They came on, one huge phalanx, singing their war songs, and fired with an enthusiasm peculiar to the Kafir race. Taking in the situation at once Colonel Warren ordered his men to dismount and secure the protection of a wide sluit running to the left of the Fort Beaufort road. Telling off three or four to hold the horses, and holding fully a dozen himself, he ordered the men to commence firing, and many of the enemy fell, but, as the front row dropped, on came the vast mass behind.
As our brave fellows peppered away with the skill of sharp-shooters some seventy of the savage horde were laid low, and then dismay seized the remainder. From the advantageous position selected by Colonel Warren it was impossible for the enemy to know the strength of its opponents. Consternation, as I have said, seized the sable host, and like Sennacherib’s army they melted away even as snow, not, however, before several of the Diamond Fields horse got into hand-to-hand combat with them. Although the slaughter was great on the side of the rebels, yet of the little force under Colonel Warren only one man was wounded, who through his own neglect afterward succumbed. The news of this gallant defence filled the inhabitants of the Diamond Fields with exultation. Congratulations were telegraphed down to Colonel Warren and his men, while the friends of the brave band under him were highly delighted. The back of the rebellion had been virtually broken. The news spread, as news only can spread among Kafir tribes, and Colonel Warren was looked upon by the Kafirs as possessed of supernatural powers. It only required tact to complete the subjugation of the rebels, and the leader was not lacking in this quality. It had been known that the women folk of the Kafir tribes intrenched within the Perie Bush were habitually allowed free ingress and egress. This they made use of for the purpose of bringing supplies from King William’s Town.
Reporting this fact to the late Sir Bartle Frere, the then governor of the colony, Colonel Warren was advised to communicate with General Thesiger. That red-tape entangled officer, however, deigned no reply, and seeing the waste of public treasure involved by General Thesiger’s indifference, Colonel Warren decided to act, knowing full well, if successful, that he would have the full support of Sir Bartle Frere.
An opportunity of carrying out his plan quickly offered itself. Out of the Perie Bush, seeking supplies, and almost in a starving condition, came 600 women and children. Surrounded and made prisoners by the Diamond Fields horse they were fed and taken into King William’s Town and there handed over to the civil authorities, to be afterward sent to Capetown and apprenticed as domestic servants.
The husbands and fathers, rather than that those they held most dear should be separated from them, possibly for ever, appealed to the chiefs, some of whom perhaps were sufferers from Colonel Warren’s coup de main, and so ended the Gaika-Gealika rebellion.
This sudden termination to the war, however, I believe was also the termination in the friendship previously existing between General Thesiger and Colonel Warren.
About this time bad news was received from the northern border of Griqualand West. Bolasike Gasibone, it was reported, was committing acts of plunder and generally exhibiting a total disregard of the laws of meum and tuum, and in consequence Major Lanyon, the administrator of the province, left on January 21st, 1878, with 150 volunteers for Phokwane to punish him. The major was absent from Kimberley some twelve days, found that there had been no fighting, found no one with whom to fight, merely old women, children and cows; he collared the cows, and returned with the spoil to the diamond fields. Many laughed at the whole affair, but a more serious view was afterward presented for consideration when the Revs. Messrs. Bevan and Ashton, two well-known missionaries, appealed to the public for assistance for the poor natives, who, they stated, were starving. Major Lanyon to stay public indignation sent a so-called independent commission to report on the state of affairs, consisting of Mr. Lord, acting attorney general, a submissive admirer of every act of government, and Mr. Baillie, merely a subordinate in the survey department. The report framed was of almost interminable length, occupying fifteen pages in the government Gazette of March 16th, but before it was issued the public had openly expressed their anticipations respecting the document. The public was not, however, prepared for its “highfalutin” rhapsodies on the “duty of man,” nor for the strange citing of Holy Writ in its concluding sentence, in which natives, owners of the soil and living an independent pastoral life, were told, after all their cattle had been forcibly removed, “if any man will not work neither shall he eat.”
Two months later (April 13th, 1878), the administrator of the Transvaal solicited assistance against Sekukuni, and as preparations were being made to give him assistance news arrived of trouble on our southwestern border, which was confirmed by a dispatch on April 21st from Mr. H. B. Roper, the magistrate of Griqua Town. A call to arms was at once made and readily responded to. Major Lanyon again left Kimberley, in three days’ time, with 100 men for Koejas. As soon as he arrived at his destination he called upon the natives to put down their arms, which they refused to do, and as they occupied a position from which it was impossible to dislodge them without cannon, Major Maxwell was telegraphed to at King William’s Town to at once bring up some field-pieces. In the meantime volunteers were leaving Kimberley almost every day for the front to strengthen Major Lanyon.
During Major Lanyon’s encampment at Koejas the Griquas, who had up to that time remained quiet (the rebellion having broken out among a number of colonial Kafirs and Korannas living on the banks of the Orange River), rose en masse and besieged Griqua Town, which was surrounded by them for eight days. On the night of the eighth day Major Lanyon rode through them with twenty men undiscovered and joined some 100 volunteers who had managed, the same day, to get into Griqua Town from the Kimberley side. On the following day the rebels were completely routed at Driefontein in a decisive engagement which lasted twelve hours and driven into their fastnesses in the Langeberg. Major Maxwell, whose arrival was eagerly looked for, arrived at Koejas on May 25th with the cannon, just in the nick of time, as on the 31st 600 natives attacked the camp, when the guns which he had brought up materially assisted to secure the success of the day. During the time all these events had been occurring Colonel Warren and “our boys” had been burning to respond to the calls for assistance which had reached them from Griqualand West. They had heard how volunteers had been raised and had taken the field under the command of the administrator, and how the country on the southwestern border was in a state of tumult and insurrection. Springing to saddle the plucky band made forced marches, this time in the cold, pinching month of May. “The air bit shrewdly and ’twas bitter cold,” but with no covering save a blanket and the saddle for a pillow, they quickly reached the junction of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. Scarcely had the force (numbering then about 200 men) crossed the Vaal River than Colonel Warren scented the disaffected Griquas at Wittehuis, where they had “enschanged” themselves in a formidable position between the Kaap Range and the Vaal River. Here the rebels were attacked and routed, and after completing their defeat Colonel Warren and his men pushed on to Griqua Town.
Thence he and Major Lanyon proceeded to the Langeberg, where several engagements took place, in all of which the rebels were defeated. The most important of these skirmishes was that of Paarde-Kloop, at which an immense quantity of wagons, oxen, horses and sheep were captured. There is nothing which makes a native regret rebellion more than the loss of his worldly goods. Capture his stock and he is defeated.