In 1838 slavery was abolished;--and as one of the consequences of that abolition, the Dutch farmers again receded. Their lands were occupied by the English and Scotch who followed them, and in the hands of these men the growth of wool began to prevail. Merino sheep were introduced, and wool became the most important production of the colony. During the whole of this period the practice was continued by the old-fashioned farmers of receding from their farms in quest of new lands in which they might live without interference. The Colony in spite of Kafirs had prospered under English rule, whilst the Dutch farmers had no doubt enjoyed the progress as well as their English neighbours. Their condition was infinitely more free than it had ever been under Dutch rule, and very much more comfortable. But still they were dissatisfied. British ideas as to Hottentots and Kafirs and British ideas as to slavery were in their eyes absurd, unmanly and disagreeable. And therefore they went away across the Orange River; but we shall be able to deal better with their further journeyings when we come to speak of the colony of Natal, of the Orange Free State, and of the Transvaal Republic. In 1846 came another Kafir war, called the war of the axe,[3] which lasted to the end of 1847. This too grew out of a small incident. A Kafir prisoner was rescued and taken into Kafir land, and the Kafirs would not give him up when he was demanded by the Authorities. It seems that whenever any slight act of rebellion on their parts was successful, the whole tribe and the neighbouring tribes would be so elated as to think that now had come the time for absolutely subduing the white strangers. They were at last beaten and starved into submission, but at a terrible cost; and it seems to have been acknowledged at home that Lord Glenelg had been wrong. Sir Harry Smith was sent out, and he again extended the Colony to the Kei River, leaving the district between that and the Keiskamma as a British home for Kafirs, under the name of British Kafraria.