Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1873 to 1884, Volume 1 (1919).djvu/47

1876] Europeans, and so white farmers were giving place to blacks in many localities.

When a farmer leased land to Bantu, his neighbours made a great cry against him, but they were soon obliged to follow his example and go and live elsewhere. On the right bank of the Keiskama at the junction with the Tyumie a block of three farms had been purchased by Oba, son of Tyali, who had left the Gaika location with many hundred followers and gone to live there. Some Imidange, the most expert thieves in the whole country, had taken up their residence on one of these farms also. Tini, a son of Makoma, had actually purchased ground in the Waterkloof, where his father had been able to hold out so long in the war of 1850–52, and had moved to it from the Gaika location with a large body of retainers. It was only natural that the Xosas should try to recover in this way the land they had lost, and it would be most unfair to describe their motives as criminal; but looking at the matter from the farmers' standpoint, the position had become dangerous, and the march of civilisation was threatened.

Mission work was effecting changes with a small section of the Xosas, and other agencies were operating in bringing them more into line with European habits, but the great majority still clung to the ideals and customs of their ancestors. If they had adopted the use of iron pots, of blankets, or even the clothing of the white people, and frequently of ploughs, that did not indicate a change of much value. They all desired to have guns, but every savage does that. The Xosas in fact were an intensely conservative people, and just because they were, when any of them did make a change it was likely to be lasting. In course of time they would probably take a place among the most advanced coloured people in the world, but in 1876 that time was not yet in sight. Still there were indications that it would come, for a community that could produce