THE CAFFRE OUTBREAK.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1284, 1 May 1878, Page 3

THE CAFFRE OUTBREAK.

Concerning the difficulties at the Cape the correspondent of the London "Times" writes: — Tho hostilities arising out of the rebellious Caffrc outbreak along the colonial frontier in which Her Majesty's troops and the colonial auxiliary forces are now engaged can scarcely be called " war." And yet the state of affairs they create is somewhat worse than war. There is no safety whatever either for life or property. The savage enemy ruthlessly shoots down the "express" carrying the mails from post to post, as in the case of Private Breen, of the Frontier Armed and Mounter? Police, who on New Year's day was killed six miles from the Impetu camp, and whose body was found pierced with twenty assegai wounds and the skull fractured ; or he sets fire to farmers' homesteads and other combustible property, and carries off flocks and herds, leaving the] European owner to gaze upon bare, blackened walls as the only result of many years' labor ; or he makes a sudden raid upon a small detachment of soldiers or police whom he sees he can take at a disadvantage, or threatens some imperfectly defended town or village where women and children are taking refuge. To capture all the cattle within his reach, to burn or destroy what he cannot carry away, and to murder as many white men as he can is the main object of the Caffre in war. Whenever an overwhelming force is marched against him, he retreats to the shelter afforded by the nearest dense bush and broken ground, and when driven from any one of such positions he flies to another, his intimate knowledge of the country and his ileetness of foot enabling him to do so under cover of night with such rapidity that there is no overtaking him. Together "with all this, bear in mind the advantages the savage possesses over the civilized man. He needs no commissariat or medical department. His gun or bundle of assegais and his kaross are all he requires to carry, and a captured sheep or ox, quickly cut up, supplies his material wants. He has no valuable homestea-i to be burnt or accumu lations of property \q leave behind him. His hut, if destroyed, can be rebuilt in a week, and his cattle can be replaced on the old highland rover's plan. Such is the character of our enemy, and such tho siyle of inglorious guerrilla warfare we have entered upon, and which, it is feared, will be protracted for an period before he is effectually subdued vm submits.