Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1873 to 1884, Volume 1 (1919).djvu/92

72 History of the Cape Colony. [1877 been entrusted to his care. Kreli and Sigcawu were reported to be in Eastern Pondoland, though this was regarded by the pursuing party as not at all certain. Colonel Griffith now abandoned what he believed to be the pursuit of the fugitive Galekas. His horses were tired out, the Fingos and Tembus with him were footsore and disinclined to go farther, the weather was wet and inclement, the provisions were almost exhausted, and the country in advance was extremely rugged and could not be traversed by wheeled vehicles. There were no roads, and consequently supplies of food and ammu- nition could not be brought up. Under these circum- stances Colonel Griffith authorised Nquiliso to keep all the Galeka cattle that he could find, and then humed back to Ibeka by forced marches. On the 19th of November at Mqanduli the volunteers and burghers of Albany, Fort Beaufort, Cradock, Tarkastad, Wodehouse, and Aliwal North, and Bowker's rovers were thanked for their services and were allowed to leave for their homes. The volunteers from Capetown, Port Elizabeth, and Grahamstown, not being mounted, had been left to assist in guarding the camps in the Transkei, and the Queens- town burghers and volunteers were retained by Colonel Griffith when the others left. The belief was now general in the colony that the war beyond the Kei was over, and that the Galeka division of the Xosa tribe had ceased to exist as a community. About thirteen thousand head of horned cattle, a still greater number of sheep and goats, and several hundred horses had been taken from them, their kraals everywhere had been burnt, what ammunition they possessed at the beginning of the war it was assumed must all have been expended, and some seven hundred of their warriors had been killed. Kreli and Sigcawu were believed to be hiding in a forest in Eastern Pondoland, and their people in great distress