AT the present moment we are witnessing a sorry spectacle for a Christian
nation—that of a whole people hemmed in in one corner of Eastern Africa,
waiting to be swept off the face of the earth by the finest soldiers and
the most scientific instruments of murder England has at her command.
Their crime has been that in defending their native soil from the tread
of the foe, they annihilated an English regiment, and for such an act
there is no hope of pardon, in this world at least. From every corner of
the land, from the pulpit and the Press, from the hut of the peasant and
the palace of the prince, from the cad of the music-hall and the
statesman of Downing Street, there has risen a cry for revenge; and that
we shall take a full and fierce revenge there can be no doubt. Already
in England and in Africa the blood-stained demon of war has sown her seed
and reaps her harvest; already there have been bitter tears shed over
hundreds of fallen heroes in desolated homes, and women wail and children
vainly cry for loved ones whose bones now bleach the distant plain of
Isandula. And there will be sadder and darker tragedies yet to come if
the wild instincts of the people are to be gratified and the Zulu Kaffirs
are to be exterminated. They are now represented as savage hordes, whose
existence is incompatible with English rule. Let me plead that they are
not such as they are represented, and that it is better that we make them
friends. Cetewayo, by not crossing the Tugela and sweeping with fire and
slaughter through Natal when that colony lay stricken and terrified at
his feet, has set us an example of forbearance which it were wise to
imitate. If we fail to do so, the blood feud between us and his people
can know no end. They in their turn will nurse a spirit of revenge, and
the Kaffir wars of the future will be fiercer and more cruel than any we
have hitherto known.
There is much in the Kaffirs that should make them friendly with the
English people if fairly treated. One well-known writer states that they
are keen observers of character, and have great contempt for a man who
gets drunk, or who does not keep his word. Kaffirs should be treated
with kindness, fairness, and firmness. They have an accurate idea of
justice, and appreciate the administration of just legislation, wrote Mr.
Wilson, late a resident magistrate in Natal. In their wild state they
are innocent, quiet, unoffending, and hospitable, and it is only when
they live close to a European town that they acquire the bad habits of
the white race, and with the cunning instincts natural to them become
dangerous to the community. Said another colonist, at a conference
recently held at the African section of the Society of Arts, mentally
they were equal to white men. Dr. Mann, who has lived twenty-five years
in Natal, and who has written a large work on that colony, declares that
the Kaffirs had great ability, and, even without education, seemed a much
higher race intellectually than the lower class of the agricultural
population in England. In fact, he would rather go to a Kaffir for a
response to an appeal to his reason than to an English labourer. Twenty
years ago, said Mr. Richardes, they brought comparatively nothing, but
now they were great customers to the British merchant. As a further
proof of how a Zulu Kaffir could rise in the world, Dr. Mann mentions the
case of one he knew who could not read, who borrowed on his own credit
£500 to buy a sugar mill, and obtained a further loan from the Government
to get it to work, and who, in three years, paid off the loan, and became
a prosperous manufacturer. It seems a pity to kill off such people—a
people by nature intended to be our customers and allies and friends.
Much more than this may be said. “Kaffirs seem,” writes Lady Barker, “a
very gay and cheerful people, to judge by the laughter and jests I hear
from the groups returning to their kraals every day by the road just
outside our fence.” A similar testimony was borne by Mr. Robert
Richardson in a paper read by him a year or two since at a meeting of the
Society of Arts. “The Zulu,” he said, “may not be dignified, but
manliness and good temper are written on his cheerful countenance; and he
is not only groom and cattle herd, but domestic servant, and performs
with alacrity the least honourable service about a house. If Natal lambs
don’t skip, as the Surveyor-General once said, at least the Natal servant
does, for his errands are done at a trot cutting capers, while he sings
with an appearance of great enjoyment in his own music. Brimful of
humour, he is essentially a laughing animal, and having few wants or
comforts, he rivals Mark Tapley in being jolly under creditable
circumstances. All things considered, the Natal Zulu is a better servant
than the (Cape) frontier Kaffir.”
