"Peace at last!" said Edwin Brook to George Dally, on arriving at his
ravaged and herdless farm in the Zuurveld, whither George had preceded
him.
"Peace is it, sir? Ah, that's well. It's about time too, for we've got
a deal to do--haven't we, sir?"
George spoke quite cheerily, under the impression that his master
required comforting.
"You see, sir, we've got to go back pretty well to where we was in 1820,
and begin it all over again. It _is_ somewhat aggrawatin'! Might have
been avoided, too, if they'd kep' a few more troops on the frontier."
"Well, Jack, the treaty is signed at last," said Robert Skyd to his
brother, as he sat on his counter in Grahamstown, drumming with his
heels.
"Not too soon," replied John Skyd, taking a seat on the same convenient
lounge. "It has cost us something: houses burnt all over the
settlement, from end to end; crops destroyed; cattle carried off, and,
worst of all, trade almost ruined--except in the case of lucky fellows
like you, Bob, who sell to the troops."
"War would not have broken out at all," returned Bob, "if the Kafirs had
only been managed with a touch of ordinary common sense in times past.
Our losses are tremendous. Just look at the Kafir trade, which last
year I believe amounted to above 40,000 pounds,--_that's_ crushed out
altogether in the meantime, and won't be easily revived. Kafirs in
hundreds were beginning to discard their dirty karosses, and to buy
blankets, handkerchiefs, flannels, baize, cotton, knives, axes, and what
not, while the traders had set up their stores everywhere in Kafirland--
to say nothing of your own business, Jack, in the gum, ivory, and
shooting way, and our profits thereon. We were beginning to flourish so
well, too, as a colony. I believe that we've been absorbing annually
somewhere about 150,000 pounds worth of British manufactured articles--
not to mention other things, and now--Oh, Jack, mankind is a monstrous
idiot!"
"Peace comes too late for us, Gertie," said Hans Marais to his wife, on
their return to the old homestead on the karroo, which presented nothing
but a blackened heap of dry mud, bricks, and charred timbers; herds and
flocks gone--dreary silence in possession--the very picture of
desolation.
"Better late than never," remarked Charlie Considine sadly. "We must
just set to work, re-stock and re-build. Not so difficult to do so as
it might have been, however, owing to that considerate uncle of mine.
We're better off than some of our poor neighbours who have nothing to
fall back upon. They say that more than 3000 persons have been reduced
to destitution; 500 farm-houses have been burnt and pillaged; 900
horses, 55,000 sheep and goats, and above 30,000 head of cattle carried
off, only a few of which were recovered by Colonel Smith on that
expedition when Hintza was killed. However, we'll keep up heart and go
to work with a will--shan't we, my little wife!"
Bertha--now Bertha Considine--who leaned on Charlie's arm, spoke not
with her lips, but she lifted her bright blue eyes, and with these orbs
of light declared her thorough belief in the wisdom of what ever Charlie
might say or do.
"They say it's all settled!" cried Jerry Goldboy, hastily entering
Kenneth McTavish's stable.
"What's all settled?" demanded Sandy Black.
"Peace with the Kafirs," said Jerry.
"Peace wi' the Kawfirs!" echoed Sandy, in a slightly contemptuous tone.
"H'm! they should never hae had war wi' them, Jerry, my man."
"But 'aving 'ad it, ain't it well that it's hover?" returned Jerry.
"It's cost us a bonnie penny," rejoined Black.
"Nae doot Glen Lynden has come off better than ither places, for we've
managed to haud oor ain no' that ill, but wae's me for the puir folk o'
the low country! An' I'll be bound the Imperial Treasury'll smart
for't. [See Note 1.] But it's an ill wind that blaws nae gude. We've
taken a gude slice o' land frae the thievin' craters, for it's said Sir
Benjamin D'Urban has annexed all the country between the Kei and the
Keiskamma to the colony. A most needfu' addition, for the jungles o'
the Great Fish River or the Buffalo were jist fortresses where the
Kawfirs played hide-an'-seek wi' the settlers, an' it's as plain as the
nose on my face that peace wi' them is not possible till they're driven
across the Kei--that bein' a defensible boundary."
