Kaffers

“ It is to be hoped that their approach will daunt the enemy, but the Kaffirs have learned their power ever since the disastrous affair at Burn’s Hill; and, in spite of occasional reverses, the tide has hitherto been in their favour. Their losses, considering their number, have been trifling; they have possessed themselves of the colonial cattle, and they have cut off vast quantities of our supplies, while we are obliged to pause. We have driven the great body of them out of the ceded territory, it is true, but they have taken most of the plunder with them into a richer and more fertile country. ”

“ The intombi’s, or young girls, are often quite pretty, with wild, free, dark eyes, that may well plead as excuses for the young Kaffirs’ propensity for cattle-stealing, the decimal coinage of Kaffirland being 10 cows = 1 wife.
One very soon gets over the prejudice of colour, and after having looked for some time on the rich black of a Kaffir belle, a white lady appears bloodless, consumptive, and sickly in comparison. The hard work that an umfazi, or wife, has to perform very soon spoils her girlish figure and appearance, and she then becomes a haggard, wrinkled, repulsive old witch. ”

“ General Hunter's men had broken up her kraal to use the wood for burning, and all her goats had wandered off and she had no one to send to look for them. These few logs of wood were all she had to bake bread with; would I ask the General to see that the soldiers did not take them? And then the Kaffirs! It was a piteous tale launched on a flood of tears. Possibly it was exaggerated; people have different ways of asking for help; but the terror in the woman's eye when she spoke of the Kaffirs was genuine. And I remembered the cripple's phrase—"The Kaffirs are jumping about." ”

“ On the 23rd, men and horses began to fail in strength, for want of provision; and, tired and famished, the troops had to fight their way, as the enemy fired from every ambuscade along the line of march; horses and cattle dropping fast. After sunset, they were again beset by savages, whose fires were visible from the bivouac. Lying in a circle round the cattle, little rest could be obtained; the Kaffirs shouted and yelled as usual, saying they now had the Umlunghi “in a calabash.” As this insolence continued, it was supposed the Gaikas had come down from the Amatolas to help Páto’s people ”

“ From the scanty force we have, compared with the land we have taken, sufficient guards cannot be given for the cattle in the pasture-grounds, sometimes a mile from the posts, and, by the time the herds,—if not shot,—can give notice of the loss, the Kaffirs, with half-an-hour’s start, can generally elude their pursuers. But, on the 22nd of April, the Dragoons, only ten in number, were in the saddle in a few minutes; yet, notwithstanding this, they had a ride of fifteen miles before they came up with their game, having traced the spoor along the sea-coast. ”

“ On attacking an enemy’s kraal, a Kaffir’s first thought is to seize the cattle—his dearly-beloved cows. These, however, prove rather difficult to manage in a hasty retreat; but the strangers will speedily follow if headed by oxen who know the way, for in Caffraria, it seems, these animals are endowed with the same instinct as dogs possess in our country. Provisions, however, were sent with them, but to my idea, knowing the capacity of the Kaffir appetite, scarcely sufficient for half the time they said the expedition would take. ”

“ The word “kraal” applies either to the group of huts forming a village, to a single hut, or the fold for the cattle.
Part 1, Chapter V. The Kaffirs—their Superstitions.
The Kaffirs have no idea of a future state, and many can hardly be taught to believe that there are countries beyond their own. Some have a crude idea that Europeans, particularly the English, live on the waters in ships. Even to their own chiefs, and people who have been in England, they will give no credence. A Kaffir believes only what he sees. ”

“ The inferior Kaffirs must have learned by this time that their chiefs have promised more than they could perform; they find that, although they can harass and evade, they cannot ‘drive the white man into the sea;’ that, although they may occasionally stop our convoys, other roads are readily thrown open. They steal our cattle, nay, the poor oxen die in our service, on the depastured line of march, and lo! ships, ‘sea-waggons,’ present themselves on the coast of Kaffirland! It is deplorable that the 73rd should be driven out of Waterloo Bay. ”

