Twin and Qukezwa were quarreling all the time. He was unhappy that she had led them to the land of the amaMfengu, who were known traitors in alliance with the British. They had ignored the prophecies of Nongqawuse and had become rich by buying cattle cheaply from the Believers. Now they were slaughtering cattle and feeding the amafaca, the emaciated ones.
“Would you rather we had died at Qolorha?” asked Qukezwa.
He could not answer that, but continued to moan about the treacherous nature of their saviors. He threatened that as soon as he got strong enough he would leave. He would go back to the land of his forefathers.
“You have nothing. What will you do there?” Qukezwa reasoned.
“I will find Twin-Twin,” he said. But there was no conviction in his voice. “Or I will go to Lesotho or to the land of the amaMpondo and the amaMpondomise. Many Believers have taken refuge there. It is not as humiliating as it is here.”
Qukezwa just chuckled and said that maybe Twin-Twin would welcome him with open arms after all the mischief that Twin had done against him. Then she went to feed Heitsi with umphokoqo maize porridge and creamy amasi sour milk.
Twin-Twin, of course, was in no mood to welcome any of the people who had caused the downfall of his nation. He was still receiving protection from the colonial government through John Gawler and John Dalton. Dalton had been eager to retire from the colonial service to start his own business, but he had been persuaded to remain in the service of the great queen, at least until things settled on the frontier and in British Kaffraria. He was now a magistrate in his own right. He was permanently based at Chief Nxito’s chiefdom, and was therefore directly responsible for protecting both Twin-Twin and the aging chief from the marauding Believers.
But Twin-Twin was more disillusioned with the colonial government than ever. The Man Who Named Ten Rivers, who had styled himself The Great Benefactor of the Non-European Peoples of the World, was taking advantage of the defenseless amaXhosa and was grabbing more and more of their land for white settlement. Twin-Twin’s scars itched all over when he heard stories of advancing parties of settlers who were demarcating for themselves chunks of farmland on the ruins of the Believers’ homesteads. Those amaXhosa who continued to occupy their homesteads suddenly discovered that they were squatters on their own land and now had to work for the new masters.
The Man Who Named Ten Rivers ordered that only those who agreed to work for the colonists would be given famine relief. Many amaXhosa found themselves working as slaves in white settlements, being paid only in food rations.
“We are achieving what we set out to do,” he benevolently told his magistrates. “The Xhosa are becoming useful servants, consumers of our goods, contributors to our revenue. Like the Maori of New Zealand, these people are not irreclaimable savages. We should make them a part of ourselves, with a common faith and common interests.”
He was happy that all his plans were coming together so nicely. It had always been his intention to break the independence of the amaXhosa by destroying the powers of the chiefs, and forcing their subjects from their land to work for white settlers on their farms and in their towns. He was achieving this sooner than he had expected. Thanks to the cattle-killing movement.
The magistrates, however, felt that Sir George was sending mixed messages. He was constantly complaining to them about what he called indiscriminate benevolence. The magistrates were dishing out charity to people who were still able to work. According to Sir George, this was not true charity. Indiscriminate charity would attract hordes of natives to Kingwilliamstown, he said. Some would come from as far as Zulu-land to take advantage of the soup that was being given at the Kaffir Relief House — a charitable institution established by the missionaries.
“I do not understand what Sir George is trying to achieve,” said Dalton one day as he rode with Gawler among the skulls and fragments of human bones near the Gxarha River. “He is trying to break the Kaffir Relief Committee because he claims their charity is attracting masses of natives to Kingwilliamstown. Yet at the same time he is sending his officers to recruit more natives to work as laborers in the colony.”
“You never know with Sir George,” said Gawler. “I think he wants to close the Kaffir Relief House.”
“He should just close it and not make excuses. Now he is accusing us of indiscriminate charity.”
“He knows what he is doing. He is a brilliant man.”
“You like the man, don’t you? You are the one who puts his theories into practice.”
“On the contrary, I don’t like the man. I am faithful to him for the good of the British Empire. He is an excellent governor. And humane too. But I don’t like the man.”
“You don’t like him? I don’t believe that.”
“Because you do not know what he did to my father, who was the governor of Southern Australia. My dear father lost his job after Sir George’s denunciations. They claimed he had mismanaged the finances of the colony. What is more, Sir George denounced my father after my family had given him wonderful hospitality at our home.”
The Man Who Named Ten Rivers’ opposition to indiscriminate charity extended to the amaMfengu. He could not tolerate their humanity towards the amafaca, the emaciated ones, and instructed their chief to expel those amaXhosa who had found refuge among his people. Twin and Qukezwa were among the thousands of people who were driven out of the land of the amaMfengu. Two thousand of these refugees were handed over to the colonial labor officers. Twin was too weak to attract the interest of anyone at the labor market. He ended up an inmate of the Kaffir Relief House, and there he lived with people who had been made raving mad by starvation, until he went raving mad himself. Meanwhile, Qukezwa wandered from village to village with Heitsi, begging for scraps of food. She hoped that one day she would locate her Khoikhoi people and would be welcomed into their warm bosom.
Twin-Twin heard how thousands of his people had died as a result of the cattle-killing movement. He heard of the activities of The Man Who Named Ten Rivers. He saw with his own eyes white settlements spreading over the lands of his people. He was filled with bitterness and his scars went wild.
He and Chief Nxito shook their heads over the disaster that had befallen their people.
“We have been cheated,” he told Nxito. “These people through whose ears the sun shines are spreading like a plague in kwaXhosa.”
“What can we do? We are a defeated people,” said the old chief.
“It must be true that The Man Who Named Ten Rivers planned all this cattle-killing business,” said Twin-Twin. “He is the one who planted these ideas in the mind of Nongqawuse. He wanted the amaXhosa people to defeat themselves. Now he is enjoying the spoils of victory without having lifted a finger.”
“What can we do?” repeated Nxito tiredly. “We are a conquered people.”
“And we helped them to conquer us! Just like that foolish King Ngqika, the very father of General Maqoma, the hero of the War of Mlanjeni. When these white people first came, the alcoholic King Ngqika believed that they were his subjects. He welcomed them and allowed them to preach their gospel among his people. When he woke up the next morning they had taken his entire country and he was their subject.”
“Many people are now turning to the god of the white man, for they have seen that he is more powerful than our god,” said Nxito.
“He is not powerful at all,” said Twin-Twin dismissively. “Is he not the one who sat idle while the white people killed his son? I for one am tired of all these gods.”
Twin-Twin went away to brood on the dangers of religion.