CHAPTER XIV.

Kreli and his Kafirs.

AT the time in which I am writing this chapter Kreli and his sons suppose themselves to be at war with the Queen of England. The Governor of the Cape Colony, who has been so far troubled in his serenity as to have felt it expedient to live away from his house for the last three or four months near to the scene of action, supposes probably that he has been called upon to put down a most unpleasant Kafir disturbance. He will hardly

dignify the affair with the name of a war. When in Ireland the Fenians were put down by the police without direct military interference we felt that there had been a disagreeable row,--but certainly not a civil war, because the soldiers had not been employed. And yet we should hardly have been comfortable while the row was going on had we not known that there were soldiers at hand in Ireland. For some months it was much the same with Kreli and his rebellious Kafirs. In South Africa there was comfort in feeling that there were one or two regiments near the Kei River, at head quarters, with a General and Commissaries and Colonels at King Williamstown, where the Governor is also stationed, and that there were soldiers also at East London, on the coast, ready for an emergency should the emergency come. But the fighting up to that time had been done by policemen and volunteers, and it was hoped that it might be so to the end. Towards the close of November 1877 the end was thought to have almost come; though there

were even then those who believed that when we had subdued the Galekas who are Kreli's peculiar people, the Gaikas would rise against us. They are Sandilli's people and live on this, or the western, side of the Kei territory, round about King Williamstown in what we call British Kafraria. Many hundreds of them are working for wages within the boundaries of what was formerly their own territory. I cannot but think that had the Gaikas intended to take part with their Transkeian brethren they would not have waited till Kreli and his Galekas had been so nearly beaten. But now we know that an ending to this trouble so happy as that which was at first anticipated has not been quite accomplished. British troops have entered the territory on the other side of the Kei, and are at present probably engaged in putting down some remnant of the Galekas.

There is nothing more puzzling in South Africa than the genealogy and nomenclature of the Kafir tribes, and nothing, perhaps, less interesting to English readers. In the first place the authorities differ much as to what is a Kafir. In a book now before me on Kafir Laws and Customs, written by various hands and published in 1858 by Colonel Maclean, who was Governor of British Kafraria, we are told that "The general designation of Kafraria has been given to the whole territory extending from the Great Fish River to Delagoa Bay." This would include Natal and all Zulu-land. But if there be one native doctrine more stoutly enunciated in and about Natal than another, it is that the Zulus and Kafirs are a different people. The same passage, however, goes on to say that, properly speaking, that territory only should be included which is occupied by the Amaxosa and Abatembu tribes, the Amampondo and the Amazulu being— different. An English reader must be requested to reject

as surplusage for his purpose the two first syllables in all these native names when they take the shape of Ama or Aba or Amam. They are decorous, classical, and correct as from Kafir scholars, but are simply troublesome among simple people who only want to know a little. The Amam Pondos, so called from one Pondo, a former chief, are familiarly called Pondos. The Aba Tembus,—from Tembu a chief thirteen or fourteen chiefs back from the present head of the tribe,-are Tembus. They have been also nick-named Tambookies, an appellation which they themselves do not acknowledge, but which has become common in all Kafir dissertations. The Amaxosas, who among the Kafirs are certainly the great people of all, in the same way are Xosas, from Xosa a chief eleven Ichiefs back from Kreli. But these Xosas, having been divided, have taken other names,-among which the two principal are the Galekas, of which Kreli is king, from Galeka Kreli's great-grandfather; and the Gaikas, of which Sandilli is chief,-from Gaika, Sandilli's father. But the student may encounter further difficulty here, as he will find this latter name learnedly written as Ngqika, and not uncommonly spelt as Ghika. The spelling I have adopted is perhaps a little more classical than the latter and certainly less pernicious than the former.

But though, as above stated, one of the authors of the book from which I have quoted has eliminated the Pondos as well as the Zulus from the Kafirs, thus leaving the descendants of Xosa and of Tembu to claim the name between them, I find in the same book a genealogical table, compiled by another author who includes the Pondos among the Kafirs, and derives the Galekas, Ghikas, Pondos, and Tembus from one common ancestor whom he calls Zwidi, who was fifteen chiefs back from Kreli, and whom we may be justified in regarding as the very Adam

of the Kafir race, since we have no information of any Kafir before him.

The Galekas, the Pondos, and Tembus will be found in the map in their proper places on the eastern side of the Kei River; and, as being on the eastern side of the Kei River, they were not British subjects when this chapter was written. When the reader shall have this book in his hand they may probably have been annexed. The Gaikas, I am afraid he will not find on the map. As they have been British subjects for the last twenty-five years the spaces in the map of the country in which they live have been wanted for such European names as Frankfort and King Williamstown. Those however whom I have named are the real Kafirs,-living near the Kei whether on one side of the river or the other. The sharp-eyed investigating reader will also find a people called Bomvana, on the sea coast, north of the Galekas. They are a sub-tribe, under Kreli, who have a sub-chief, one Moni, and Moni and the Bomvanas seem to have been troubled in their mind, not wishing to wage war against the Queen of England, and yet fearing to disobey the behests of their Great Chief Kreli.

It will thus be seen that the Kafirs do not occupy very much land in South Africa, though their name has become better known than that of any South African tribe, -and though every black Native is in familiar language called a Kafir. The reason has been that the two tribes, the Gaikas and the Galekas, have given us infinitely more trouble than any other. Sandilli with his Gaikas have long been subjected, though they have never been regarded as quiet subjects, such as are the Basutos and the Fingos. There has ever been a dread, as there was notably in 1876, that they would rise and rebel. The alarmists since

this present affair of Kreli commenced have never ceased to declare that the Gaikas would surely be up in arms against us. But, as a tribe, they have not done so yet,— partly perhaps because their Chief Sandilli is usually

drunk.

The Galekas, however, have never been made

subject to us.

But the Galekas and Kreli were conquered in the last Kafir war, and the tribe had been more than decimated by the madness of the people, who, in 1857, had destroyed their own cattle and their own corn in obedience to a wonderful prophecy. I have told the story before in one of the early chapters of my first volume. Kreli had then been driven with his people across the river Bashee to the North,-where those Bomvanas now are; and his own territory had remained for a period vacant. Then arose

a question as to what should be done with the land, and Sir Philip Wodehouse, who was then Governor of the Cape Colony, proposed that it should be given out in farms to Europeans. But at that moment economy and protection for the Natives were the two virtues shining most brightly at the Colonial Office, and, as such occupation was thought to require the presence of troops for its security, the Secretary of the day ordered that Kreli should be allowed to return. Kreli was badly off for land and for means of living across the Bashee, and was very urgent in requesting permission to come back. If he might come back and reign in a portion of his old land he would be a good neighbour. He was allowed to come back;—and as a Savage has not kept his word badly till this unfortunate affair occurred.

Among the printed papers which I have at hand as to this rebellion one of the last is the following government notice;