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Title: Impressions of South Africa

Author: James Bryce

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Language: English

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IMPRESSIONS
OF SOUTH AFRICA

BY

JAMES BRYCE

AUTHOR OF "THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE," "TRANSCAUCASIA AND ARARAT,"
"THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH," ETC.

With Three Maps.

THIRD EDITION, REVISED THROUGHOUT

WITH A NEW PREFATORY CHAPTER, AND WITH THE
TRANSVAAL CONVENTIONS OF 1881 AND 1884

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
1899

All rights reserved

Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, LONDON AND BUNGAY.

First Edition, 8vo. November 1897

Reprinted, November 1897

Second Edition, January 1898

Third Edition, Crown 8vo. November 1899

Reprinted, December 1899

TO

THE COMPANION OF MY JOURNEY

[Pg vii]

PREFATORY CHAPTER

This new edition has been carefully revised throughout, and, as far as possible, brought up to date by noting, in their proper places, the chief events of importance that have occurred since the book first appeared. In the historical chapters, however, and in those which deal with recent politics, no changes have been made save such as were needed for the correction of one or two slight errors of fact, and for the mention of new facts, later in date than the first edition. I have left the statements of my own views exactly as they were first written, even where I thought that the form of a statement might be verbally improved, not only because I still adhere to those views, but also because I desire it to be clearly understood that they were formed and expressed before the events of the last few months, and without any reference to the controversies of the moment.

When the first edition of the book was published (at the end of 1897) there was strong reason to believe as well as to hope that a race conflict in South Africa would be avoided, and that the political problems it presents, acute as they had become early in 1896, would be solved in a peaceable way. To this belief and[Pg viii] hope I gave expression in the concluding chapter of the book, indicating "tact, coolness and patience, above all, patience," as the qualities needed to attain that result which all friends of the country must unite in desiring.

Now, however, (October 1899), Britain and her South African Colonies and territories find themselves at war with the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. A new chapter is opened in the history of the country which completely alters the situation, and must necessarily leave things very different from what it found them. Readers of this new edition may reasonably expect to find in it some account of the events which have within the last two years led up to this catastrophe, or at any rate some estimate of that conduct of affairs by the three governments concerned which has brought about a result all three ought to have sought to avert.

There are, however, conclusive reasons against attempting to continue down to the outbreak of the war (October 11th) the historical sketch given in Chapters II to XII. The materials for the historian are still scanty and imperfect, leaving him with data scarcely sufficient for judging the intention and motives with which some things were done. Round the acts and words of the representatives of the three governments concerned, there rages such a storm of controversy, that whoever places a particular construction upon those acts and words must need support his construction by citations from documents and arguments based on those citations. To do this would need a space much larger than I can command. The most[Pg ix] serious difficulty, however, is that when events are close to us and excite strong feelings, men distrust the impartiality of a historian even when he does his best to be impartial. I shall not, therefore, attempt to write a history of the last two fateful years, but content myself first, with calling the reader's attention to a few salient facts that have occurred since 1896, and to some aspects of the case which have been little considered in England; and secondly, with describing as clearly and estimating as cautiously as I can, the forces that have worked during those years with such swift and deadly effect.

Some of these facts may be dismissed with a word or two, because they lie outside the present crisis. One is the entrance of the Colony of Natal into the South African Customs Union, an event which created one uniform tariff system for the whole of British and Dutch South Africa except the Transvaal. Another is the extension of the two great lines of railway from the coast into the interior. This extension has given Bulawayo and Matabililand a swift and easy communication with Cape Town, thereby strengthening immensely the hold of Britain upon the interior, and lessening any risk that might be feared of future native risings. It has also opened up a new and quick route from the coast of the Indian Ocean at Beira into the heart of Mashonaland, and brought the construction of a railway from Mashonaland across the Zambesi to Lake Tanganyika within the horizon of practicable enterprises. A scheme of government has been settled for the territories of the British South Africa Company south of the Zambesi (Southern Rhodesia), which is[Pg x] now at work. The prospects of gold mining in that region are believed to have improved, and the increase of gold production in the mines of the Witwatersrand has proved even more rapid than was expected in 1896. An agreement has been concluded between Britain and the German Empire relating to their interests on the coast of the Indian Ocean, which, though its terms have not been disclosed, is generally understood to have removed an obstacle which might have been feared to the acquisition by Britain of such rights at Delagoa Bay as she may be able to obtain from Portugal, and to have withdrawn from the South African Republic any hope that State might have cherished of support from Germany in the event of a breach with Britain.

