130 
SPORT AND WAR. 
CHAP. XVII. 
subjects. These demands, however, were treated with 
contempt by all the native chiefs. At about this stage 
of affairs the Governor, Sir Harry Smith, arrived on 
the frontier from Cape Town, and at once proceeded to 
the head-quarters of the troops at Fort Cos. Several 
days’ negotiations followed with the Gaika chiefs and 
head men of the tribes; but Sandilli remained con¬ 
tumacious, and the Governor came to the decision to 
depose him from his royal chieftainship, and to appoint 
Mr. Brownlee Regent to the Gaika tribes. 
It may not, perhaps, be right for me to criticise 
these measures, but Sir Harry made a great mistake in 
this decision; and Mr. Brownlee, who was his adviser, 
ought to have known better. He was the son of a mis¬ 
sionary, and had grown up amongst the Kafirs. He 
should therefore have been aware that the feeling of 
loyalty to their hereditary chiefs and the clanship of 
the Kafirs are quite as strong as those of the Scottish 
Highlanders to their chieftains. However, the error 
once committed, troops were ordered to march into 
the Amatola Mountains, with a view to capture or take 
Sandilli prisoner. It was the old story of putting salt 
on a bird’s tail, and the same results were about to take 
place. 
One column of troops was despatched from King 
William’s Town to the sources of the Kaboosie River, 
east of the Amatola Mountains, with the object of 
