'He was instructed,' Sir George bore witness, 'to imagine a flock of
sheep making for a gap in a wall. Then, as he lay sleepless on his
pillow, he was to watch the leader jump the gap, and count the other
sheep, one by one, as they followed. The undertaking: was that before the
last sheep had cleared the gap, sleep should woo him. Nothing new, you
see!
'But, having paid his sovereign the Bishop fancied that he might try the
notion, and he did so. He confessed, with amusement, that the remedy had
not done him any good, and enjoined that I might experiment without pre-
payment. To carry on the fun I did this, and upon my word I think the
remedy helped me once or twice. It was rather unfair to the Bishop that I
should reap the harvest of his sovereign.'
There were to be sleepless nights for Sir George, arising from an event
which he believed to be unique in history. Some of the Kaffir chiefs,
especially the older ones, saw a danger signal in the lamp of native
progress. To them, it denoted the rising power of the white, before whom
all black men would be driven out. These fears were magnetised into a
great upheaval, at the word of a young Kaffir girl turned prophetess. She
uprose, a dark but comely Maid of Orleans, a Messiah to her people and
her message swept Kaffraria like a wind.
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