These events, however, great as is their bearing on the future, are of less present moment than those which have sprung from Dr. Jameson's expedition into the Transvaal in December, 1895, and the internal troubles in that State which caused and accompanied his enterprise. It rekindled race feeling all over South Africa, and has had the most disastrous effects upon every part of the country. To understand these effects it is necessary to understand the state of opinion in the British Colonies and in the two Republics before it took place. Let us examine these communities separately.

In Cape Colony and Natal there was before December, 1895, no hostility at all between the British and the Dutch elements. Political parties in Cape Colony were, in a broad sense, British and Dutch, but the distinction was really based not so much on racial differences as on economic interests. The rural element[Pg xi] which desired a protective tariff and laws regulating native labour, was mainly Dutch, the commercial element almost wholly British. Mr. Rhodes, the embodiment of British Imperialism, was Prime Minister through the support of the Dutch element and the Africander Bond. Englishmen and Dutchmen were everywhere in the best social relations. The old blood sympathy of the Dutch element for the Transvaal Boers which had been so strongly manifested in 1881, when the latter were struggling for their independence, had been superseded, or at least thrown into the background, by displeasure at the unneighbourly policy of the Transvaal Government in refusing public employment to Cape Dutchmen as well as to Englishmen, and in throwing obstacles in the way of trade in agricultural products. This displeasure culminated when the Transvaal Government, in the summer of 1895, closed the Drifts (fords) on the Vaal River, to the detriment of imports from the Colony and the Orange Free State.

In the Orange Free State there was, as has been pointed out in Chapter XIX., perfect good feeling and cordial co-operation in all public matters between the Dutch and the English elements. There was also perfect friendliness to Britain, the old grievances of the Diamond Fields dispute (see page 144) and of the arrest of the Free State conquest of Basutoland having been virtually forgotten. Towards the Transvaal there was a political sympathy based partly on kinship, partly on a similarity of republican institutions. But there was also some annoyance at the policy which the Transvaal Government, and especially its Hollander[Pg xii] advisers, were pursuing; coupled with a desire to see reforms effected in the Transvaal, and the franchise granted to immigrants on more liberal terms.

Of the Transvaal itself I need say the less, because its condition is fully described in Chapter XXV. There was of course much irritation among the Uitlanders of English and Colonial stock, with an arrogant refusal on the part of the ruling section and the more extreme old-fashioned Boers to admit the claims of these new-comers. But there was also a party among the burghers, important more by the character and ability of its members than by its numbers, yet growing in influence, which desired reform, perceived that the existing state of things could not continue, and was ready to join the Uitlanders in agitating for sweeping changes in the Constitution and in administration.

The events of December, 1895, changed the face of things swiftly and decisively in all these communities.

In Cape Colony Dutch feeling, which as a political force was almost expiring, revived at once. The unexpected attack on the Transvaal evolved an outburst of sympathy for it, in which the faults of its government were forgotten. Mr. Rhodes retired from office. The reconstructed Ministry which succeeded fell in 1898, and a new Ministry supported by the Africander Bond came into power after a general election. Its majority was narrow, and was accused of not fairly representing the country, owing to the nature of the electoral areas. A Redistribution Bill was passed by a species of compromise, and in the elections to the new constituencies which followed the Dutch party slightly increased its majority, and kept its Cabinet[Pg xiii] (in which, however, men of Dutch blood are a minority) in power. Party feeling, both inside and outside the legislature, became, and has remained, extremely strong on both sides. The English generally have rallied to and acclaim Mr. Rhodes, whose connection with Dr. Jameson's expedition has made him the special object of Dutch hostility. There is, according to the reports which reach England, no longer any moderating third party: all are violent partisans. Nevertheless—and this is a remarkable and most encouraging fact—this violence did not diminish the warmth with which the whole Assembly testified its loyalty and affection towards the Queen on the occasion of the completion of the sixtieth year of her reign in 1897. And the Bond Ministry of Mr. Schreiner proposed and carried by a unanimous vote a grant of £30,000 per annum as a contribution by the Colony to the naval defence of the Empire, leaving the application of this sum to the unfettered discretion of the British Admiralty.

