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Updated: June 10, 2025
"`We lived in peace; some bad people stole, perhaps; but the nation was quiet; Gaika stole; his chiefs stole; you sent him copper; you sent him beads; you sent him horses, on which he rode to steal more; to us you only sent commandoes.
That domineering fellow Lord Charles Somerset, intending to check the plundering of the colony by Kafirs, chose to enter into treaties with Gaika as paramount chief of Kafirland, although Gaika himself told him plainly that he was not paramount chief. Of course the other chiefs were indignant, and refused to recognise such treaties.
Before many months the flock had to be disposed of at a ruinous loss. Thus ingloriously ended my first and last adventure as a stock-farmer. My next essay, towards wooing fortune was in the line of Kaffir trading. I hired myself to a trader, whose shop was in the Gaika Reserve, close to the kraal of the celebrated Chief Sandile, not far from Tembani.
"Well, it was even-handed not justice, but injustice, at all events." "Exactly so; and so thought Gaika, for when speaking of the protection he received from the colonial government, he said, `But when I look upon the large extent of fine country which has been taken from me, I am compelled to say, that, although protected, I am rather oppressed by my protectors."
"No; it ended in a manner every way worthy of that in which it was begun. You recollect that the war was commenced to support Gaika, our selected chief of the Caffres, against the real chiefs.
Her father was an Englishman, and her mother a Gaika Kafir; she had passed her childhood in a native hut, and when, five years previously, she was sent to the mission, she was in a condition of absolute savagery. In the mission school her Aryan blood told; she kept easily ahead of the other girls, and took all the best prizes.
"It so happened that the other Caffre chiefs formed a powerful confederacy against Gaika, who, trusting to the support of the English, had treated them with great arrogance. They fought and conquered him, carrying off, as usual, his cattle.
You wish us to submit to Gaika; that man's face is fair to you, but his heart is false; leave him to himself; make peace with us: let him fight for himself; and we shall not call upon you for help; set Mokanna at liberty, and all our chiefs will make peace with you at any time you fix; but if you still make war, you may indeed kill the last man of us, but Gaika shall not rule over the followers of those who think him a woman.
This was exacted, in order that there might be a neutral ground to separate the Caffres and the Dutch boors, and put an end to further robberies on either side. The strangest part of the story is, that this territory was not taken away from the Caffre chiefs, against whom we had made war, but from Gaika, our ally, to support whom we had entered into the war."
"It may be proper, however, to state the causes which led to this Caffre war with the English. At this time the colonial governor had entered into negotiations with a Caffre chief of the name of Gaika. He was a chief of a portion of the Caffres, but not the principal chief, and although the English treated with him as such, the Caffres would not acknowledge his authority.
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