The Governor had meantime been recalled, and was succeeded for a few months by Sir Henry Pottinger. Sandili, however, soon had enough of the struggle, and, in 1847, peace was made after an enormous cost to the British authorities and amid the clamor of ruined Eastern farmers. At the end of the year Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith came out as Governor and High Commissioner, with unusual personal powers and under the awakening perception of the Colonial Office that it was better to let the man on the spot guide affairs than to attempt the real government of South Africa from six thousand miles away. It was not a permanent awakening, but it was useful so long as it lasted. Sir Harry Smith adopted the repudiated native policy of Sir Benjamin D'Urban; proclaimed the territory between the Kei and the Keiskama as a British possession for the absolute use of the western clans of the Kosa tribe; appointed a Commissioner to exercise general authority over the Chiefs and sent a strong body of troops to garrison various forts; and named the region--which once for a brief season had been called after Queen Adelaide--the Province of British Kaffraria. A few years later the eighth Kaffir war took place. The tribes seem to have considered the peace as nothing more than a truce, and as soon as the British authorities began to suppress the worst of their savage customs--notably the murders and tortures arising out of the hunt for witchcraft--discontent very speedily developed into the war of 1850-51. The usual struggle followed, with surprises, raids, murders and the ravaging of the frontier. The war was the most costly of all the conflicts with these restless tribes, and was specially marked by an event memorable in the annals of British bravery--the loss of H. M. S. _Birkenhead_ with 400 soldiers on board. It occurred near Algoa Bay, where the ship had struck a reef in the middle of the night. The women, children and sick people were sent away safely, in all the available boats, while the troops remained drawn up in line as though on parade, with the ship breaking up under them and a sea swarming with sharks around them. [Sidenote: An Extraordinary Incident]