you
are fighting are powerful, and if they require them can bring ten men to
your one. You with assagies only cannot defeat them, for they are all
armed with guns, and are good shots. They can wear you out; for they
can destroy your crops of corn, and capture your cattle, or worry them
so that they cannot feed. You have little to gain, and all to lose.
Why do you go on this expedition?"

The three chiefs sat silent for a few minutes, and then the elder said,
"We believe the Amakosa. Their chiefs say the white men are not
numerous, and are very slow--that in spite of their guns, which are not
much use in the bush, the assagy has gained the victory; unless we fight
the white man, he will march on and will soon want our country, and we
shall be wiped out. We are now bound by promise to fight, so it is no
use now thinking any more about it. Besides, the Amakosa tell us that
the white men employed to fight are not allowed to fight as they like or
could, but are bound up with straps and tight clothes, and are made to
wear red blankets round their bodies, so as to be easily seen and
therefore easily shot. They have to carry a number of things also,
which prevent them from running fast, and tires them when they walk. So
an Amakosa warrior feels he is better able to fight than a white
soldier, who cannot move through the bush, as the thorns hold him by his
clothes; so that he cannot shoot, and is easily assagied."

I endeavoured to convince these chiefs that it was no use fighting
against the English; but they listened patiently, and then said that,
when I left my friends the whites, I was too young to be able to judge
correctly of numbers and strength, and that I should see them return
with many guns and plenty of cattle.

CHAPTER TEN.

Nearly all our fighting men had left our country, whilst I remained with
the very old men, the young boys and the women. I did not like
remaining inactive in this, way, yet I could not have fought against my
own people. I felt very dull and lonely; so took my gun and wandered in
the bush, following the old elephant-paths, and looking out for a buck
or a leopard. Left to myself, I was accustomed to sit in the bush for
hours, meditating on my past life, and on my probable future. Lately, a
strange longing had come over me to return to civilisation. The novelty
of my wild life had worn off, and the Caffres were not the companions to
me that they had been when I was younger. T