lieutenant-General’s guidance, in which operations the troops and levies have been subjected to great hardships, and exposed to unusually inclement weather.”
Immediately after the surrender of Sandilla, Colonel Somerset planned his forward movement towards the Kei, with a force upwards of 1200 strong, including cavalry, infantry, and levies. The country beyond the Kei was known to be swarming with cattle.
On the 30th of October the troops made a night march of thirty miles towards the Kei, and, on the morning of the 31st, reached a stream called Chechabe. On the heights above this little river, the Kaffirs were seen gathering in great numbers, and at last took up a very strong position, evidently determined to make a stand against the British force. The latter was soon disposed in battle array in front of the enemy, with flankers thrown out, supports in the rear, and the reserve under Captain Bentinck, 7th Dragoon Guards. The Cape Mounted Rifles, led by Captain O’Reilly, advanced up the face of the hill, the enemy, as usual, screening himself, while the troops moved slowly but steadily onwards, under the incessant fire of the Kaffirs, until within eighty yards of them, when, the bugle sounding the gallop, the “Totties” cheered, and entered the bush in gallant style. In twenty minutes, the savages were dislodged, and driven over a hill into a ravine below, leaving behind them arms, karosses, and several horses. Seventeen of them were counted dead after the engagement; many had been borne off, and the rocks over winch they had been dragged were streaming with blood. In this affair, our troops sustained but two casualties.
Colonel Somerset considered that this gathering of the Kaffirs was arranged to divert his attention from the cattle concealed not far from the scene of action, the Kei being in too swollen a state to permit their crossing into Kreli’s country—the Amaponda. This was, no doubt, correct; and as, from the nature of the country, it was impossible for the troops to follow the enemy at once, they vanished, as usual, in the deep recesses of the mountains.
Early in the morning of the 31st, Captain Somerset, Aide-de-Camp to General Berkeley, had very nearly fallen a sacrifice to his imprudence in venturing out, en amateur, with a single orderly, on the spoor of cattle. A party of Kaffirs suddenly appearing, Captain Somerset turned his horse’s head; so did his orderly: the speed of Captain Somerset’s charger saved his rider’s life; the poor orderly fell from his, and his throat was instantly cut by the savages.
It was hoped that the success of Colonel Somerset, at the Chechabe, would daunt Páto; but no offers of submission worth listening to were received. A few Kaffirs, coming within hail of the troops, called out that they “did not intend fighting any more; the cattle were across the Kei, and the Umlunghi must go for them if they wanted them.” Either Páto or one of his councillors shouted aloud, “We will not meet you, but will return into the Colony, and wander as wolves.”
Although I had seen Sandilla at Fort Peddie in 1843, I went to pay him a visit in captivity. The room in which he was imprisoned was half filled with his followers and councillors. Seated on an iron bedstead, with his blanket wound round him, he smoked his pipe in silence; some of his followers reclined idly on the straw mattresses provided for them; and, by the side of the young Chief’s couch lay Anta, whom he roused from sleep on our naming him, for he was as great an object of interest as Sandilla. Putting aside the blanket from his face, he sat up and eyed us keenly, looking from us to his brother, but what was passing within their minds no one could divine; their countenances expressed neither surprise, curiosity, resentment, nor dislike. Some sat round a fire in the centre of the room, and one aged Kaffir, with a grey head, gazed earnestly in our faces. This was one of Sandilla’s chief advisers, and one whom he managed to cage with himself, by sending for him amicably, giving secret orders, however, to compel him to come in case he hesitated. As the cunning Gaika has always professed to act “by the advice of his councillors,” he anticipated that the greater punishment would devolve upon them, and by this means he trusted that his own would be lightened.
The replies of Sandilla to various remarks and questions lately put to him are shrewd enough. On his being told, by one of the authorities, that if he attempted to escape from his confinement he would be shot, Sandilla answered that “as he had voluntarily surrendered himself, it was not likely he should run away.” Soon after his imprisonment, he requested a daily allowance of wine. On being asked if he had ever been in the habit of drinking it, he said “No.” Then why indulge in what he had never been accustomed to? “I am now the white man’s child,” replied Sandilla; “my father is wise, and I would do all things as he does.” When his warriors left his “Great Place,” to join the gathering in the Amatolas, he found one lingering long behind the rest. “What are you doing here?” asked the Chief; “you are like a solitary locust when the swarm has gone; so, the sooner you hop after it the better.”
“December 17th.—The frontier to-night is delirious with joy. The town is illuminated, and beacon lights telegraph from the hill-tops that Sir Harry Smith has arrived.”
Note 1. As was proved before Sir Harry, then Colonel, Smith, and published in a document signed by him, and by Captain Lacy, 72nd Highlanders, Arthur Balfour, Aide-de-Camp, and Mr Shepstone, Kaffir Interpreter. This document, dated King William’s Town, February, 1836, bears the marks also of Macomo and Ganga.