“Peace wi’ the Kawfirs!” echoed Sandy, in a slightly contemptuous tone. “H’m! they should never hae had war wi’ them, Jerry, my man.”
“But ’aving ’ad it, ain’t it well that it’s hover?” returned Jerry.
“It’s cost us a bonnie penny,” rejoined Black.
“Nae doot Glen Lynden has come off better than ither places, for we’ve managed to haud oor ain no’ that ill, but wae’s me for the puir folk o’ the low country! An’ I’ll be bound the Imperial Treasury’ll smart for’t. (See Note 1.) But it’s an ill wind that blaws nae gude. We’ve taken a gude slice o’ land frae the thievin’ craters, for it’s said Sir Benjamin D’Urban has annexed all the country between the Kei and the Keiskamma to the colony. A most needfu’ addition, for the jungles o’ the Great Fish River or the Buffalo were jist fortresses where the Kawfirs played hide-an’-seek wi’ the settlers, an’ it’s as plain as the nose on my face that peace wi’ them is not possible till they’re driven across the Kei—that bein’ a defensible boundary.”
“So, they say that peace is proclaimed,” said Stephen Orpin to a pretty young woman who had recently put it out of his power to talk of his “bachelor home at Salem.” Jessie McTavish had taken pity on him at last!
“Indeed!” replied Jessie, with a half-disappointed look; “then I suppose you’ll be going off again on your long journeys into the interior, and leaving me to pine here in solitude?”
“That depends,” returned Orpin, “on how you treat me! Perhaps I may manage to find my work nearer home than I did in days gone by. At all events I’ll not go into Kafirland just now, for it’s likely to remain in an unsettled state for many a day. It has been a sad and useless war, and has cost us a heavy price. Think, Jessie, of the lives lost—forty-four of our people murdered during the invasion, and eighty-four killed and thirty wounded during the war. People will say that is nothing to speak of, compared with losses in other wars; but I don’t care for comparisons, I think only of the numbers of our people, and of the hundreds of wretched Kafirs, who have been cut off in their prime and sent to meet their Judge. But there has been one trophy of the war at which I look with rejoicing; 15,000 Fingoes rescued from slavery is something to be thankful for. God can bring good out of evil. It may be that He will give me employment in that direction ere long.”
These various remarks, good reader, were uttered some months after the events recorded in the last chapter, for the death of the great chief of Kafirland did not immediately terminate the war. On the contrary, the treaty of peace entered into with Kreli, Hintza’s son and successor, was scouted by the confederate chiefs, Tyali, Macomo, etcetera, who remained still unsubdued in the annexed territory, and both there, and within the old frontier, continued to commit murders and wide-spread depredations.
It was not until the Kafirs had been hunted by our troops into the most impregnable of their woody fortresses, and fairly brought to bay, that the chiefs sent messengers to solicit peace. It was granted. A treaty of peace was entered into, by which the Kafirs gave up all right to the country conquered, and consented to hold their lands under tenure from the British Sovereign. It was signed at Fort Wilshire in September.
Thereafter Sir Benjamin D’Urban laid down with great wisdom and ability plans for the occupation and defence of the annexed territory, so as to form a real obstruction to future raids by the lawless natives—plans which, if carried out, would no doubt have prevented future wars, and on the strength of which the farmers began to return to their desolated farms, and commence re-building and re-stocking with indomitable resolution. Others accepted offers of land in the new territory, and a few of the Dutch farmers, hoping for better times, and still trusting to British wisdom for protection, were prevailed on to remain in the colony at a time when many of their kindred were moving off in despair of being either protected, understood, or fairly represented.