In the Orange Free State the explosion of Dutch sentiment was still stronger. Its first result was seen in the election of a President. In November, 1895, two candidates for the vacant office had come forward, and their chances were deemed to be nearly equal. When the news of the Jameson expedition was received, the chance of the candidate of British stock vanished. Since then, though there was not (so far as I gather) down till the last few weeks any indication of hostility to Britain, much less any social friction within the State, a disposition to draw closer to the threatened sister Republic showed itself at once. This[Pg xiv] led to the conclusion of a defensive alliance between the Free State and the Transvaal, whereby either bound itself to defend the other, if unjustly attacked. (The Transvaal is believed to have suggested, and the Free State to have refused, a still closer union.) As the Orange Free State had no reason to fear an attack, just or unjust, from any quarter, this was a voluntary undertaking on its part, with no corresponding advantage, of what might prove a dangerous liability, and it furnishes a signal proof of the love of independence which animates this little community.

We come now to the Transvaal itself. In that State the burgher party of constitutional reform was at once silenced, and its prospect of usefulness blighted. So, too, the Uitlander agitation was extinguished. The Reform leaders were in prison or in exile. The passionate anti-English feeling, and the dogged refusal to consider reforms, which had characterized the extreme party among the Boers, were intensified. The influence of President Kruger, more than once threatened in the years immediately preceding, was immensely strengthened.

The President and his advisers had a golden opportunity before them of using the credit and power which the failure of the Rising and the Expedition of 1895 had given them. They ought to have seen that magnanimity would also be wisdom. They ought to have set about a reform of the administration and to have proposed a moderate enlargement of the franchise such as would have admitted enough of the new settlers to give them a voice, yet not enough to involve any sudden transfer of legislative or execu[Pg xv]tive power. Whether the sentiment of the Boers generally would have enabled the President to extend the franchise may be doubtful; but he could at any rate have tried to deal with the more flagrant abuses of administration. However, he attempted neither. The abuses remained, and though a Commission reported on some of them, and suggested important reforms, no action was taken. The weak point of the Constitution (as to which see p. 152) was the power which the legislature apparently possessed of interfering with vested rights, and even with pending suits, by a resolution having the force of law. This was a defect due, not to any desire to do wrong, but to the inexperience of those who had originally framed the Constitution, and to the want of legal knowledge and skill among those who had worked it, and was aggravated by the fact that the legislature consisted of one Chamber only, which was naturally led to legislate by way of resolution (besluit) because the process of passing laws in the stricter sense of the term involved a tedious and cumbrous process of bringing them to the knowledge of the people throughout the country. Upon this point there arose a dispute with the Chief Justice which led to the dismissal of that official and one of his colleagues, a dispute which could not be explained here without entering upon technical details. There is no reason to think that the President's action was prompted by any wish to give the legislature the means of wronging individuals, nor has evidence been produced to show that its powers have been in fact (at least to any material extent) so used. The matter cannot be fairly judged without[Pg xvi] considering the peculiar character of the Transvaal Constitution, for which the President is nowise to blame, and the statements often made in this country that the subjection of the judiciary to the legislature destroys the security of property are much exaggerated, for property has been, in fact, secure. It was, nevertheless, an error not to try to retain a man so much respected as the Chief Justice, and not to fulfil the promise given to Sir Henry de Villiers (who had been invoked as mediator) that the judiciary should be placed in a more assured position.