"So, they say that peace is proclaimed," said Stephen Orpin to a pretty
young woman who had recently put it out of his power to talk of his
"bachelor home at Salem." Jessie McTavish had taken pity on him at
last!
"Indeed!" replied Jessie, with a half-disappointed look; "then I suppose
you'll be going off again on your long journeys into the interior, and
leaving me to pine here in solitude?"
"That depends," returned Orpin, "on how you treat me! Perhaps I may
manage to find my work nearer home than I did in days gone by. At all
events I'll not go into Kafirland just now, for it's likely to remain in
an unsettled state for many a day. It has been a sad and useless war,
and has cost us a heavy price. Think, Jessie, of the lives lost--
forty-four of our people murdered during the invasion, and eighty-four
killed and thirty wounded during the war. People will say that is
nothing to speak of, compared with losses in other wars; but I don't
care for comparisons, I think only of the numbers of our people, and of
the hundreds of wretched Kafirs, who have been cut off in their prime
and sent to meet their Judge. But there has been one trophy of the war
at which I look with rejoicing; 15,000 Fingoes rescued from slavery is
something to be thankful for. God can bring good out of evil. It may
be that He will give me employment in that direction ere long."
These various remarks, good reader, were uttered some months after the
events recorded in the last chapter, for the death of the great chief of
Kafirland did not immediately terminate the war. On the contrary, the
treaty of peace entered into with Kreli, Hintza's son and successor, was
scouted by the confederate chiefs, Tyali, Macomo, etcetera, who remained
still unsubdued in the annexed territory, and both there, and within the
old frontier, continued to commit murders and wide-spread depredations.
It was not until the Kafirs had been hunted by our troops into the most
impregnable of their woody fortresses, and fairly brought to bay, that
the chiefs sent messengers to solicit peace. It was granted. A treaty
of peace was entered into, by which the Kafirs gave up all right to the
country conquered, and consented to hold their lands under tenure from
the British Sovereign. It was signed at Fort Wilshire in September.
Thereafter Sir Benjamin D'Urban laid down with great wisdom and ability
plans for the occupation and defence of the annexed territory, so as to
form a real obstruction to future raids by the lawless natives--plans
which, if carried out, would no doubt have prevented future wars, and on
_the strength of which_ the farmers began to return to their desolated
farms, and commence re-building and re-stocking with indomitable
resolution. Others accepted offers of land in the new territory, and a
few of the Dutch farmers, hoping for better times, and still trusting to
British wisdom for protection, were prevailed on to remain in the colony
at a time when many of their kindred were moving off in despair of being
either protected, understood, or fairly represented.
Among these still trusting ones was Conrad Marais. Strongly urged by
Hans and Considine, he consented to begin life anew in the old home, and
went vigorously to work with his stout sons.
But he had barely begun to get the place into something like order when
a shell was sent into the colony, which created almost as much dismay as
if it had been the precursor of another Kafir invasion.
Conrad was seated in a friend's house in Somerset when the said shell
exploded. It came in the form of a newspaper paragraph. He looked
surprised on reading the first line or two; then a dark frown settled on
his face, which, as he read on, became pale, while his compressed lips
twitched with suppressed passion.
Finishing the paragraph, he crushed the newspaper up in his hand, and,
thrusting it into his pocket, hastened to the stable, where he saddled
his horse. Leaping on its back as if he had been a youth of twenty, he
drove the spur into its flanks and galloped away at full speed--away
over the dusty road leading from Somerset to the hills: away over the
ridge that separates it from the level country beyond; and away over the
brown karroo, until at last, covered with dust and flecked with foam, he
drew up at his own door and burst in upon the family. They were
concluding their evening meal.
"Read that!" he cried, flinging down the paper, throwing himself into a
chair, and bringing his fist down on the table with a crash that set
cups and glasses dancing.
"There!" he added, pointing to the paragraph, as Hans took up the
paper--"that despatch from Lord Glenelg--the British Colonial
Secretary--at the top of the column. Read it aloud, boy."