“ How often had we paced the verandah, anxiously watching the lurid sky, red with the fires of devastation, and listening to the continued and heavy volleys of musketry between the herds and savages on the hills above us! We never permitted ourselves to think of an attack on the town; and, as the Kaffirs seldom risk their lives or spend their powder without a chance of plunder in return, we considered our lives safe, since the cattle could be swept away from the outskirts without venturing into the town. ”

“ Before proceeding to another chapter, it will be well to explain the illustration on page 57, called “The Kaffirs at Home.”
The spectator is supposed to be just inside the outer enclosure, and nearly opposite to the isi-baya, in which some cattle are seen. In the centre of the plate a milking scene is shown. The cow, being a restive one, is being held by the “man,” by means of a [71] stick passed through its nostrils, and by means of the contrast between the man and the animal the small size of the latter is well shown. A Kaffir ox averages only four hundred pounds in weight. ”

“ May 26.—Chief Kama, the only Christian Kaffir chief—I believe the only Christian Kaffir—is passing through Peddie, with his family, baggage, followers, and fifteen hundred head of cattle. His life is not safe in the neighbourhood of his brothers, Páto and Cobus Congo. He is bound for the Bechuana country, on the other side the Orange River; but, until spring commences, he will make a halt near Beaufort, and act under the protection of our nominal and drunken ally, Macomo, uncle of Sandilla, and a chief of the Gaika tribe. ”

“ The General having moved down into the Blinkwater, with the artillery and horse, co-operated with us, as we scoured through the scattered bush, with companies extended right across the glen, clearing the cover from one end to the other, as we advanced, burning and destroying all the cattle kraals and huts in our way. Some Kaffirs, on the summit of a lofty perpendicular precipice crowning a steep wooded mountain on our left, shouted to us to let the kraals alone, and one of them gave us a song! they were far beyond rifle range. ”

“ Though dark of hue, the Kaffirs are as fastidious about their dusky complexion as any European belle could be of her own fairer skin; and the pride with which a Kaffir, even though he be a man and a tried warrior, regards the shining, transparent black of his skin, has in it something ludicrous to an inhabitant of Europe.
The hair of the Kaffir, whether it belong to male or female, never becomes long, but envelopes the head in a close covering of crisp, woolly curls, very similar to the hair of the true negro. The lips are always large, the mouth wide, and the nose has very wide nostrils. ”

“ A Kaffir is very grasping in bargains; he will always ask much more than he purposes taking, and will argue and talk for a considerable time before he can be beaten down. If some easy person once pays a high price for an article, it is afterwards very difficult to obtain the same sort of thing for a lower, and the market is at once spoiled. A man of mine wounded by accident an old Kaffir woman in the leg; the headman of the kraal at once demanded from me a cow as compensation, as accidents are not recognised by Kaffirs. ”

“ Compare David Leslie, Among the Zulus and Amatongas, Second Edition (Edinburgh, 1875) pp. 47 sq.; “The Kaffirs believe that after death their spirits turn into a snake, which they call Ehlose, and that every living man has two of these familiar spirits—a good and a bad. When everything they undertake goes wrong with them, such as hunting, cattle-breeding, etc., they say they know that it is their enemies who are annoying them, and that they are only to be appeased by sacrificing an animal; but when everything prospers, they ascribe it to their good Ehlose being in the ascendant” ”

“ The Kaffirs have long remained in small detached bodies in the neighbourhood of the camp, firing into it at night and lying in wait for occasions of theft, or mischief, all day. A prisoner was brought in one day, who asserted that the woods close by were full of women and old men. Although Macomo had ordered his men not to fight, they were determined to plunder and murder, and crept into the colony and round the orders as usual. ‘Young Kaffirland’ had gone over the Kei for the present, with the stolen cattle. ”