There is much that is good in these Kaffirs. A correspondent of the
_Cape Mercury_ wrote—“It is said the Kaffir language has no word for
gratitude; but, nevertheless, the Kaffirs are not all void of it. A
native man in good circumstances lent a brick waggon gratis to convey Mr.
Conway and family to the house of his father-in-law, Mr. Conway being at
the time very ill. Unfortunately, after his arrival, he died, leaving
his wife and family not very well off. The other day the native arrived
to take home his waggon which he had kindly lent, and found that if he
took it he would leave Mrs. Conway without any means to make an
independent living. To the astonishment of all present, he said, ‘I
don’t forget good deeds done to me by Conway before poverty overhauled
him, and to show that I am sincerely sorry for his family I here make
you, his widow, a present of my waggon and gear now in your possession to
enable you to provide for his children.’ The value of the waggon was
£60.”
In contrast with this is the utter indifference displayed by too many
colonists as to the welfare of the Kaffirs. “The other day,” says a
writer in a Colonial paper called the _Independent_, “a wheelbarrow
tumbled over the Kimberley (Diamond fields) reef on to the head of a
Kaffir. His master, with some irritation, inquired of the employer of
the careless servant, ‘Do you want to kill my Kaffirs?’ The reply was an
indignant query, ‘What about my wheelbarrow? It’s smashed, and your
Kaffir isn’t hurt.’”
But enough of this. According to all writers the Kaffir is deeply
impressed with a sense of English superiority. Let us now show him our
true superiority; that we war not with him, that we desire not his land,
that we are as merciful as we are strong. Cetewayo’s young men have
washed their spears in blood, and ours have fallen under circumstances
which have created an abiding sense of their heroism in every Zulu
breast. Have we no wise men among us who can stand between the living
and the dead, and calm the natural passions of the hour, and stay the
ravages of war? If there be not such, our task is an endless one to
fight and conquer, merely to fight and conquer again. The soldier cannot
solve the difficulty; he merely postpones it for a time.
Failing to do justice to the Kaffirs we are left to a very undesirable
alternative. If we cease to rule by kindness, we must do so by brute
force. Contemplating this delightful state of things, the _Natal
Witness_ of the 8th of February says:—“Civilisation has become
unmistakably aggressive. The result which it was hoped might be gained
by the quiet influence of the plough-share and the railway, is now
destined to be effected, under the guidance of Sir Bartle Frere, at the
point of the bayonet. The great herald of peace, whose feet were to be
so beautiful upon the mountains, has become the genius of war. Whether
Sir Bartle Frere foresaw this, we are not aware, nor are we aware whether
he likes his position. We will not even argue whether he is right or
wrong in believing that civilisation must be aggressive. Judging by
history, we incline to the opinion that he is right, and if he is right,
then the hope of producing the social amalgamation we have referred to
was a vain hope altogether. But whether it is a vain hope or not, let us
not deceive ourselves about one thing—that it is now extinguished. The
ship of State has been put about on the other tack, and is at the present
moment, it must be owned, making very bad weather of it. Whatever is now
done by way of civilising the native population in South Africa must be
done by force. We do not necessarily mean such physical force as is
employed in a pitched battle. We mean rather this—that the native
population must henceforth be ruled by a show of military strength rather
than by trust in British justice or regard for commercial advantages.
This, we say, may be right; it may in the very nature of things have been
unavoidable. But do not let us deceive ourselves about it. The fact is
so, and we must make the best of it or the worst. If the Home Government
will be content to keep a large military force in South Africa for thirty
years to come, and if South Africa can afford to pay for it; or if,
failing this, the British taxpayer will be kind enough to pay for the
protection of the colonies which will not be worth protecting if he does
not pay—if all this comes to pass, then for thirty years South Africa
will be a place which, though utterly useless as a field for immigration,
a place in which certain classes of people can live. But then will these
things be done? Will England be content to keep such a body of troops in
South Africa? Can South Africa pay for them? And, if South Africa
cannot, will the British public pay? These are questions most seriously
affecting our future, and which for the present we leave to be answered
by our readers as best they may be able.” Such is a colonial aspect of
what is emphatically a colonial question.
