THE KAFFIR WAR.*

THE Kaffir war has, according to every testimony, except that of a few mistaken philanthropists, been a very great mistake. The good men who argue the rights of savage aborigines in the luxurious twaddle of fashionable sentimentality, are too ready to sacrifice the interests of the hardworking colonists, or the lives of a dutiful soldiery, to theories that can only live in the very hotbeds of civilisation-where there is, in reality, a total ignorance of facts; and where the sense of justice is supplanted by a fallacious interest too easily awakened among those who are in search of sentimental impressions and excitement.

The missionary and philanthropist has for years laboured to depict to us the descendants of the Bedouin Arabs who people portions of Southern Africa under the name of Kaffirs or infidels-a retort courteous of the Portuguese-as an amiable, peaceful, innocent, and patriarchal race. Lieutenant-Colonel E. Napier's able papers, now publishing in this Magazine, must have done much towards disabusing the public mind on the score of what the gallant colonel justly calls "a mawkish affectation of feeling and philanthropy." Mrs. Ward's excellent work will assist in rendering the truth still more familiar, and when we consider that the expenses of the war have amounted to upwards of three millions sterling, and that we have lost a multitude of brave officers and men in the same disastrous and desultory campaigns, it is high time that an "affectation" which has cost so much money and blood should be put an end to.

It is sad, indeed, to think that from such misplaced humanity, English settlers in Southern Africa have been for years openly robbed with impunity, the poor colonist's dwellings have been burnt, and themselves and family murdered in cold blood by some of the countless barbarians who, like demons (the dwellers in Arcadian and pastoral simplicity !), with the lighted brand in one hand, and the assegaï in the other, have over-run and devastated the land. And then when at length reprisals were resolved upon for these outrages, half-measures, inadequate forces, ignorance of the difficulties of the country and resources of the people, all combined to prolong warfare and multiply disasters.

Mrs. Ward, a lady of distinguished literary attainments, accompanied her husband, Captain Ward, of the 91st, to the theatre of war in the year 1842, and she remained there till the close of the scene, so that, independently of the literary merits of her work, it will possess the more permanent interest of being a complete and faithful record of campaigns most honourable to those who were engaged in them, but most discreditable to those who originated them, and to those at home who disregarded the losses which they entailed.

Mrs. Ward was so unfortunate as to sail in the ill-fated Abercrombie Robinson, which went to pieces in a storm immediately on its arrival at the Cape. The account of this storm and shipwreck naturally imparts great interest to the opening pages of her book. There is much, indeed, that is truly affecting in the conduct of the little Isabella on the occasion. After much suffering and many miseries on board a hired transport, the detachment of the 91st landed at Port Elizabeth on the 7th of March, 1842, and from thence started at once for Graham's Town. Mrs. Ward

Five Years in Kaffirland; with Sketches of the late War in that Country, to the Conclusion of Peace. Written on the Spot. By Harriet Ward. 2 vols. Henry Colburn.

June.-VOL. LXXXIII. NO. CCCXXX.

was now first introduced to waggon-travelling, the discomfort of which, she says, was enough to make her hysterical. Mrs. Ward, indeed, shows herself throughout to be a thorough Englishwoman, well qualified to follow the drum, but she is very far from possessing the joyous spirits of the Canadian wife described in Mr. Ballantyne's account of life in Hudson's Bay. We have, however, Colonel Napier's authority for the hardships and privations to be undergone by ladies who are jolted in rude African baggage-waggons, and more than that, we have the gallant colonel's open condemnation of the system-his expressed surprise that such a slow, inconvenient mode of conveyance should still continue in use for military operations, more especially in a country-like that of the then seat of war-broken by hills and dells, water-courses and rivers, covered in many places with dense jungle, through which as these sluggish convoys drag their long and weary length, they are at every step in danger of being cut off by an active, unseen, and lurking foe.

Graham's Town was reached in safety; crowds of Hottentot women bounding out to meet the drums and fifes, and dancing on in front of the battalion to the tune of " Nix my dolly, Pals," and to the great entertainment of the soldiers. The town was left for Fort Peddie on the 22nd of March. Fort Peddie, from a distance, reminded our traveller of one of Cooper's descriptions of groups of buildings erected by settlers in the prairies of America. Around it are the scattered huts of the Fingoes, whom English philanthropy has rescued from slavery under the Kaffirs, to enjoy the protection of troops, the teaching of missionaries, and such uncompromising idleness, that they will scarcely milk their own cows.

All the miseries of the colony arise from the mistaken philanthropy displayed towards the coloured inhabitants, who are as insolent as lazy. The whole system in the colony, with regard to the black people, is bad. In Cape Town, by paying high wages, servants (insolent and lazy though they be) may be obtained among the Malays, who at least know their business; but, on the frontier, if you hire them and they rob you, you have no redress. You are told that by complaining to a magistrate you may get them sent to the house of correction, or tronck; but the Hottentots, Fingoes, and Kaffirs like nothing better, since they are then well fed, well clothed, and spend their mornings basking in the sun. Some are condemned to work; but the laws are so ill executed that this is seldom enforced.

