Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/166

 The territory taken from the Kafirs was accordingly restored to them, but only for a time. The policy of encroachment, incursions, cattle-lifting, seizure of pasturages and arable lands, was resumed in the debatable border country, and in 1846 the war broke out again owing to some sanguinary deeds connected with the theft of an axe. This "war of the axe," as it was called, began badly for the colonists; but after two years of campaigns, battles, and massacres, the native tribes were compelled to sue for mercy, which brought about a fresh rectification of the-frontier. The British territory was enlarged by the annexation of the district, some 120 miles broad, which lies between the Great Fish River and the Kei. Nevertheless, the eastern part of this new acquisition, to the west of the

Keiskamma, was provisionally left in the hands of the natives under the suzerainty of the British Government. But the truce lasted only two years. In 1850 the military stations established along the frontier were attacked by the Kafirs, in consequence of an outrage committed at a native burial by the English soldiers. These were at first compelled to evacuate the contested territory, and it took two years more of fierce warfare before the claims of England could be enforced. But henceforth all further resistance on the part of the natives became impossible.

Then occurred one of the most extraordinary events recorded in the annals of any nation. Feeling themselves powerless to prevail by natural means over the invaders of their country, the Kafirs, seized by a sort of collective folly, fancied