Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1795 to 1872, Volume 2 (4th ed, 1915).djvu/27

 1829] Sir Lowry Cote, 7 English governor. This was their version of the story, and in telling it, they carefully omitted to state that they had been among the most active invaders of the colony in 1819, and that they had lost the land in war, having been driven from it before the governor announced to Gaika that it was to form part of a neutral belt between the Kaffirs and the colonists. Mr. Shaw urged the colonial government to give the Gunukwebes permission to reoccupy the district, but Lord Charles Somerset declined to put them in possession again of the jungles along the Fish river, which he considered would be an act of extreme folly. In January 1825, however, he con- sented to permit some temporary grazing privileges, which was the utmost that could be obtained from him. As soon as he left the colony, the missionary renewed the request, but Lieutenant-Colonel Somerset strongly opposed it. General Bourke referred the matter to Earl Bathurst, with a recom- mendation that the Gunukwebe clans should be allowed to occupy the lower portion of the ceded territory, and that Kaffirs should be permitted to come into the colony and take service with the British settlers. In August 1826 the secretary of state issued directions that neither Kaffirs nor colonists should be allowed to settle in any part of the ceded territory ; but when General Bourke's recommendation reached him, he so far modified these in- structions as to permit the Gunukwebe chiefs to graze cattle between the Keiskama and the Beka rivers as far up as the Gwanga. This was sufficient for their purposes. Once permitted to cross the Keiskama to tend their cattle, they quickly moved in and built kraals, and in 1829 Sir Lowry Cole found that they could not be dispossessed without bloodshed. At length an event occurred which made it necessary to bring Makoma to account. A small clan under a captain named Mtyalela had recently moved from the neighbourhood of the Umtata into the country north of the Winterberg, which was thinly occupied by the emigrant Tembus under