Part 2, Chapter XIII.
The Registration System.
The pithy motto of “Deeds, not words,” is fraught with sound sense; nevertheless, words uttered with calmness and decision, to a suffering community, carry comfort to the hearts of men, if, by their import, they simply prove that the sufferer’s cause is understood.
Sir Henry Pottinger left Cape Town on the 10th February, 1847, in the “President” flag-ship, Admiral Dacres, and an address was presented to him on his landing at Algoa Bay, by the inhabitants of Port Elizabeth, to which he replied in a manner that evinced his determination to meet the difficulties before him unflinchingly.
Whilst Sir Henry Pottinger was receiving and replying to the addresses of the inhabitants of Algoa Bay, Sir Peregrine Maitland, his family and suite, were embarking at Cape Town for England. Every demonstration of respect towards the ex-Governor and Lady Sarah Maitland, was displayed by the inhabitants, who pressed forward to offer a kind farewell.
On the 24th of February, the guns from the battery above the Drostdy Barracks announced the arrival of Sir George Berkeley, K.C.B., the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty’s forces on the South African frontier; and, on the 27th, another salute told of Sir Henry Pottinger’s approach to the then immediate seat of Government, Graham’s Town.
The registration system has not succeeded. A farmer misses his cattle, sheep, and horses, or his garden is trampled down, or stripped of its produce. He represents the case to the officer of the line, or the Burgher in command of the nearest post, or bivouac. A patrol is ordered; the spoor is traced, and the men enter the thick bush, creeping on their hands and knees. They first come on the ashes of a fire, and the débris of a meal; the eyes of a savage scout gleam through a screen of mimosa thorns, and then disappear; there is a rush through the bush, a Kaffir exclamation of “Ma-wo!” a stray shot or two from the enemy, fired with deadly intent, but unsuccessfully generally, from the very desire to take unerring aim, a volley from the patrol, then a chase to no purpose; for, shortly after, the savages utter a yell of defiance from some distant or impracticable pass, or more frequently vanish in silence, leaving, perhaps, the traces of blood, the Kaffirs possessing extraordinary vitality, and rivalling, though in a different sense, that celebrated British Corps, the “Die Hards.” The deserted bivouac of the enemy is then examined, and the booty that presents itself as a reward of toil and courage, consists of the bones of an ox, the remnant of a roasted goat, or sheep, some trophies from Burn’s Hill, in the shape of an artillery powder-bag, part of a leather belt, a few stray assegais, perchance a good hair-trigger gun, some filthy karosses, and a registration ticket or two, setting forth how Cana, or Weni, or Tuti, Number 300, or 3000, etc, had “surrendered himself at Fort Hare, or Fort Peddie, on such a day, 1847,” the said surrender, by the way, having been followed up on some occasions by a gift of cattle recaptured by the troops on the very morning perhaps that it was presented to the said Cana, Weni, Tuti, etc, etc.
On the 25th of February, the Grenadiers of the 91st Regiment having been detained many days on the eastern side of the Fish River, in consequence of its being impassable from its swollen state, the soldiers adopted a peculiar mode of getting the baggage-waggons across this gulf of dark and sluggish waters. Availing themselves of a short period when the drift became navigable, these patient and experienced soldiers took the waggons to pieces, and embarked them piecemeal with their cargoes in the clumsy craft which forms the sole means of conveyance.
The first two years of our sojourn here, the locusts devastated the land. The prophet Joel describes this dreadful visitation as “Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains,” “Like the noise of flame of fire that devoureth the stubble,” as a “strong people set in battle array;” and any one who has ridden through a cloud of locusts, must admit the description to be as true as it is sublime. On one occasion, at Fort Peddie, the cloud, flickering between us and the missionary station, half a mile distant, dazzled our eyes, and veiled the buildings from our sight; at last it rose, presenting its effects in some acres of barren stubble, which the sun had lit up in all the beauty of bright green a few hours before. Verily, “the heavens” seemed “to tremble,” and the sky was darkened by this “great army,” which passed on “every one on his ways,” neither “breaking their ranks” nor “thrusting one another.” So they swept on, occupying a certain space between the heavens and the earth, and neither swerving from their path, extending the mighty phalanx, or pausing in the course: the noise of their wings realising the idea of a “flaming blast,” and their whole appearance typifying God’s terrible threat of a “besom of destruction.”
“They shall walk every one in his path!” Nothing turns them from it. And, if the traveller endeavour to force his way through them with unwonted rapidity, he is sure to suffer. I have ridden for miles at a sharp gallop through these legions, endeavouring to beat them off with my whip, but all to no purpose! nothing turns them aside, and the poor horses bend down their heads as against an advancing storm, and make their way as best they can, snorting and writhing under the infliction of several sharp blows on the face and eyes, which their riders endeavour to evade with as little success. One draws a long breath after escaping from a charge of locusts, and looking round you, you exclaim with the prophet, “The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.”