CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
THE RESULTS OF WAR.
"Peace at last!" said Edwin Brook to George Dally, on arriving at hisravaged and herdless farm in the Zuurveld, whither George had precededhim.
"Peace is it, sir? Ah, that's well. It's about time too, for we've gota deal to do--haven't we, sir?"
George spoke quite cheerily, under the impression that his masterrequired comforting.
"You see, sir, we've got to go back pretty well to where we was in 1820,and begin it all over again. It _is_ somewhat aggrawatin'! Might havebeen avoided, too, if they'd kep' a few more troops on the frontier."
"Well, Jack, the treaty is signed at last," said Robert Skyd to hisbrother, as he sat on his counter in Grahamstown, drumming with hisheels.
"Not too soon," replied John Skyd, taking a seat on the same convenientlounge. "It has cost us something: houses burnt all over thesettlement, from end to end; crops destroyed; cattle carried off, and,worst of all, trade almost ruined--except in the case of lucky fellowslike you, Bob, who sell to the troops."
"War would not have broken out at all," returned Bob, "if the Kafirs hadonly been managed with a touch of ordinary common sense in times past.Our losses are tremendous. Just look at the Kafir trade, which lastyear I believe amounted to above 40,000 pounds,--_that's_ crushed outaltogether in the meantime, and won't be easily revived. Kafirs inhundreds were beginning to discard their dirty karosses, and to buyblankets, handkerchiefs, flannels, baize, cotton, knives, axes, and whatnot, while the traders had set up their stores everywhere in Kafirland--to say nothing of your own business, Jack, in the gum, ivory, andshooting way, and our profits thereon. We were beginning to flourish sowell, too, as a colony. I believe that we've been absorbing annuallysomewhere about 150,000 pounds worth of British manufactured articles--not to mention other things, and now--Oh, Jack, mankind is a monstrousidiot!"
"Peace comes too late for us, Gertie," said Hans Marais to his wife, ontheir return to the old homestead on the karroo, which presented nothingbut a blackened heap of dry mud, bricks, and charred timbers; herds andflocks gone--dreary silence in possession--the very picture ofdesolation.
"Better late than never," remarked Charlie Considine sadly. "We mustjust set to work, re-stock and re-build. Not so difficult to do so asit might have been, however, owing to that considerate uncle of mine.We're better off than some of our poor neighbours who have nothing tofall back upon. They say that more than 3000 persons have been reducedto destitution; 500 farm-houses have been burnt and pillaged; 900horses, 55,000 sheep and goats, and above 30,000 head of cattle carriedoff, only a few of which were recovered by Colonel Smith on thatexpedition when Hintza was killed. However, we'll keep up heart and goto work with a will--shan't we, my little wife!"
Bertha--now Bertha Considine--who leaned on Charlie's arm, spoke notwith her lips, but she lifted her bright blue eyes, and with these orbsof light declared her thorough belief in the wisdom of what ever Charliemight say or do.
"They say it's all settled!" cried Jerry Goldboy, hastily enteringKenneth McTavish's stable.
"What's all settled?" demanded Sandy Black.
"Peace with the Kafirs," said Jerry.
"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'vemanaged 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 smartfor't. [See Note 1.] But it's an ill wind that blaws nae gude. We'vetaken a gude slice o' land frae the thievin' craters, for it's said SirBenjamin D'Urban has annexed all the country between the Kei and theKeiskamma to the colony. A most needfu' addition, for the jungles o'the Great Fish River or the Buffalo were jist fortresses where theKawfirs played hide-an'-seek wi' the settlers, an' it's as plain as thenose on my face that peace wi' them is not possible till they're drivenacross the Kei--that bein' a defensible boundary."
"So, they say that peace is proclaimed," said Stephen Orpin to a prettyyoung 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 atlast!
"Indeed!" replied Jessie, with a half-disappointed look; "then I supposeyou'll be going off again on your long journeys into the interior, andleaving me to pine here in solitude?"
