The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in KaffirlandWard, Mrs.
History
The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in Kaffirland
Ward, Mrs.
South Africa -- History -- Frontier Wars, 1811-1878
The account of one death in the ranks of the 91st Regiment, on the first
day's action in the Amatolas, affected me sincerely when I heard it.
Gibb, a soldier, who was much exhausted with the march up the mountain,
was allowed to mount the horse of an officer's servant, and was shot
dead soon after. The melancholy task of informing his younger brother--
a bugler, attached to the grenadier company--of his loss, fell to the
lot of the Captain of that company. The poor fellow was shocked at the
intelligence; but, at the moment he heard it, the enemy were pressing
on; the grenadiers were ordered to advance in skirmishing order, the
cavalry were coming up in support, and it was necessary to sound the
bugle to extend. The officer, feeling for the young soldier, bid him
calm his emotion, if possible, at such a moment: he obeyed as well as he
could; and after various attempts to sound his instrument, did so at
last, with tears running down his face in showers. What thoughts of
home and of parents' faces, and sorrowing voices, were passing through
that poor fellow's heart at the moment of excitement and danger! What
memories of early times, when he and his brother had played as children
together! [Note 1.]
"15th December.--Another movement is to take place over the Kei, into
Kreli's country. At the commencement of hostilities, a body of Fingoes
were located, to the amount of three thousand, east of the Kei. These
soon found that Kreli was in league with the tribes near the colony,
from the circumstance that many of his best men were creeping towards
it. Large droves of fine colonial cattle were passed over into the
forests of the Bashee. The resident Agent and the members of the
missionary department, with five hundred Fingoes, took refuge with the
Amapondas, farther east, where they must have suffered great privations.
What must be the sufferings of the women and children in such difficult
straits! The women are most to be pitied, since their misery arises
from anxiety of mind, and this is worse to bear than a host of physical
evils. Two thousand five hundred Fingoes remained with their families
and cattle in the district of Kreli, who has certainly displayed great
tact in avoiding all open collision with our dependents. Faku, it will
be remembered, is the terrible Zoolah Chief, who spares neither women
nor children, but who, with his tribe of warriors, drives all before him
at the point of a short assegai. With this weapon, these people close
upon their enemy, and stab him. The Fingoes in Kreli's neighbourhood
have been permitted to keep their ground and cattle; Kreli would not
choose to meddle with them, because they are our allies, while Faku had
probably some dread of the good musket in their hands, a weapon
ill-suited to the Zoolah spear. Faku's tribe, it is said, resemble the
Mantatees in their cannibal propensities, only indulged, however, after
an unsuccessful foray in search of plunder, or provision. The Mantatees
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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