One Umdava originated the practice of eating human
flesh. Gathering together the fragments of four scattered tribes, he
trained them to hunt human beings as others hunted game. This gang was
a greater scourge to the country surrounding the present site of
Pietermaritzburg than even Tshaka's murdering hordes. It was broken up
in or about the year 1824, when the Europeans first came to the country,
and the remnants of many scattered tribes returned and settled under
their protection.
All this is history with which most people in South Africa are familiar,
but many do not know that some of the cannibals fled to Basutoland,
where, among almost inaccessible mountains, they carried on their
horrible practices for many years.
It is a well-known fact that when men once surrender themselves to any
unnatural and brutal vice, the gratification of the abnormal instinct
thus acquired becomes the most imperative need of their nature.
The Falkland Islands case, as bearing specially upon the foregoing
narrative, may be mentioned. Some convicts escaped from the Falkland
Island convict station, and succeeded in reaching the coast of
Patagonia.
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