The idea which seems to have filled the President's mind was that force was the only remedy. The Republic was, he thought, sure to be again attacked from within or from without; and the essential thing was to strengthen its military resources for defence, while retaining political power in the hands of the burghers. Accordingly, the fortifications already begun at Pretoria were pushed on, a strong fort was erected to command Johannesburg, and munitions of war were imported in very large quantities, while the Uitlanders were debarred from possessing arms. Such precautions were natural. Any government which had been nearly overthrown, and expected another attack, would have done the like. But these measures of course incensed the Uitlanders, who saw that another insurrection would have less chance of success than the last, and resented the inferiority implied in disarmament, as Israel resented the similar policy pursued by the Philistine princes. The capitalists also, an important factor by their wealth and by their power of influencing opinion in Europe, were angry[Pg xvii] and restless, because the prospect of securing reforms which would reduce the cost of working the gold reefs became more remote.

This was the condition of things in the two Republics and the British Colonies when the diplomatic controversy between the Imperial Government and the South African Republic, which had been going on ever since 1895, passed in the early summer of 1899 into a more acute phase. The beginning of that phase coincided, as it so happened, with the expiry of the period during which the leaders of the Johannesburg rising of 1895 had promised to abstain from interference in politics, and the incident out of which it grew was the presentation to the Queen (in March 1899), through the High Commissioner, of a petition from a large number of British residents on the Witwatersrand complaining of the position in which they found themselves. The situation soon became one of great tension, owing to the growing passion of the English in South Africa and the growing suspicion on the part of the Transvaal Boers. But before we speak of the negotiations, let us consider for a moment what was the position of the two parties to the controversy.

The position of the Transvaal Government, although (as will presently appear) it had some measure of legal strength, was, if regarded from the point of view of actual facts, logically indefensible and materially dangerous. It was not, indeed, the fault of that Government that the richest goldfield in the world had been discovered in its territory, nor would it have been possible for the Boers, whatever they might have wished, to prevent the mines from being worked and the miners from[Pg xviii] streaming in. But the course they took was condemned from the first to failure. They desired to have the benefit of the gold-mines while yet retaining their old ways of life, not seeing that the two things were incompatible. Moreover, they—or rather the President and his advisers—committed the fatal mistake of trying to maintain a government which was at the same time undemocratic and incompetent. If it had been representative of the whole mass of the inhabitants it might have ventured, like the governments of some great American cities, to disregard both purity and efficiency. If, on the other hand, it had been a vigorous and skilful government, giving to the inhabitants the comforts and conveniences of municipal and industrial life at a reasonable charge, the narrow electoral basis on which it rested would have remained little more than a theoretic grievance, and the bulk of the people would have cared nothing for political rights. An exclusive government may be pardoned if it is efficient, an inefficient government if it rests upon the people. But a government which is both inefficient and exclusive incurs a weight of odium under which it must ultimately sink; and this was the kind of government which the Transvaal attempted to maintain. They ought, therefore, to have either extended their franchise or reformed their administration. They would not do the former, lest the new burghers should swamp the old ones, and take the control out of Boer hands. They were unfit to do the latter, because they had neither knowledge nor skill, so that even had private interests not stood in the way, they would have failed to create a proper administration.[Pg xix] It was the ignorance, as well as the exclusive spirit of the Transvaal authorities, which made them unwilling to yield any more than they might be forced to yield to the demand for reform.

The position in which Britain stood needs to be examined from two sides, its legal right of interference, and the practical considerations which justified interference in this particular case.

Her legal right rested on three grounds. The first was the Convention of 1884 (printed in the Appendix to this volume), which entitled her to complain of any infraction of the privileges thereby guaranteed to her subjects.

The second was the ordinary right, which every State possesses, to complain, and (if necessary) intervene when its subjects are wronged, and especially when they suffer any disabilities not imposed upon the subjects of other States.

The third right was more difficult to formulate. It rested on the fact that as Britain was the greatest power in South Africa, owning the whole country south of the Zambesi except the two Dutch Republics (for the deserts of German Damaraland and the Portuguese East-coast territories may be practically left out of account), she was interested in preventing any causes of disturbance within the Transvaal which might spread beyond its borders, and become sources of trouble either among natives or among white men. This right was of a vague and indeterminate nature, and could be legitimately used only when it was plain that the sources of trouble did really exist and were becoming dangerous.[Pg xx]

