ned, 'for declining to permit of any
change of our military position. First, it would have been an
encouragement to the Kaffirs to attack us, for they would have supposed
us in retreat. Second, we should have been leaving open, country where
there were European families. Again, the appearance of weakening, on our
part, would have driven over the Kaffirs who hesitated, to the side of
those who clamoured to attack us. I made it a rule always, and in all
things, only to take a step after the most careful and mature thought;
but once it had been taken, never to go back upon it. It's a very bad
business when you begin to retreat.'

Nothing happened in the manner Nongkause and the wily Umhlakaza had
foretold, unless the destruction of Kaffir stock and grain. Two blood-red
suns did not flame in the east; neither did the moon, in any of her
humours, light the ancient chiefs along, the now precious cattle with
them. A mist came up of an afternoon, but no day of darkness followed.
Breezes blew, cheering the hot air to freshness; never a hurricane which
should break the lintels of the white man's doors. It was weary to wait
and starve, with a Governor on the flank, plucking all guidance out of an
insurrection.

If the gods of Nongkause had excited a less perfect trust, there might
have been a rush on Cape Colony. As it was, the belief lived long enough
in the Kaffirs to defeat its own purpose. Their suffering grew acute,
nature asserted itself over superstition, and their one cry was 'Give us
to eat.' They dug up roots, and they strove for the supplies which the
Governor threw into the country, when famine drove Nongkause's nostrum
out. Desperate crowds of the hungry surged over hill and plain, while
strength lasted, and then lay down to die. No question remained of
keeping a mad Kaffraria at bay. The whole effort was to rescue, as far as
was possible, the Kaffirs from death by want.

Civilisation drove forward in a mortuary cart; but it was civilisation.
The spirit of Kaffraria had been quenched; it was a last wild stand. Sir
George Grey meditated on the means, so unexpected, so beyond man's
control, which had enhanced the securities for peace in South Africa. He
could do that, believing Providence to be an all-wise, if often
inscrutable ruler, and at the same time declare: 'There was a heroic
element in the action of the Kaffirs, for we see what they were willing
to endure at the bidding, as they believed, of their ancestors,