While at Fort Peddie Mrs. Ward visited most of the neighbouring missionary stations. The account she gives of the subtle reasoning of the Kaffirs proves how arduous a task is undertaken by those who endeavour to convert these poor savages to Christianity. Mrs. Ward, indeed, doubts the decided conversion of any Kaffirs, excepting the chief Kama. The impudence of the Kaffirs, their intrusiveness, and begging habits, are what might be expected from the mistaken principles of concession and forbearance which it has been the fashion to show towards these restless thieves and reckless savages. In a quarrel that occurred before the war, between two chiefs, Mrs. Ward describes the apology of the one made to the English commissioners appointed to settle the dispute, as delivered "in a cold, sarcastic tone, indicative of a contempt he scarcely cared to conceal." The result of the interference which hurried 150 men and officers across the country, headed by his honour the lieutenant-governor, with commissariat-waggons, &c., was, that the two chiefs separated as great enemies as ever, and the contempt felt for the English was just what we can suppose would be entertained by savages, with their ideas of power, of such an inefficient, idle, and ridiculous demonstration. There

is not a greater political mistake than that of treating savages as refined, honourable, and highly-civilised beings.

As a result of this policy of concessions by which a Kaffir's losses were attended to before a colonist's, and there were treaties of claimable and "irreclaimable" stolen property, every day brought accounts of cattle stealing and other depredations, till at length a body of troops was despatched to protect the settlers in Lower Albany.

Before, however, the troops had assembled at the rallying-point, Fort Willshire, Tola had sent the plunder away either into the interior of Kaffirland, with his wives, children, and people, or into secluded kloofs, under the care of herds belonging to the tribes of some of those very chiefs who acted as allies and guides to the British troops on the occasion. There stood the offender's kraal, consisting of scattered and empty huts, and there was the "grand army," (upwards of 500 strong) in array against "Tola's country;" while Tola himself was taking an occasional peep at the proceedings from his lurking places in the bush, smiling, no doubt, at so many of her Majesty's soldiers being sent out to hunt him,-he-a Kaffir chief-on his own wild ground, in many places inaccessible to European infantry, or Hottentot cavalry!

It has since been proved that while the chiefs were accompanying this first "commando," as these expeditions are called, into the field, they were constantly misguiding them, and giving them wrong information relative to the cattle.

How English people (exclaims Mrs. Ward) have been cajoled into believing the Kaffirs a mild race of people! Dignified they are to be sure, for the cold-blooded wickedness of their nature is indeed measured, steady, and implacable. They have no idea of a future existence, and fear not death. Nothing can be a greater proof of their savage state than their treatment of their women. Gaika, our best ally, had one of his wives tied up in a sack, and drowned in the Great Fish River, because some designing wretch (jealous perhaps) had accused her of witchcraft. Tola, on seeing one of his wives look into a cattle-kraal (which women are forbidden to approach upon pain of death), deprived her of life on the spot, with a blow of his knob-kiurrie, or war-club. And Umhala, who accompanied the last expedition, on pretence of tracing the spoor of cattle, insists on having a joint amputated from the third finger of every female child born in his territory! If there be a fight between two tribes, the conquering party will not wait to take the brass or head-ornaments from the arms and necks of the women, but chop off heads, or hands, whichever may be most in the way. All this goes on to this day; and yet we trust to the honour! and good-feeling! of such wretches!

The crossing of the Keiskana, a boundary river, on this occasion gave great offence to the celebrated Chieftain Sandilla, but upon reading Mrs. Ward's account of an interview with the chieftain, which took place previously, the warrior with the withered leg would appear to have been long seeking some such excuse for hostilities. In March the bubble burst, and after many murders of inoffensive people Colonel Hare resolved to "chastise" the Kaffirs. It was on this occasion that the Kaffirs made an unexpected stand in the Amatolas that many valuable lives were lost, and fifty-two waggons containing the whole of the baggage of the 7th Dragoon Guards and part of the 91st fell into the hand of the enemy. So much for the chastisement!

Colonel Somerset next assembled his forces, and that pettywarfare commenced which, with a few suspensions, was destined to last for years. In the first day's action at Burn's Hill, Captain Bambrick, a fine old Waterloo soldier, who had served many years in India, was shot, and there is an interesting incident related in connexion with his death.

Captain Bambrick's troop formed part of a division under Major Gibsone, 7th Dragoon Guards, who had been left in charge of the baggage. During the day, some Kaffirs came down upon the herds and oxen belonging to the waggons, and in fighting for the cattle, mortally wounded a young boy, named M'Cormick. His brother ran to his assistance; and the dying child, seeing the other herds retreating, raised himself, and shouting, in his death-agony, "Don't run! don't run! We'll beat them yet!" sank back exhausted, and spoke no more. Captain Bambrick was sent in pursuit of the Kaffirs who had killed this poor young settler; and the old dragoon officer, reckless of the foe, seen or unseen, and accustomed to charge wherever that foe might be, dashed into the bush at the head of his troop, went too far, and fell in consequence by the hand of a concealed savage. Shocking to relate, his body was cut in pieces by the enemy, and either burned or hung about the bush. Oh "pastoral and peaceful" people! Ere Captain Bambrick fell, he called to his men to retire, having found out, too late, that "that was no place for cavalry.”

