Many people have heard or read of the cannibals of Natal, who turned
large tracts of country into a shambles in the early part of this
century, after Tshaka’s impis had swept off all the cattle, and then
kept the miserable people continually on the move so that they were
unable to cultivate. One Umdava originated the practice of eating human
flesh. Gathering together the fragments of four scattered tribes, he
trained them to hunt human beings as others hunted game. This gang was
a greater scourge to the country surrounding the present site of
Pietermaritzburg than even Tshaka’s murdering hordes. It was broken up
in or about the year 1824, when the Europeans first came to the country,
and the remnants of many scattered tribes returned and settled under
their protection.
All this is history with which most people in South Africa are familiar,
but many do not know that some of the cannibals fled to Basutoland,
where, among almost inaccessible mountains, they carried on their
horrible practices for many years.
It is a well-known fact that when men once surrender themselves to any
unnatural and brutal vice, the gratification of the abnormal instinct
thus acquired becomes the most imperative need of their nature.
The Falkland Islands case, as bearing specially upon the foregoing
narrative, may be mentioned. Some convicts escaped from the Falkland
Island convict station, and succeeded in reaching the coast of
Patagonia. They then endeavored to make their way to Montevideo, but
having to keep along the shore so as to avoid the natives, who would
have killed them had they ventured inland, were easily intercepted by
the government cutter, which was always despatched in cases of the kind
to head off fugitives upon their only possible course. Of the party only
one man was found alive. In their dreadful need the men had cast lots as
to who should be killed and eaten by the others, and this went on until
only the one man remained. His sufferings had been so horrible that
he was let off any further punishment, and simply brought back to the
island to complete the term of his sentence. Some months after, this
man induced another to escape with him in a boat, and, when the boat was
overtaken, it was found that he had killed his companion for the purpose
of eating the latter’s flesh. This was apparent from the fact that
the supply of food which the fugitives had taken with them was not
exhausted.