the danger had been as though men were going about a powder magazine with lighted candles. Here, where was our hunting party, we were in the centre of the Kafirs. A farmer who was with us owned the land down to the Chumie river which was at our feet, and on the other side there was a wide district which had been left by Government to the Kafirs when we annexed the land,—a district in which the Kafirs live after their old fashion. This man had his wife and children within a mile or two of hordes of untamed savages. When I asked him about the scare of last year, he laughed at it. Some among his neighbours had fled;—and had sold their cattle for what they would fetch. But he, when he saw that Kafirs were buying the cattle thus sold, was very sure that they would not buy that which they could take without price if war should come. But the Kafirs around him, he said, had no idea of war; and, when they heard of all that the Europeans were doing, they had thought that some attack was to be made on them.[1] The Kafirs as a body no doubt hate their invaders; but they would be well content to be allowed to hold what they still possess without further struggles with the white man, if they were sure of being undisturbed in their holdings. But they will be disturbed. Gradually, for this and the other reason, from causes which the white man of the day will be sure to be able to justify at any rate to himself, more and more will be annexed, till there will not be
- ↑ This conversation occurred and the above words were written before the disturbance of 1877. But the Kafirs here spoken of are the very Gaikas who have been expected to join the Galekas in their rebellion, but who have not as yet done so. Nor, as I think, will they do so.