As a sequence to this disastrous commencement of the war, Graham's Town itself was threatened by the savages. The number of the enemy were at all times immense, and the movement of a body of these savages is likened to a rushing wind. "On, on they sweep like a blast; filling the air with a strange whirr-reminding one, in a grand scale, of a flight of locusts."

An officer of rank, during the last Kaffir war of 1835, was riding with a body of troops across the country, when suddenly his attention was arrested by a cloud of dust; then a dark silent mass appeared, and, lo! a multitude of beings, more resembling demons than men, rushed past. There were no noises, no sound of footsteps, nothing but the shiver of the assegaïs, which gleamed as they dashed onwards. The party of soldiery was too small to render an advance prudent, and though it is not improbable the Kaffirs observed the detachment of troops, from which they were distant scarcely half a mile, they did not stop on their way. They were bent on some purpose, and would not turn aside from it.

Next followed the affair of Trumpeter's Post, which Colonel Napier animadverts upon; then an attack upon Fort Peddie by 9000 Kaffirs, the gallant action of Colonel Somerset on the Gwanga, which effectually damped the ardour of the Kaffirs for some time; a second action in the Amatolas and the surrender of Umhala.

Once more Kaffraria was to be ruled with the same mistaken leniency. But the meekness and gentleness of Christianity, Mrs. Ward truly remarks, are preached in vain to the Kaffir-why, indeed, should we expect them to be more operative with savages than with some more favoured races? The fall of Captain Gibson, Dr. Howell and Mr. Chetwynd, satisfied Sir Henry Pottinger as to the efficacy of such measures. A second campaign was begun, which ultimately ended in the unconditional surrender of Sandilla and of the whole of the Kaffir nation. Kaffraria has now a commandant and chief commissioner, the head-quarters at King William's Town; other posts and forts are to be constructed; the conciliatory system is to be continued, but collisions between the troops and the natives are to be avoided, as the latter are, according to the chief commissioner, "fickle, treacherous, readily excited, and revengeful." From a subsequent personal exploration of the country, Sir Harry Smith has been induced to make the port at the mouth of the Buffalo, a British port, called East London. Two districts northward of the Stormberg mountains, and bounded eastward by the Kraal River, and northward by the Orange River, have been respectively named Victoria and Albert. It is to be hoped that such names will afford a real and not a nominal protection to the settler; and that the cost and bloodshed entailed by former errors will be a lesson to the future.

PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA IN PARIS SINCE THE REVO

LUTION.

BY CHARLES HERVEY, ESQ.

Theatricals at a Discount-The Odéon-Spectacles gratis-" Les hommes blousés” -Actor Candidates-Vaudeville-M. Prat-Mademoiselle Doche's ProgressMademoiselle Dinah Felix-Vernet.

VERILY, the managers of Parisian theatres are in the main, a gallant set of fellows! Nothing disheartens them, not even a succession of empty houses, with a prospect of no houses at all in the event of the clubs becoming more and more attractive, as they probably will. Adopting Cambronne's motto as their own, "La garde meurt et ne se rend pas," they struggle on despairingly, hopelessly, against the swift and strong current of adverse fortune.

One alone has proved a defaulter: the manager of the Odéon, a week or two after the proclamation of the republic, was "found missing," nor was his whereabouts discovered until a letter bearing the Brussels postmark informed his luckless pensionnaires that, being himself incapable under circumstances of meeting his engagements, he preferred cancelling theirs, and leaving them, if they chose to do so, to follow the prevailing fashion, and adopt a republican form of government. In its very best days the Odéon was always a losing concern; fancy then what must be its present situation, without a manager, without the means of paying the performers, or of producing novelties, forced either to keep open or to renounce all claim to the government subvention, and deserted by every actor and actress of talent it once possessed! Poor Odéon! Orate pro moribundo!

The plan adopted by M. Lockroy, the new manager of the Théâtre de la Republique, of giving occasional gratuitous representations, a certain number of admission tickets to which are sent to each mairie, appears to have created but little sensation even among the favoured many for whose especial benefit it was originally designed. Each successive performance shows, numerically speaking, a sad falling off in the audience, and it is to be feared that, unless the popular taste undergo a speedy and radical change, the actors and actresses, with Rachel at their head, will, ere long, find no one to listen to them, even for nothing ! As it is, the majority of those who do attend these representations go there to hear the "Marseillaise," and never cease shouting, drumming, and devil'stattoing, until poor Rachel comes forward like a lamb to the slaughter, and sings herself hoarse for the edification and amusement of the patriots en blouse, who, if they do fall asleep during the performance of "Corneille," or "Racine," are all alive and merry when addressed as "enfans de la Patrie."*

* It is pretty generally asserted that the officials charged with the distribution of the tickets, bearing in mind that "charity begins at home," have, on more, than one occasion, reserved a considerable number of billets for their own use, and that of their friends. At the opera, especially, the audience on free nights inva