"That depends," returned Orpin, "on how you treat me! Perhaps I maymanage to find my work nearer home than I did in days gone by. At allevents I'll not go into Kafirland just now, for it's likely to remain inan 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-fourkilled and thirty wounded during the war. People will say that isnothing to speak of, compared with losses in other wars; but I don'tcare for comparisons, I think only of the numbers of our people, and ofthe hundreds of wretched Kafirs, who have been cut off in their primeand sent to meet their Judge. But there has been one trophy of the warat which I look with rejoicing; 15,000 Fingoes rescued from slavery issomething to be thankful for. God can bring good out of evil. It maybe that He will give me employment in that direction ere long."
These various remarks, good reader, were uttered some months after theevents recorded in the last chapter, for the death of the great chief ofKafirland did not immediately terminate the war. On the contrary, thetreaty of peace entered into with Kreli, Hintza's son and successor, wasscouted by the confederate chiefs, Tyali, Macomo, etcetera, who remainedstill unsubdued in the annexed territory, and both there, and within theold frontier, continued to commit murders and wide-spread depredations.
It was not until the Kafirs had been hunted by our troops into the mostimpregnable of their woody fortresses, and fairly brought to bay, thatthe chiefs sent messengers to solicit peace. It was granted. A treatyof peace was entered into, by which the Kafirs gave up all right to thecountry conquered, and consented to hold their lands under tenure fromthe British Sovereign. It was signed at Fort Wilshire in September.
Thereafter Sir Benjamin D'Urban laid down with great wisdom and abilityplans for the occupation and defence of the annexed territory, so as toform a real obstruction to future raids by the lawless natives--planswhich, if carried out, would no doubt have prevented future wars, and on_the strength of which_ the farmers began to return to their desolatedfarms, and commence re-building and re-stocking with indomitableresolution. Others accepted offers of land in the new territory, and afew of the Dutch farmers, hoping for better times, and still trusting toBritish wisdom for protection, were prevailed on to remain in the colonyat a time when many of their kindred were moving off in despair of beingeither protected, understood, or fairly represented.
Among these still trusting ones was Conrad Marais. Strongly urged byHans and Considine, he consented to begin life anew in the old home, andwent vigorously to work with his stout sons.
But he had barely begun to get the place into something like order whena shell was sent into the colony, which created almost as much dismay asif it had been the precursor of another Kafir invasion.
Conrad was seated in a friend's house in Somerset when the said shellexploded. It came in the form of a newspaper paragraph. He lookedsurprised on reading the first line or two; then a dark frown settled onhis face, which, as he read on, became pale, while his compressed lipstwitched with suppressed passion.
Finishing the paragraph, he crushed the newspaper up in his hand, and,thrusting it into his pocket, hastened to the stable, where he saddledhis horse. Leaping on its back as if he had been a youth of twenty, hedrove the spur into its flanks and galloped away at full speed--awayover the dusty road leading from Somerset to the hills: away over theridge that separates it from the level country beyond; and away
over thebrown karroo, until at last, covered with dust and flecked with foam, hedrew up at his own door and burst in upon the family. They wereconcluding their evening meal.
"Read that!" he cried, flinging down the paper, throwing himself into achair, and bringing his fist down on the table with a crash that setcups and glasses dancing.
"There!" he added, pointing to the paragraph, as Hans took up thepaper--"that despatch from Lord Glenelg--the British ColonialSecretary--at the top of the column. Read it aloud, boy."
Hans read as follows:--
"`In the conduct which was pursued towards the Kafir nation by thecolonists and the public authorities of the colony, through a longseries of years, the Kafirs had ample justification of the late war;they had to resent, and endeavour justly, though impotently, to avenge aseries of encroachments; they had a perfect right to hazard theexperiment, however hopeless, of extorting by force that redress whichthey could not expect otherwise to obtain, and the claim of sovereigntyover the new province must be renounced. It rests upon a conquestresulting from a war in which, as far as I am at present enabled tojudge, the original justice is on the side of the conquered, not of thevictorious party.'"
