Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1873 to 1884, Volume 1 (1919).djvu/69

 tS??] Sir Ba7'tle F^'ere. 49 chief was subjected, that at the close of 1876 it was considered necessary to restore Gangelizwe to his former rank and to treat him as the highest Bantu official in the country. Several years elapsed before the four districts of Tembuland Proper were formally annexed to the Cape Colony in the same way as the eleven previously men- tioned, but they were treated in exactly the same manner, and the same laws and regulations were applied to them all. In August 1877, when the outbreak of the war took place, an account of which will be given in the next chapter, the greater part of the territory between the river Kei and Natal had thus been brought under the government of the Cape Colony, only Emigrant Tembu- land, Galekaland, Bomvanaland, the Xesibe district, and Pondoland remaining independent. On the 31st of March 1877 Sir Henry Barkly was succeeded as governor of the Cape Colony and high commissioner for South Africa by the right honourable Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere. The new governor was a man of great talents, and in India had performed eminent service to the empire, so that the colonists felt flattered by his appointment. He had been selected by Lord Carnarvon on account of the suavity of his manners, as well as his universally acknowledged abilities, to carry out the project of confederation, which was a favourite idea of the English ministry. At Lord Carnar- von's instance an act had been passed by the imperial parliament to enable the colonies and states of South Africa to unite under one government and legislature, for he had not yet realised that the condition of things at the time made such union impossible. The task allotted to Sir Bartle Frere was one that no man who ever lived could accomplish, and it does not detract in the least from his reputation that he failed to carry it out. 5