We hear in these days so much about the Zulu that we are apt to forget
that in South Africa we have any one else to deal with. In fact the
coloured people with whom our whites more or less come into contact, are
estimated by Mr. Trollope, our best authority on the subject, at
3,000,000, and with the exception of the Korannas, and the Bushmen, who
inhabit Namaqualand, a region where only copper is to be found, are a
very superior race of men, well-built, with good capabilities, mental and
physical. It is to be questioned whether the danger in the recent system
of government at the Cape, which places power in the hands of the white
colonists alone, is not calculated to create discontent among the
numerous and high-spirited people around. It is much to be regretted
also, that we have not yet been able to adopt a steady and consistent
policy with the native tribes. The great civilising agency of our time
is the British trader, and at the Kimberley mines he has set the native
to work; but more than that is required if the native is to be elevated
and to be taught to take his proper place as a labourer in the great
harvests of the world.
If the reader looks at a map of South Africa he will find that it is
divided, into many districts, some of them of immense extent—hundreds of
miles apart, and inhabited by peoples under varying rulers, and with
varying interests. The Cape, for instance, has little sympathy with
Natal, and the great Namaqualand has little in common with the Transvaal.
In the latter country, as is well known, we have a community hostile to
English rule, while the Orange Free State, on each side hemmed in by
English dominions, maintains a precarious independency of its own. A
grand South African confederation is a beautiful idea, but there does not
seem much chance of carrying it out just now. Meanwhile we go on
annexing all the surrounding country, much to the discontent of the
natives themselves.
At present the great difficulty is the native population. According to
all accounts, they are in an unsettled and agitated state. Of the
original Hottentot we do not hear much. Mr. Trollope believes that the
bulk of the population of the Western Province of the Cape Colony is
Hottentot, who has, however, long given up all idea of independence. The
Dutchmen and the Englishmen also, who are to be met with in the East and
West alike, are not likely to give much trouble; but as we get further
from the Cape, and the white population is sparser, the difficulties
increase. It is true there is no chance of a Kaffir scare in that part
of Africa bordering on the Atlantic, nor in the Kalakari desert on the
North is there any danger to be apprehended; but it is as we get nearer
the Indian Ocean, and especially after we have crossed the Kei, and come
into Kaffraria proper, that we find ourselves in the presence of a native
population, always required to be watched with a careful eye. There
dwell the Galekas, who, to the number of 66,000, under Kreli, have only
recently been put down. They and the Tembus, and the Pondos, and the
Bomvanas, and the Fingos, inhabit all the district till Natal is reached.
Amongst some of them a British Resident resides; in all they do pretty
much as they like. Of Natal and its 300,000 Kaffirs it is needless to
say more here. In the same neighbourhood are the Griquas, but they are
bastard races. The Balongas of Thaba ’Ncho, who dwell under the shelter
of the Orange Free State, and the Basutos, are a branch of the Becuanas,
who inhabit that part of the Kalakari desert bordering on Griqualand and
the Transvaal. Of the black African races, the South-Eastern people whom
we call Kaffirs and Zulus are, probably, the best. They are not
constitutionally cruel; they learn to work readily, and they save
property; but even at the Cape, where they will have power at the
voting-booth, Mr. Bowker, the late commandant of the Frontier Mounted
Police, says—“As a nation, they hate the white man, and look forward to
the day when he will be expelled from the country.” Mr. Trollope remarks
of the native that he is a good-humoured fellow, whether by nature a
hostile Kaffir, or submissive Fingo, or friendly Basuto, but, if occasion
should arise, he would probably be a rebel. The two names most familiar
to the English readers are the Gaikas and Galekas, who have both given us
a good deal of trouble. Sandilli with his Gaikas have long been
subjected, though they have never been regarded as peaceable as the
Fingos and the Basutos. The total population of the region beyond the
Kei is stated to be 500,100, of whom, with the small exception of the
Griquas, all are Kaffirs.