"Mark that!" cried Conrad, starting to his feet when Hans had finished,and speaking loud, as if he were addressing the assembled colony insteadof the amazed members of his own family,--"mark that: `_the claim ofsovereignty over the new province must be renounced_.' So it seems thatthe Kafirs are not only to be patted on the back for having acted thepart of cattle-lifters for years, but are to be invited back to theirold haunts to begin the work over again and necessitate another war."
He stopped abruptly, as if to check words that ought not to be uttered.There was a momentary silence in the group as they looked at each other.It was broken by Conrad saying to his youngest son, in a voice offorced calmness--
"Go, lad, get me a fresh horse. I will rouse the Dutch-African farmersall over the colony. The land is too hot to hold us. We cannot hope tofind rest under the Union Jack!"
We can sympathise strongly with the violent indignation of the honestDutchman, for, in good truth, not only he and his kindred, but all thepeople of the colony, were most unjustly blamed and unfairly treated bythe Government of that day. Nevertheless Conrad was wrong about theUnion Jack. The wisest of plans are open to the insidious entrance oferror. The fairest flag may be stained, by unworthy bearers, withoccasional prostitution. A Secretary of State is not the Britishnation, nor is he even, at all times, a true representative of Britishfeeling. Many a deed of folly, and sometimes of darkness, has unhappilybeen perpetrated under the protection of the Union Jack, but that doesnot alter the great historical fact, that truth, justice, fair-play, andfreedom have flourished longer and better under its ample folds thanunder any other flag that flies on the face of the whole earth.
But Conrad Marais was not in a position to consider this just then. Theboy who is writhing under the lash of a temporarily insane father, isnot in a position to reflect that, in the main, his father is, or meansto be, just, kind, loving, and true. Conrad bolted a hasty supper,mounted the fresh steed, and galloped away to rouse his kindred. And heproved nearly as good as his word. He roused many of them to join himin his intended expatriation, and many more did not need rousing. Somehad brooded over their wrongs until they began to smoulder, and whenthey were told that the _unprovoked_ raid of the Kafir thieves wasdeemed justifiable by the Government which _ought_ to have protectedtheir frontier, but had left them to _protect themselves_, the fireburst into a flame, and the great exodus began in earnest. Thus, asecond time, did Conrad and his family, with many others, take to thewilderness. On this occasion the party included Hans and CharlieConsidine, with their families.
There was still wanting, however, that last straw which renders a burdenintolerable. It was laid on at the time when slavery was abolished.
The Abolition Act was carried into effect on the 1st December 1834, atwhich time the accursed system of slavery was virtually brought to anend in the colony, though the slaves were not finally freed from allcontrol till 1838. But the glory of this noble work was sullied not alittle by the unjust manner in which, during these four years, thedetails relative to the payment of compensation to slave-owners werecarried out. We cannot afford space here to go into these details.Suffice it to say that, as one of the consequences, many families in thecolony were ruined, and a powerful impulse was given to the exodus,which had already begun. The leading Dutch-African families inOliphant's Hock, Gamtoos River, along the Fish River, and Somerset, soldtheir farms--in many cases at heavy loss, or for merely nominal sums--crossed the border, and bade a final adieu to the land of their fathers.These were followed by other bands, among whom were men of wealth andeducation, from Graaff-Reinet, Uitenhage, and Albany, until a mightyhost had hived off into the far north. Through many a month of toil andtrouble did this host pass while traversing the land of the savage inscattered bands. Many a sad reverse befell them. Some were attackedand cut off; some defended themselves with heroism and passed on,defying the Kafirs to arrest their progress, until at last they reachedthe distant lands on which their hearts were set--and there they settleddown to plough and sow, to reap and hunt and build, but always with armsat hand, for the savage was ever on the watch to take them at adisadvantage or unawares.
Thus were laid the foundations of the colony of Natal, the Orange FreeState, and the Transvaal Republic.
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Note 1. The war of 1884-6 cost the Treasury 800,000 pounds, and thecolonists lost in houses, stock, etcetera, 288,625 pounds.