At the time in which I am writing this chapter Kreli and his sons suppose themselves to be at war with the Queen of England. The Governor of the Gape Colony, who has been so far troubled in his serenity as to have felt it expedient to live away from his house for the last three or four months near to the scene of action, supposes probably that he has been called upon to put down a most unpleasant Kafir disturbance. He will hardly dignify the affair with the name of a war. When in Ireland the Fenians were put down by the police without direct military interference we felt that there had been a disagreeable row,--but certainly not a civil war, because the soldiers had not been employed. And yet we should hardly have been comfortable while the row was going on had we not known that there were soldiers at hand in Ireland. For some months it was much the same with Kreli and his rebellious Kafirs. In South Africa there was comfort in feeling that there were one or two regiments near the Kei River,--at head quarters, with a General and Commissaries and Colonels at King Williamstown, where the Governor is also stationed, and that there were soldiers also at East London, on the coast, ready for an emergency should the emergency come. But the fighting up to that time had been done by policemen and volunteers,--and it was hoped that it might be so to the end. Towards the close of November 1877 the end was thought to have almost come; though there were even then those who believed that when we had subdued the Galekas who are Kreli’s peculiar people, the Gaikas would rise against us. They are Sandilli’s people and live on this, or the western, side of the Kei territory, round about King Williamstown in what we call British Kafraria. Many hundreds of them are working for wages within the boundaries of what was formerly their own territory. I cannot but think that had the Gaikas intended to take part with their Transkeian brethren they would not have waited till Kreli and his Galekas had been so nearly beaten. But now we know that an ending to this trouble so happy as that which was at first anticipated has not been quite accomplished. British troops have entered the territory on the other side of the Kei, and are at present probably engaged in putting down some remnant of the Galekas.