Our special friends among the natives are the Fingos, a tribe originally
driven from Natal by the warrior Chaka, among the Galekas, by whom they
were enslaved and regarded as Kaffir dogs. We English took pity on them,
released them from slavery, and settled them somewhere near the coast
between the great Fish River and the Keishamma, and their old masters,
the Galekas. There they were a perpetual eyesore to their former
masters. In the first place, they had for their 50,000 souls 2,000
square miles, while that left for the 66,000 Galekas was not more than
1,600 miles. Again, the Fingos have been a money-making people,
possessing oxen and waggons, and gradually rising in the world. For a
time, as was to be expected, mischief between the two tribes was brewing,
and in 1877 a drunken row precipitated the two into war. We rushed into
the war to defend the Fingos, and Kreli, who had no desire for a struggle
with the English, was beaten, and his country annexed. The Basutos, who
have given up fighting since the days of their great king Moshesh, number
about 127,000. In the map they are now included in the Cape Province,
but they border the Orange Free State—lying between it and Kaffraria. In
1868 they became, after a wearisome contest with the Dutch, so worried by
the latter, that they implored the British to take them as subjects. The
Basutos are not Kaffirs, but a branch of the Bechuanas, as are the
Balongas, who live so peacefully under the shelter of the Dutch in the
Orange Free State. As their land is the very best on the Continent for
agricultural purposes, they have bought a great many ploughs, are great
growers of corn and wool, and naturally, as is the case with such people,
are friends of peace and great lovers of money. At one time they were
cannibals. For a long time they were terrible fighters, and that they
have become what they are may be quoted as a fine testimony to the
civilising influences of the trader. At the same time, it will not be
difficult to make enemies of them. One of their chiefs—Morosi—has,
taking advantage of the Zulu war, attempted a little _emeute_ on his own
hook. We are glad to find, as was to be expected, that he has got the
worst of it. In a letter dated March 1, from Alrival North, the writer
says:—“I wonder the Government are not more active in their movements,
and send a proper force to crush him at once, as it is believed here that
if Morosi gets the least advantage the whole of Basutoland will be in a
blaze. Sprigg will find that the Disarming Act will cost the colony more
than he expected, and the Basutos, who are supposed to be loyal, are not
at all inclined to give up their arms, and I am sure will not do so
without a struggle.” The Gaikas who inhabit the district around
Frankfort and King William’s-town have been British subjects for
five-and-twenty years; but it is said that our recent policy has also
much alienated them. These are the men on whose future relationship
depends the fate of South Africa. Under his own chief in the forest,
says Mr. Froude, the Kaffir is at least a man trained and disciplined;
under European authority he might become as fine a specimen of manhood as
an Irish or English policeman. It is to our shame that we have left him
almost entirely to himself, and that even our missionaries have done
little more than teach him to sing hymns. Lovedale is, however, an
important testimony to the worth of missionary enterprise when it takes
an industrious turn. There carpentering, waggon-making, blacksmithing,
printing, book-binding, cabinet-making, and farm work are all
successfully carried on. At King William’s-town young native men,
trained at Lovedale, may be found employed as writers in attorneys’
offices, steadily performing their work, and with satisfaction to their
employers. At Edendale the Rev. James Allison commenced a still greater
work. He bought a block of land near Maritsburgh, and divided it into
sections suitable to humble purchasers. These purchasers were natives;
his conditions were payment for these lands by instalments, and the
complete surrender of polygamy. The people are described as industrious
and prosperous, they subscribe to build their own chapels, and when their
numbers increase beyond what the land will fairly support, they swarm out
and purchase land elsewhere. 8,000 acres are thus planted, with 2,000
inhabitants. If we are to believe the Rev. Mr. Carlyle, formerly the
Presbyterian chaplain at Natal, nowhere has the missionary been more
successful than in South Africa.
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