check the despoiling course of the English, were organized under the influence and counsel of Makanna, a prophet who assumed the sacred character to combine and rouse his countrymen to overturn their oppressors: for not knowing the vast resources of the English, he fondly deemed that if they could vanquish those at the Cape they should be freed from their power; "and then," said he, "we will sit down and eat honey!"
In this, as in so many other particulars, the Caffres resemble the American Indians. Scarcely a confederacy amongst those which have appeared for the purpose of resisting the aggressions on the Indians but have been inspired and led on by prophets, as the brother of Tecumseh, amongst the Shawanees; the son of Black-Hauk, Wabokieshiek, amongst the Sacs; Monohoe, and others, amongst the Creeks who fell at the bloody battle of Horse-shoe-bend.
Makanna had by his talents and pretences raised himself from the common herd to the rank of a chief, and soon gained complete ascendency over all the chiefs except Gaika, to whom he was opposed as the ally of the English. He went amongst the missionaries and acquired so much knowledge of Christianity as served him to build a certain motley creed upon, by which he mystified and awed the common people. After Col. Brereton's devastations he roused up his countrymen to a simultaneous attack upon Graham's Town. He and Dushani, the son of Islambi, mustered their exasperated hosts to the number of nine or ten thousand in the forests of the Great Fish River, and one morning at the break of day these infuriated troops were seen rushing down from the mountains near Graham's Town to assault it. A bloody conflict
