The Commander-in-chief was now ready for his grand expedition into Basutoland. This carrying of the war into distant parts was, as far as I could judge, a most unwise undertaking. The colony, and more particularly its frontier, was in a far too unsettled state to receive an accession of territory with benefit to itself or profit to the land annexed; while the costly expedient of retaining several thousand British troops at the Cape for the sake of punishing Basutos, was like keeping up a large hawking establishment of peregrine falcons to chase some troublesome crows. A few police jackets stuffed with Government proclamations would have done the work equally well.
This untimely craving for excitement beyond the pale of legitimate hereditary succession has always been the bane of young colonies—and also, alas! of rapidly wearing out motherlands. A violent extension of boundaries cannot easily be justified. Violence begets violence; and nothing will rankle so much in the minds of men, from generation to generation, as the idea that they have been unjustly deprived of their forefathers’ land.
CHAPTER IX.
KAFFIR CHARACTERISTICS—THE CRUELTIES OF WAR—NO REAL SYMPATHY BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE—KAFFIR CRUELTIES—NIGHT ATTACK ON A KAFFIR VILLAGE—WOUNDED PRISONER—“DOCTOR” DIX—KAFFIRS BECOME RARE—CAPTURE OF NOZIAH, SANDILLI’S SISTER—SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF HER ATTENDANT—SERGEANT HERRIDGE.
It was during this period, while all elements of warfare at the Cape were dying of exhaustion, that I had time to observe many characteristics of the Kaffir race.
One remarkable trait in their character is their sterling singleness of purpose in whatever they undertake. Whatever task a Kaffir has in hand, he does it thoroughly—no hesitation, no swerving from the object proposed; there is a childlike belief in the possible attainment of whatever they seek, which seems incredible to those who know the folly of the searcher.
Two small pieces of stick joined together by a strip of leather, and blessed by a witch-doctor, would enable him to face death, in any shape, undismayed, secure in the thought that he possesses a talisman which renders him invulnerable.
A Kaffir will chase a whim, a freak, or a fancy as persistently and as eagerly as a schoolboy will chase a butterfly until he sinks from exhaustion.
I have seen a native woman seated on the ground, mirroring herself in a bit of broken glass, and vainly trying to reduce her crisp woolly locks into some faint semblance of an Englishwoman’s flowing hair. Thus she would comb and comb, in the useless effort to make herself as artificial as the life she saw reflected there.
Reaction with them is naturally as intense as the previous excitement. A Kaffir who has been risking his life so recklessly to defend his home, will, when defeated, become wholly heedless of what remains—wife and children, goods and chattels, may perish before he will awake from his prostration and stretch out a finger to save them.