“ Be this as it may, the breadth in the malar portion of the face is a remarkable feature in the Kaffre physiognomy. This he has in common with the Hottentot. His hair is also tufted like the Hottentot's: while his lips are thick like the Negro's. Tall in stature, wiry and elastic in his muscles, the Kaffre varies in colour, through all the shades of black and brown; being, in some portions of his area nearly as dark as the Negro, in others simply brown like the Arab. The eye is sometimes oblique; the opening generally narrow.
An opinion often gives a better picture than a description. ”

“ Several Kaffirs, caught in the act of stealing were brought into King William’s Town; and, after receiving one hundred lashes, were dismissed. Prison rations were thus dispensed with, and these Kaffirs became, for a period a least, a warning and a mockery to their tribes. In Kaffirland, as in China, disgrace is attached to a thief, not for stealing, but for being found out.
The division under Major Sutton, Cape Mounted Rifles, and Captain Hogg, 7th Dragoon Guards, which had moved from Shiloh, captured two hundred head of cattle in the Amatolas, and killed a few Kaffirs ”

“ A magnificent perpendicular krantz or precipice, on our right, of immense height, completely commanding the road below, was crowned by the 2nd and 6th and artillery, while two guns, guarded by a detachment of Cape Corps, cleared the way before us, throwing shell from the heights on our left down into the forest, in a nook of which, snugly embosomed, lay a Kaffir kraal, which, together with several scattered huts, the Fingoes set on fire as they scoured through the bush. ”

“ In spite of the silence which reigned in these solitudes, there were evident traces of hasty retreat, by the fresh spoor of cattle; but to detail this march up the hill and down again, would be but a repetition of many other such expeditions. The Kaffirs slipped away, and the troops followed them with their ammunition loose in their pouches, to be ready for action, but returned harassed, disappointed, and half-starved.
“The country through which they passed is of a much grander and more fertile character than that occupied by the colonists ”

“ There is yet much to be done; several families on the right bank of the Kowie yet require protection, hundreds of Kaffirs being in the Kowie Bush for a distance of twenty miles; but I cannot hold out any immediate hope that I can cross over into the Bathurst district, either to afford protection, or to intercept the cattle that the Kaffirs are driving into Kaffirland. Probably, the Lieutenant-Governor will see fit to detach the cavalry from Fort Peddie to that district. ”

“ There is a great mistake prevalent in the minds of most English people, and that is, their habit of underrating the Kaffir as a foe. He is looked upon as a naked savage, armed only with a spear, and hardly worth powder and shot. But in reality the Kaffirs are a formidable race, and, from their skill in many arts in which we are deficient, are much to be dreaded. Nearly every frontier Kaffir is now provided with a gun, thanks to the English traders, and very many have horses. ”

“ The Kaffir whose property they had become by right of the first wound—though the chief being present I found they were to be presented to him—was a great hunter, as could be seen by the leopard tails which formed his aprons and the teeth of wild beasts of which his necklaces and bracelets were composed; for in Caffraria, if a man wants to dress in these much-prized ornaments, he cannot purchase them, but must first slay their natural possessors. So proud is the hunter of these trophies of his prowess, that he will rarely part with them save to his chief or the exacting witch-doctor. ”

“ The very sight of him is sufficient to inspire the bravest with dread, for such encounters cannot be considered as fair fights between man and man. The Kaffirs, too, have all the cunning of the wild beast, and we may be thankful in having the Fingoes as our allies in tiny contest with them; for, while they are sufficiently civilised and instructed to co-operate with our troops, they are of infinite use in herding cattle and defending passes. ”

“ In about half an hour one of my Kaffirs would be seen jogging over a hill, and making his way straight down to the dead antelope. He cleans it, and, if it is too heavy for him to carry alone, seeks for aid in the nearest kraal, distant sometimes three or four miles; by signalling, he saves himself great part of the journey. The half of the buck would be an ample reward for the service of an additional man; and the venison is thus sent home, while the pony is saddled, and the sport again proceeded with. ”