When it came to this pass Kreli, the old Chief, is supposed to have been urgent against any further fighting. Throughout his long life whatever of misfortune he had suffered, had come from fighting with the English, whatever of peace he had enjoyed had come from the good will of the English. Nor do I think that the Galekas as a body were anxious for a war with the English though they may have been ready enough to bully the Fingos. They too had much to lose and nothing to gain. Ambition probably sat lightly with them, and even hatred for the Fingos by that time must nearly have worn itself out among the people. But the Chief had sons, and there were other Princes of the blood royal. With such as they ambition and revenge linger longer than with the mass. Quicquid delirunt reges plectuntur Achivi. The Kafirs had to fight because royal blood boiled high. The old King in his declining years was too weak to restrain his own sons,--as have been other old Kings. Arms having been taken up against the Fingos were maintained against the protectors of the Fingos. It might be that after all the long prophesied day had now come for driving the white men out of South Africa. Instead of that the day has probably at last come for subjugating the hitherto unsubjugated Kafirs. I have before me all the details of the “war” as it has been carried on, showing how in the first battle our one gun came to grief after having been fired seven times, and how the Fingos ran away because the gun had come to grief;--how in consequence of this five of our mounted policemen and one officer were killed by the Galekas; how in the next engagement the Fingos behaved much better,--so much better as to have been thanked for their gallantry; and how from that time to this we have driven poor old Kreli about, taking from him his cattle and his country,--determined if possible to catch him but not having caught him as yet. Colonial history will no doubt some day tell all this at length; but in a work so light as mine my readers perhaps would not thank me for more detailed circumstances. On the 5th of October, when the affair was becoming serious, the Governor of the Gape, who is also High Commissioner for the management of the natives, issued a proclamation in which he sets forth Kreli’s weakness or fault. “Kreli,” he says, “either had not the will or the power to make his people keep the peace,” and again--“The Chief Kreli having distinctly expressed his inability to punish his people, or to prevent such outrages for the future, Commandant Griffith has been directed to advance into Kreli’s country, to put down by force, if necessary, all attempts to resist the authority of the British Government or to molest its subjects, and to exact full reparation for the injuries inflicted on British subjects by Kreli’s people.”