Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1873 to 1884, Volume 1 (1919).djvu/80

 6o History of the Cape Colony. [1877 Mapasa, with whose people the war originated, at this stage abandoned the cause of his tribe, crossed the Kei hurriedly, and asked the colonial government for protec- tion. A portion of his clan followed him, but many of his best warriors, led by his nephew Kiva, a daring and very popular chieftain, joined Kreli's army. Those who adhered to Mapasa were sent to reside temporarily on some vacant land west of the Kei, where it was found that they numbered four thousand three hundred and fifteen individuals of both sexes and all ages. Mapasa had with him five thousand four hundred head of horned cattle, but of these he was required to deliver five hundred to make good the damage his people had done to the Fingos. A European officer was stationed with him, and his people gave no trouble. To this time the Galekas had constantly asserted that they were making war upon the Fingos only, and had no wish to molest Europeans, but on the 26th of September an army five thousand strong crossed the border and had an encounter with the mounted police under Inspector Chalmers at Gwadana a few miles east of Ibeka in the Idutywa district. Mr. Chalmers had eighty European police and .fifteen hundred Fingos with him. The police were men of a different stamp from those who had done such excellent service under Sir Walter Currie in earlier days. They were mainly boys recruited in England, and were without that experience in riding and shooting and skirmishing with Kaffirs that the young colonists of the former force invariably had. As far as education from books was concerned they were decidedly superior, but they were ignorant of all the devices necessary in South African warfare for main- taining their horses and themselves in good condition. Eighty of Sir Walter Currie's men would have faced a Galeka army with almost a certainty of success, but eighty of the as yet untrained lads who had taken their places could not be regarded as a force of much