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 the tribal organisation, and making of it a house divided against itself. The upshot was civil var within the tribe, the Germans siding with Maherero.

To this initial impolicy the cattle and land questions added their causes of disturbance. Land and cattle, sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both combined, have been at the bottom of every collision between whites and blacks in South Africa. The Hereros, like the Matabele, were great herdsmen. The Blue Book states that in 1890 they "must have possessed well over" 150,000 head of cattle; that the cattle disease killed off half that number; that "something like 90,000" were left, and that by 1902 the Hereros retained 45,898, while the 1,051 German settlers then in the country possessed 44,487 between them. It is interesting to compare these totals with the Matabele totals given in the last chapter. No authority is cited for the Herero totals but, accurate or not, it is glaringly evident that from 1894, on one pretext and another, the Hereros were systematically despoiled of their herds. The robbery of cattle went hand in hand with successive encroachments upon the land of the tribe. The land syndicate formed in Germany had applied for an area in the Dependency as large as Wales and had sent out a large number of new settlers for which, in point of fact, it had made no provision. Acting under the pressure of these demands and the incessant disputes between settlers and the natives as to boundaries and cattle grazing, the local Authorities drew up in 1894 a quite arbitrary boundary line, which trenched severely upon native rights. All Herero cattle found beyond the boundary were to be impounded and sold to settlers, the proceeds to be divided between the Administration and Maherero. This suited Maherero and his clan, but naturally infuriated the other clans. Two years later, several thousand native head of cattle were seized despite the protests and tears of their owners. The act was one of sheer robbery. The whole country was convulsed. The settlers were threatened by the exasperated natives and fled to the coast. War seemed imminent. Maherero's people were, however, placated by receiving half the proceeds in accordance with the terms of the agreement. The other clans, and the Khamas—Hottentots who were also affected by the seizure, remained angry and resentful. A meeting between Leutwein and many of the chiefs for the purpose of reopening