THK KUONTIKII. lilt AM A KOSA K A FI IIS. 
'* \Vak«;, Aumkusa, tvakc! 
And muster for the war: 
The wizard wolves from Keisi’* lint Ire, 
The vultures from afar. 
Are gathering at l/hlanga's call, 
And following fast our westward way, 
l ? or will they know, ere evening fall. 
They shall have glorious prey!" 
Thk Amakosa. or Frontier Kafirs, as they are frequently called, are those tribes whose territory borders upon 
the Cape Colony from the Winterberg to the coast; and it is with them that European intercourse, both in peace 
and war, has been far more usual than with the tribes 
farther north. It is with the Amakosa, that the long and 
sanguinary war called “ the Kafir war.” has been waged by 
the British Government, — a war that originally arose from 
the marauding attacks of the Dutch freebooters upon the 
Tamhookies, who plundered them of their cattle and sheep, 
and slaughtered many of the inhabitants. Retaliation on the 
part of the Kafirs was the consequence, and a deadly hatred 
against the colonists was implanted in every breast, from father 
to son, — a feeling of revenge, that every fresh outbreak only 
served to strengthen and confirm. From 1786, when the 
Boors, with the assistance of Islambi, cut to pieces the 
whole of the Gunuquebi elan, there has been a constant 
succession of wars between the Frontier Kafirs and the Cape 
colonists. The Kafirs, forming marauding expeditions and 
possessing themselves of the colonial cattle, are often the 
aggressors; but too frequently the injustice and cruelty of 
the whites have given them just cause for revenge. In 1811, 
the determination of the Colonial Government to drive the 
whole of the Kafirs beyond the Great Fish River, from a 
country they had inhabited for nearly a century, and at a 
period when their crops of maize and millet were all hut 
ripe, was the commencement of a war of some thirty years 
standing — a series of campaigns, neither creditable to Britain 
nor beneficial to the colonists — plunging the settlers in 
misery and poverty, and costing the nation three millions 
of money. Indeed, up to the arrival of the present go¬ 
vernor, Sir Ilarry Smith, in the Cape Colony, no prospect of 
a cessation of hostilities between the whites and the original possessors of the soil was at all manifest; that able 
general has now established peace throughout Kaffraria. by employing a system of “moral conquest,” more effective 
than all the guns and bayonets for the last thirty years. Sir Harry Smith landed at Cape Town on the 1st December, 
1847. and on the 1st March, 1848, returned in triumph to the seat of Government, having gone through the entire 
country from the Cape to Natal, and restored peace, justice, and good-will amongst all races, in the incredibly short 
period of three months. 
The accompanying portrait is of Maeomo. the son of Gaika, one of the leading Amakosa chiefs connected with 
the late war. He is a man of sound sense, and displays a fine, intellectual forehead. Many years ago he was 
driven from the Kat River, across the Chuuii, when he was living peaceably on the neutral ground ; his people died 
amongst the mountains from cold and hunger; his corn was left to perish, and his cattle lost their pasturage; yet 
MACOMO AN 11 IUS WIFfi NOX’MvNA. 
K 
