A NARRATIVE OF THE KAFFIR WAR OF 1850-52

First London Edition: 310 pages, wood engraved frontispiece with two illustrations, 2 other engraved plates at pages 30 & 48 by Baines and engraved by R. Branston, a plan at page 74 with distances between the various forts and outposts, 2 lithographic plates at pages 175 & 251 (after Baines) lithographed by G. Parr, the text ends abruptly at page 310, recent half mottled calf with a red title label on the spine gilt, marbled paper sides, a very good copy.

'A South African Bibliography', volume 2, page 363. See also 'The Quarterly Bulletin of the South African Library', volume 8, 1954, pages 94 - 103, for an analysis of the plates in the various editions by R.F. Kennedy.

Mendelssohn (Sydney) South African Bibliography, volume 1, page 614/15, 'An earlier edition was published by Pelham Richardson, 23 Cornhill, London and Godlonton & White, Graham's Town, in which the " Advertisement " bears the date May 1851. This edition has the following quotation on the title-page:

"Keeping one consistent plan from end to end." — Horace.

‘It has 310 pages and 8 plates, and these 310 pages are represented by 471 pages of the Colonial edition, being printed much closer.

‘The work contains an incomplete history of the Kaffir War, which, commencing at the end of the year 1850, lasted till the submission of Sandilli in 1853. It is evident from the contents of the volume that the authorities of the Cape Colony, headed by Sir Harry Smith, made light of the fears of the inhabitants of the Eastern Province and the frontier, that hostilities with the Kaffirs were imminent. As late as November 9, 1850, the Governor, speaking at Graham's Town, remarked, "There never will be another Kaffir War. Should there be, it will be the last — ten days will do it. . . . We will make short work of the Kaffir question." Nine days after this speech Sir Harry Smith returned to Cape Town, only to come back in hot haste, after fifteen days' absence, to find the natives already ripe for war. The narrative of the hostilities is written from the extreme Colonial point of view, and, if the missionaries of the Kat River Settlement are not actually charged with aiding and abetting the Hottentot rebels, it is certainly insinuated that their advice to them was injudicious almost to a crime, and that the sympathy expressed for the natives, and the excuses made for them, by the missionaries, undeniably aroused the suspicion of the Colonists. It is, however, only fair to observe that (according to Wilmot's "History of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope) the Special Commissioner appointed in 1854 "to institute inquiry into the causes and extent of the rebellion,"reported " that nothing appeared against the missionaries, but that the two Reads, teachers there, had been injudicious in their dealings with alleged grievances of the Hottentots, leading them to believe that they were oppressed." In connection with these charges, it is interesting to study Mr. James Read's dun.) pamphlet, "The Kat River Settlement," and the evidence of the Rev. H. Renton before the " Select Committee on the Kaffir Tribes," which sat in the House of Commons in 1851. Mr. Renton had been fiercely attacked in South Africa in conse- quence of his attitude to the natives, and in a letter addressed to Commandant Stubbs he denied that he had in any way "countenanced the rebellion," but at a public meeting in Graham's Town, where he was openly charged with being "the apologist of the Kat River Hottentots, "he (according to the author) "shirked the real points at issue and . . . by a ruse, drew off the attention of the meeting from himself by defending the conduct of his associates."

‘The volume brings the account of the war down to the end of April 1851, and there are a number of interesting illustrations published by Pelham Richardson, London, 1851.

‘Note. Some of the plates will be found in both editions, but four views in the Graham's Town edition do not appear in the London issue, while the two engravings in the latter are not in the former.’