[17] It is only fair to Major Durnford to state that during the whole of these proceedings he was away over the mountains, in vain pursuit of an enemy to be fought.
[18] 1. The following account of the above transaction was given by one of those concerned, in a letter to The Natal Times of that date: “Twenty of us volunteered yesterday to go up and into a cave about eight miles from here. We found only one native, whom we shot, took a lot of goats (eighty-seven), and any amount of assegais and other weapons. We also searched about the country and killed a few niggers, taking fourteen prisoners. One fellow in a cave loaded his rifle with stones, and slightly wounded Wheelwright and Lieutenant Clarke, R.A. We, however, got him out, and Moodie shot him through the brains. Fifteen of ours have just volunteered to go to a cave supposed to contain niggers. We are gradually wiping out the three poor fellows who were shot, and all our men are determined to have some more.”
2. The Natal Government Gazette, December 9th, 1873, contains the following enactment: “All officers and other persons who have acted under the authority of Sir Benjamin Chillay Campbell Pine, K.C.M.G., as Lieut.-Governor of the colony of Natal, or as Supreme Chief over the native population, or have acted bonâ fide for the purposes and during the time aforesaid, whether such acts were done in any district, county, or division of the colony in which martial law was proclaimed or not, are hereby indemnified in respect of all acts, matters, and things done, in order to suppress the rebellion and prevent the spread thereof; and such acts so done are hereby made and declared to be lawful, and are confirmed.”
[19] It is hard to understand why these people should yet be detained and their harmless old chief still kept prisoner at Capetown. The common saying that they are all content and the chief better off than he ever was before in his life, is an entirely and cruelly false one. Langalibalele is wearying for his freedom and his own people; the few women with him are tired of their loneliness, and longing to be with their children in Natal. The present writer paid the chief a visit in September of this year (1879), and found him very sad. “I am weary; when will they let me go?” was his continual question.
[20] Not including those individual acts of cruelty which no one could defend, although many speak of them as unavoidable.
[21] The Lieut.-Governor of the colony.
[22] Kafir law, under which Langalibalele was tried, because most of the offences with which he was charged were not recognisable by English law.
[23] Ordinance No. 3, 1849.
[24] The italics are the Author’s own in this and following charge.
[25] The other rebel chiefs of the Cape Colony here alluded to, however, were not “banished,” but merely imprisoned in a portion of their own Supreme Chiefs territory, where, at proper times, they could be visited by members of their families and tribes; moreover, they were duly tried and convicted before the ordinary courts of serious crimes committed by themselves individually, and they had actually resisted by force their Supreme Chief within his territory; whereas Langalibalele had made no resistance—he was a runaway, but no rebel; he had not been tried and condemned for any crime in the Colonial Court, and banishment for life to Robben Island, away from all his people, was a fate worse than death in his and their eyes.