Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1873 to 1884, Volume 1 (1919).djvu/94

 CHAPTEE IV. THE NINTH KAFFIR WAR (continued). There would have been general rejoicing when it was believed that the war with the Galekas had ended in a satisfactory manner, if it had not been that a revolt of the Earabe clans west of the Kei seemed exceedingly probable. The chiefs when spoken to professed to be loyal, but cattle stealing was carried on by their people on a scale never known before except on the eve of a war, and they made no effort to prevent it. Few of the farmers in the frontier districts considered it prudent to remove their families from places of refuge, and of course all cultivation of the ground had ceased. Any trifling occurrence at a Kaffir kraal was sufficient to cause widespread alarm, and rumour magnified every movement of a chief into an act indicating an intention to rebel. On the 22nd of November all the Kaffirs at work on the railway deserted without giving notice, it was assumed because their chiefs had called them home to take part in war. An event at this time, in connection with a Ndlambe clan, added much to the general anxiety. The great son of the late chief Umhala was named Mackinnon. After the self-destruction of the clan in 1857 he wandered about for several years, but when land was given to Kreli between the Kei and the Bashee, he went to live there as a subject of the Galeka chief. One of his half-brothers, Smith by name, had been located by Major Gawler at Idutywa, and another half-brother, named Ndimba, took up his residence in the Gaika 74