A SOUTH AFRICAN REMINISCENCE OF 5877.

Otago Witness, Issue 2323, 8 September 1898, Page 59

A SOUTH AFRICAN REMINISCENCE OF 5877.

The latter end of 1877 found me, 'then a major in a vrell-kncnvn fighting regiment,, quartered in South Africa, detached for special service with the colonial forces, j which were being hastily raised and equipped on account of the threatening condition of the Kaffirs, both in the Transkci und Ciskei. ... A few days after the •war had broken out I stopped a. day at King Wiiliamstown on my way to the front, and vent to dine with ai/ old friend there — one of the ci'-il magistrates of the district. About the .aiddle of our repast my host was suddenly called out to a Kami woman, who sent to say she must see him at once. Thinking she might be the bearer ot important intelligence front the front, he at once complied with hei request. Aftei a few momei.ts he sent a messenger desiring my presence in the little room which served as an " office. There I saw. standing in an attitude (suggesting complete abandonment and despair, a Kaffir woman, about 46 years old, who had come to give heivelf up for murder. Her story, which I heard translated in the presence of the magistrate and his clerk, was a remarkable one, its dramatic interest being intensified by the passion with which the woman, a magnificent specimen of the early development of her race, narrated it. Her words, emphasised by excited gestures as she acted every scene, rushed forth more like a verbal volcano than language, and sorely tried the clerk and my host in following the details, although both understood her tongue thoroughly. The poor j creature would for a few minutes, in trying to curb her excitement, almost whisper her story, but it soon worked up again to a j scream, her appearance as she paced up and down the verandah being more that of a tigre?s than a human being. I remember well her ever-increasing excitement as she realised that, although we were quietly smoking our pipes, Are were .strongly sympathising with her, and were keenly interested in the graphic description of the sad event. To enable me to recapitulate her story, I must briefly mention that in 1877 a party of English navvies weie at work under a contractor building the bridge over the River Kei, at the drift which connected the old trading waggon route on either side cf the rivei. The Transkei were there under tLe chieftainship of Kreli, who was the first j to commence open hostilities with us. With one of these navvies this poor girl had thrown in her lot, and, loyally and faithfully as his wife, served and loved him with all the wild fashion of her savage nature, j The kindly, tender treatment of this fine, strong, handsome Yorkshire navvy, who stood 6ft in his stockings, being so different to what falls to the lot of most Kaffir women [who are made to cultivate the ground and do all the rough work), doubtless intensified her love for him until it became a worship. She described how she managed their solitary but happy home on the banks of the Kei, walking into King Wiiliamstown and back once or twice a week (some 40 miles), carrying out on her head a basket containing their necessary piovisions. This journey, which sounds such an undertaking to European minds, was nothing to a woman of her race, for at 16 years of age sho combined strength with dignity, and walked with that delicate poise of the head and graceful movement from the hips rarely noticeable except in those races whose simplicity of dress has left unrestricted the natural movements of the limbs as Mother Nature intended them to be. The navvy had been warned, we subsequently heard, of the clariyer of his solitary

position, and advised to go into camp with the rest of the gang for mutual protection ; I but the poor chap lelc secure and happy in ! his hut, and ignored the warning. One of the first outiages at the commencement ci the war was a visit paid by a party of Transkei Kaffirs to this hut and the brutal murder of the poor navvy as he lay asleep awaiting the return of his faithful friend from King Williamstown. Her terrible anguish and rage at finding the dead, muti- [ j tilated body of the man she loved with hII her soul were described by her with all the horrible details in the manner I have at- ■ tempted to depict. She subsequently (inI terrupted by sobs heartrending to hear) *c- ! lated to us how, after an interval of grief to wild and intense as to have temporarily maddened her, she successfully followed *he spoor of the murderers, th^ee in number, and, after two days and nights, came up with them without their realising that they were being tracked. Waiting until they slept .vhe stole up and assegaied them all, one after the other, returning after a short j rest to King William&town, where she surrendered herself. . . . We smoked on in silence for some minutes, and I waited to hear with some curiosity whether my friend would consider it necessary to send for the police and lodge the poor creature in gaol. My fears were ■ quickly set at rest by his going up to her and j saying, in his kindliest voice (forgetting for 1 the moment that she did not understand ! English), " Come, come, my poor wench, don't give way," then calling up one of his "servants, he ordered the poor thing (speaking the language she undei stood) to be fed and made comfortable in one of his outhouses. On the following day I heard that, affer necessary formalities, she was dismissed ok her own recognisances. The whole tragedy having occurred after Avar had Leen declared I presume had enabled him to take this view of the cose. The end of the incident ix soon told. She was placed by the magistrate in a comfortable home at a, neighbouring mission station, where for some six months she pireJ away, -never recovering her energy or interest 'in life, but eagerly grasping the comforting belief in the future recognition in another world of loved ones gone before as taught her by the misaionarj-. One day she was missed, but easily traced to the ruins of the hut where the happiest period of her life had been passed, lying dead, with her best blanket j wrapped round her, and clutching in her hand a small bundle containing an old pipe (her late husband's), a packet of tobacco, an old comic song book, and a small sum of ! money, probably the change she had brought back from her last day's marketing before her life became a blank. — Colonel A. A. Owes;, in the Cape Illustrated Magazine.