Was there not also, it may be asked, the suzerainty of Britain, and if so, did it not justify intervention? I will not discuss the question, much debated by English lawyers, whether the suzerainty over the "Transvaal State," mentioned in the preamble to the Convention of 1881, was preserved over the "South African Republic" by the Convention of 1884, not because I have been unable to reach a conclusion on the subject, but because the point seems to be one of no practical importance. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is a suzerainty, it is perfectly clear from an examination of the Conventions and of the negotiations of 1884 that this suzerainty relates solely to foreign relations, and has nothing whatever to do with the internal constitution or government of the Transvaal. The significance of the term—if it be carried over and read into the Convention of 1884—is exhausted by the provision in Article IV of that instrument for the submission of treaties to the British Government. No argument, accordingly, for any right of interference as regards either the political arrangements of the Transvaal or the treatment of foreigners within its borders, can be founded on this real or supposed suzerainty. This view had been too frequently and too clearly expressed by the British Government before 1896, to make it possible for any British official to attempt to put any such construction upon the term; and the matter might therefore have been suffered to drop, since the right to veto treaties was explicit, and did not need to be supported by an appeal to the preamble of 1881. The term, however, though useless to[Pg xxi] Britain, was galling to the Transvaal, which suspected that it would be made a pretext for infringements upon their independence in internal affairs; and these suspicions were confirmed by the talk of the Uitlander spokesmen in Johannesburg, who were in the habit of appealing to Britain as the Suzerain Power. It has played a most unfortunate part in the whole controversy.

Suzerainty, which is a purely legal, though somewhat vague, conception, has in many minds become confused with the practical supremacy, or rather predominance, of Britain in South Africa, which is a totally different matter. That predominance rests on the fact that Britain commands the resources of a great empire, while the Dutch republics are petty communities of ranchmen. But it does not carry any legal rights of interference, any more than a preponderance of force gives Germany rights against Holland.

As I have referred to the Convention of 1884, it may be well to observe that while continuing to believe that, on a review of the facts as they then stood, the British Government were justified in restoring self-government to the Transvaal in 1881, they seem to me to have erred in conceding the Convention of 1884. Though the Rand goldfields had not then been discovered, Lord Derby ought to have seen that the relations of the Transvaal to the adjoining British territories would be so close that a certain measure of British control over its internal administration might come to be needful. This control, which was indeed but slight, he surrendered in 1884. But the improvidence of the act does not in the least diminish[Pg xxii] the duty of the country which made the Convention to abide by its terms, or relieve it from the obligation of making out for any subsequent interference a basis of law and fact which the opinion of the world might accept as sufficient.

It has not been sufficiently realised in England that although the Transvaal may properly, in respect of British control over its foreign relations, be described as a semi-dependent State, Britain was under the same obligation to treat it with a strict regard to the recognised principles of international law as if it had been a great power. She had made treaties with it, and those treaties it was her duty to observe. Apart from all moral or sentimental considerations, apart from the fact that Britain had at the Hague Conference been the warm and effective advocate of peaceful methods of settling disputes between nations, it is her truest interest to set an example of fairness, legality and sincerity. No country, not even the greatest, can afford to neglect that reasonable and enlightened opinion of thoughtful men in other countries—not to be confounded with the invective and misrepresentation employed by the press of each nation against the others—which determines the ultimate judgment of the world, and passes into the verdict of history.

Did then the grievances of which the British residents in the Transvaal complained furnish such a basis? These grievances are well known, and will be found mentioned in chapter XXV. They were real and vexatious. It is true that some of them affected not so much British residents as the European shareholders in the great mining companies; true also that[Pg xxiii] the mining industry (as will be seen from the figures on p. 301) was expanding and prospering in spite of them. Furthermore, they were grievances under which, it might be argued, the immigrants had placed themselves by coming with notice of their existence, and from which they might escape by taking a train into the Free State or Natal. And they were grievances which, however annoying, did not render either life or property unsafe,[1] and did not prevent the Johannesburgers from enjoying life and acquiring wealth. Nevertheless, they were such as the British Government was entitled to endeavour to have redressed. Nor could it be denied that the state of irritation and unrest which prevailed on the Witwatersrand, the probability that another rising would take place whenever a chance of success offered, furnished to Britain, interested as she was in the general peace of the country, a ground for firm remonstrance and for urging the removal of all legitimate sources of disaffection, especially as these re-acted on the whole of South Africa. The British authorities at the Cape seem indeed to have thought that the unyielding attitude of the Transvaal Government worked much mischief in the Colony, being taken by the English there as a defiance to the power and influence of Britain, and so embittering their minds.

