“It is to be clearly understood that no provocation is to be given to the Kafirs in their own territory. No cattle belonging to any inhabitant or farmer, are, upon any account, to be permitted to stray or graze, over to the Kafir territory; neither is any Kafir to be molested when within his own boundary, nor is any soldier, or other person, permitted to cross the Great Fish River, except when tracing depredations, or in the pursuit of stolen property. “It will be a primary object to capture any Kafirs trespassing within the limits of the colony, and his Lordship anxiously hopes that this may be effected without bloodshed. “Should cattle be traced, the party tracing them will, if it consider itself strong enough, and if commanded by an officer, follow until it shall retake them. “In order to encourage the men employed upon this duty, his Lordship has directed a reward to be given to the party making a capture, of five rix-dollars for each Kafir, not wounded, and one rix-dollar for each head of cattle retaken, and for each head afterwards restored from a Kafir Kraal, in lieu of that which shall have been traced to it. “Any Kafir who is captured is to be well secured, and conducted from post to post to the Drostdy at Uitenhage.” In the beginning of April three hundred men under Major Fraser accompanied the Governor, Lord Charles Somerset, to Kafirland, where his Lordship had an interview with the Chief Gaika, and established friendly relations with that Chief; but the tribes of T’Slambie, Eno, Botman, and Cobus Congo continued hostile to the colony. The advantages resulting from the friendly relations thus established, were followed by the reduction of the regiment to two hundred men, under Major Fraser, who assumed the command of the frontier in October of that year. The hostile clans continuing to make depredations, patroles were out night and day, and on the 10th of October three men of the Cape Regiment, the signal men at Waay Plaats, who were returning from the Cowie Bush, were waylaid and murdered by the Kafirs in a manner which evinced a most barbarous and cruel disposition. [Sidenote: 1818] On the 8th of January, 1818, Major Fraser entered Kafirland with an armed force, and sixty men of the Cape Regiment recovered twenty-one horses and two thousand head of cattle from the tribe of T’Slambie. The Kafirs were not intimidated, but continued their depredations, committing numerous wanton murders, and the Cape Regiment was constantly employed in scouring the bush, at the same time numerous reinforcements of armed Hottentots joined from the several institutions. [Sidenote: 1819]