The scriptural curse of the "false prophet" has never been more
strikingly fulfilled, than in the instance of the Kaffir nation in the
year 1656. A false prophet, named Umhlahaza, professed to have received
a revelation from heaven through the visions of a girl, commanding the
Kaffirs to kill the whole of their cattle, and promising that, in the
event of their obedience, all their forefathers, together with their
cattle, should rise to life again, that they should regain their
ascendancy in the land, and live in plenty and prosperity for evermore.
The object of this audacious imposture was to reduce the whole nation on
a sudden to such a state of suffering that, in their desperation, they
would burst in upon the settlements of the white men, and everywhere
exterminate them. It is strange that in a country where the flocks and
herds constitute the sole wealth of the people, such an attempt should
have succeeded. But it did so to a considerable extent, at all events.
Those who had contrived it, however, had made one fatal omission. They
ought to have concentrated the whole people on the English border, and
they forgot that men enfeebled by famine would be unfitted for warfare,
or indeed for any lengthened travel. An attempt was made to remedy the
blunder by postponing the day of the resurrection of the chiefs and
cattle, but it failed. The people had discovered the imposture, though
not until they were reduced to the most frightful condition of
starvation. The English colonists did all that lay in their power to
relieve them, but they were wholly unable to remedy the mischief. Vast
numbers died everywhere by the most terrible of all deaths, and the
strength of the nation was so completely broken by the disaster, that
they were rendered wholly incapable of continuing the warfare, for which
in former days they had been so renowned.