Among the grievances most in men's mouths was[Pg xxiv] the exclusion of the new-comers from the electoral franchise. It must be clearly distinguished from the other grievances. It was a purely internal affair, in which Britain had no right to intermeddle, either under the Convention of 1884 or under the general right of a state to protect its subjects. Nothing is clearer than that every state may extend or limit the suffrage as it pleases. If a British self-governing colony were to restrict the suffrage to those who had lived fourteen years in the colony, or a state of the American Union were to do the like, neither the Home Government in the one case, nor the Federal Government in the other would have any right to interfere. All therefore that Britain could do was to call the attention of the South African Republic in a friendly way to the harm which the restriction of the franchise was causing, and point out that to enlarge it might remove the risk of a collision over other matters which did fall within the scope of British intervention.

We are therefore, on a review of the whole position, led to conclude that Britain was justified in requiring the Transvaal Government to redress the grievances (other than the limited suffrage) which were complained of. Whether she would be justified in proceeding to enforce by arms compliance with her demand, would of course depend upon several things, upon the extent to which the existence of the grievances could be disproved, upon the spirit in which the Transvaal met the demand, upon the amount of concessions offered or amendment promised. But before the British Government entered on a course which might end in war, if the Transvaal should prove[Pg xxv] intractable, there were some considerations which it was bound seriously to weigh.

One of these was the time for entering on a controversy. The Jameson invasion was only three years old; and the passions it evoked had not subsided. In it British officers, and troops flying the British flag, if not Britain herself, had been wrongdoers. Suspicions of British good faith were known to pervade the Boer mind, and would give an ominous colour to every demand coming from Britain. The lapse of time might diminish these suspicions, and give to negotiations a better prospect of success. Time, moreover, was likely to work against the existing system of the Transvaal. Bad governments carry the seeds of their own dissolution. The reforming party among the Transvaal burghers would gain strength, and try to throw off the existing régime. The President was an old man, whose retirement from power could not be long delayed; and no successor would be able to hold together as he had done the party of resistance to reform. In the strife of factions that would follow his retirement reform was certain to have a far better chance than it could have had since 1895. In fact, to put it shortly, all the natural forces were working for the Uitlanders, and would either open the way for their admission to a share in power, or else make the task of Britain easier by giving her less united and therefore less formidable antagonists. These considerations counselled a postponement of the attempt to bring matters to a crisis.

In the second place the British Government had to remember the importance of carrying the opinion of[Pg xxvi] the Dutch in Cape Colony, and, as far as possible, even of the Orange Free State, with them in any action they might take. It has been pointed out how before December, 1895, that opinion blamed the Transvaal Government for its unfriendly treatment of the immigrants. The Dutch of both communities had nothing to gain and something to lose by the maladministration of the Transvaal, so that they were nowise disposed to support it in refusing reforms. The only thing that would make them rally to it would be a menace to its independence, regarding which they, and especially the Free State people, were extremely sensitive. Plainly, therefore, unless the colonial Dutch were to be incensed and the Free State men turned to enemies, such a menace was to be avoided.

Finally, the British authorities were bound to make sure, not only that they had an adequate casus belli which they could present to their own people and to the world, but also that the gain to be expected from immediately redressing the grievances of the Uitlander outweighed the permanent evils war would entail. Even where, according to the usage of nations, a just cause for war exists, even where victory in the war may be reckoned on, the harm to be expected may be greater than the fruits of victory. Here the harm was evident. The cost of equipping a large force and transporting it across many thousand miles of sea was the smallest part of the harm. The alienation of more than half the population of Cape Colony, the destruction of a peaceful and prosperous Republic with which Britain had no quarrel, the responsibility for governing the Transvaal when conquered, with its old inhabitants bit[Pg xxvii]terly hostile, these were evils so grave, that the benefits to be secured to the Uitlanders might well seem small in comparison. A nation is, no doubt, bound to protect its subjects. But it could hardly be said that the hardships of this group of subjects, which did not prevent others from flocking into the country, and which were no worse than they had been for some time previously, were such as to forbid the exercise of a little more patience. It was said by the war party among the English in South Africa that patience was being mistaken for weakness, and that the credit of Britain was being lowered all over the world, and even among the peoples of India, by her forbearance towards the Transvaal. Absurd as this notion may appear, it was believed by heated partizans on the spot. But outside Africa, and especially in Europe, the forbearance of one of the four greatest Powers in the world towards a community of seventy thousand people was in no danger of being misunderstood.

