Scotchmen, as they were, established trade
relations with the Kaffirs. Trade was
prohibited by the Colonial Government; but its
advantage was so obvious to Sir Rufane
Donkin, then acting Governor during the
absence of Lord Charles Somerset, that he
made it legal. The drop of Anglo-Saxon
blood had been at work before, in spite of
Government; but, in 1821, an annual fair
was legally established on the banks of the
Keiskamma. When the real Governor arrived,
however, he revoked this permission, and all
trade with the Kaffirs was again forbidden.

The good people of Albany, however, went
on, trading, and it became necessary again to
remove tape fetters, which were held in such
perpetual contempt. The sale of arms,
gunpowder, and spirits, were then the only things
forbidden. The settlers overcame all
difficulty; having prospered by trade, they used
their land for sheep-feeding, set to work thereupon,
also, like business men, introduced the
merino breed, and made their wool an article
of commerce, The settlement of Albany,
therefore, throve, and Graham's Town became
in the colony a town of mark.

There was a long peace now between the
Kaffirs and the colony. Cattle-stealing went
on, and the equivalent of stolen cattle was
recovered by retaliatory expeditions, called
commandos. This way of having quid pro quo
is that adopted by the savage tribes among
each other. Gaika died of dissipation, leaving
his heir, Sandilli, a mere child. Gaika, like
other Kaffir chiefs, had many wives; his
"great wife," whose children are his heirs,
was Sutu, chosen, according to a constant
custom, from the Amaponda. The eldest son
of Gaika, Macomo, son of another wife,
became Regent, or temporary chief, during the
childhood of Sandilli. This is that Sandilli,
whom the English Government, a few months
back, deposed, appointing his mother, Sutu,
the great widow (who used to be famous for
the size of her—bustle), to rule in his stead.

Through the territory " ceded " by Gaika,
the Kat flows into the Great Fish River.
In a fertile part of the Kat River Valley, in
the ceded territory, but about the spot where
he, as Gaika's son, was born and bred,
Macomo fixed his abode. Immediately after
the ceding of the territory, it had not been
considered civil by the English Government
to eject all subjects of their dark-skinned ally,
whose homes might be within its boundaries.
But after a ten years' pause, in 1829, it was
thought advisable to get rid of the Kaffirs:
so they received notice to quit, and were
expelled, king and all, without bloodshed.
Macomo felt this as a wrong very deeply.
He fixed nowhere else a permanent abode;
he said that the home of his birth, and choice,
and right was taken from him—he would
wait till he recovered that again.

The Kaffirs being turned out, it was
resolved to colonise this district with a settlement
of Hottentots, to treat them as citizens,
and see how they would turn out. So there
was formed a Hottentot settlement on the
Kat River, which has turned out well—so far
as it illustrates the fact, that Hottentots are
capable of prospering, when they are lavishly
supplied with public money.

That was in 1829; in 1830, a chief, brother
of Tolambie, who stood high in Kaffir estimation,
was shot dead, as the Boers say, while
rescuing cattle from a commando, but, as the
Kaffirs say, in cool blood. This became, at any
rate, a source of greatly-increased bitterness.

Macomo and his friends, driven from the
Kat River, settled about a river called the
Chumie, his tribe not having yet learned to
cherish tender regard for the colonial cattle.
In the year 1833, therefore, when their corn
was nearly ripe, they again received peremptory
orders to begone, and again were driven
from untasted harvests to a barren country.

Those Kaffir chieftains who felt most
aggrieved, now plotted a revenge upon the
colony. They organised their plans with
surprising secrecy; and the first note of war was
given just before Christmas, 1834 (which, it
must be remembered, is Cape midsummer), by
an irruption of the Kaffirs from all points
across the boundary. Houses were burnt,
vast herds of cattle were driven off, and forty-
three men, with one woman, perished. Property
was lost to the amount of three hundred
thousand pounds.

Gaika's tribe (our old " allies ") formed the
main body of the invaders, aided by many of
the tribe of Polambie. Avoiding Graham's
Town, they ravaged the country for a month,
and then retired, before a military force could
be got into the field against them. Colonel
(now Sir Harry) Smith, the present Governor
of the Cape, then commenced aggressive
operations. The troops dislodged the Kaffirs
with little injury to any one beyond some
scratches in the bush, and crossed the
Keiskamma. War was declared then
against Hintza, and the Governor raised allies
by patronising the Zingoes—a weak tribe,
driven from their own country, farther north,
by Chaka the Bloody, a Zooloo chief, a savage
version of Napoleon. These Zingoes, allied
to the Kaffirs, and driven among them, had
become a sort of Helot race, which rose to join
the operations of the British. Hintza soon
sued for peace, made terms, and gave himself
up as a hostage. Attempting to escape, while
leading a party with Colonel Harry Smith to
collect an instalment of cattle, he was shot dead
—an act which all the attendant circumstances
fully justified.

The war went on. The Kaffirs had gained
more by their first plunge than had been lost
in the after-kicking. The expenses of the
colony had been enormous. In September
both parties had had enough, and peace was
made. The Kaffirs signed themselves subject
to England and to English laws. The frontier
was enlarged by a new " Province of Queen
Adelaide," from which the Kaffirs were not