Then of a sudden I heard the Kafirs approaching. They had beaten the woods for a mile along the valley; and then a gun was fired and then another, and gradually my white friends reappeared among the Kafirs. One had shot a bird, and another a hare; and the most triumphant of the number had slaughtered a very fat monkey of a peculiarly blue colour about his hinder quarters. This was the great battue of the day. There were two or three other resting places at which I was instructed to stand and wait; and then we would be separated again, and again after a while would come the noise of the Kafirs. But no one shot anything further, and during the whole day nothing appeared before my eyes at which I was even able to aim my gun. But the native Kafirs with their red paint and their blankets wound round their arms, passing here and there through the bush and beating for game, were real enough and very interesting. I was told that to them it was a day of absolute delight, and that they were quite satisfied with having been allowed to be there. I have spoken before of the Kafir scare of 1876 during which it was certainly the general opinion at Grahamstown that there was about to be a general rising among the natives, and that it would behove all Europeans in the Eastern Province to look well to their wives and children and homesteads. I have described the manner in which my friend at the ostrich farm fortified his place with turrets, and I had heard of some settlers further east who had left their homes in the conviction that they were no longer safe. Gentlemen at Grahamstown had assured me that 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.[13] 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,