Whether the force of these considerations, obvious to every unbiased mind which had some knowledge of South Africa, was fully realized by those who directed British policy, or whether, having realized their force, they nevertheless judged war the better alternative, is a question on which we are still in the dark. It is possible—and some of the language used by the British authorities may appear to suggest this explanation—that they entered on the negotiations which ended in war in the belief that an attitude of menace would suffice to extort submission, and being unable to recede from that attitude, found themselves drawn on to a result which they had neither desired nor contemplated.[Pg xxviii] Be this as it may, the considerations above stated prescribed the use of prudent and (as far as possible) conciliatory methods in their diplomacy, as well as care in selecting a position which would supply a legal justification for war, should war be found the only issue.

This was the more necessary because the Boers were known to be intensely suspicious. Every weak power trying to resist a stronger one must needs take refuge in evasive and dilatory tactics. Such had been, such were sure to be, the tactics of the Boers. But the Boers were also very distrustful of the English Government, believing it to aim at nothing less than the annexation of their country. It may seem strange to Englishmen that the purity of their motives and the disinterestedness of their efforts to spread good government and raise others to their own level should be doubted. But the fact is—and this goes to the root of the matter—that the Boers have regarded the policy of Britain towards them as a policy of violence and duplicity. They recall how Natal was conquered from them in 1842, after they had conquered it from the Zulus; how their country was annexed in 1877, how the promises made at the time of that annexation were broken. They were not appeased by the retrocession of 1881, which they ascribed solely to British fear of a civil war in South Africa. It should moreover be remembered,—and this is a point which few people in England do remember—that they hold the annexation to have been an act of high-handed lawlessness done in time of peace, and have deemed themselves entitled to be replaced in the position their[Pg xxix] republic held before 1877, under the Sand River Convention of 1852. Since the invasion of December 1895, they have been more suspicious than ever, for they believe the British Government to have had a hand in that attempt, and they think that influential capitalists have been sedulously scheming against them. Their passion for independence is something which we in modern Europe find it hard to realise. It recalls the long struggle of the Swiss for freedom in the fourteenth century, or the fierce tenacity which the Scotch showed in the same age in their resistance to the claim of England to be their "Suzerain Power." This passion was backed by two other sentiments, an exaggerated estimate of their own strength and a reliance on the protecting hand of Providence, fitter for the days of the Maccabees or of Cromwell than for our own time, but which will appear less strange if the perils through which their nation had passed be remembered.

These were the rocks among which the bark of British diplomacy had to be steered. They were, however, rocks above water, so it might be hoped that war could be avoided and some valuable concession secured. To be landed in war would obviously be as great a failure as to secure no concession.

Instead of demanding the removal of the specific grievances whereof the Uitlanders complained, the British Government resolved to endeavour to obtain for them an easier acquisition of the electoral franchise and an ampler representation in the legislature. There was much to be said for this course. It would avoid the tedious and vexatious controversies that must have[Pg xxx] arisen over the details of the grievances. It would (in the long run) secure reform in the best way, viz., by the action of public spirit and enlightenment within the legislature. It would furnish a basis for union between the immigrants and the friends of good government among the burghers themselves, and so conduce to the future peace of the community. There was, however, one material condition, a condition which might prove to be an objection, affecting the resort to it. Since the electoral franchise was a matter entirely within the competence of the South African Republic, Britain must, if she desired to abide by the principles of international law, confine herself to recommendation and advice. She had no right to demand, no right to insist that her advice should be followed. She could not compel compliance by force, nor even by the threat of using force. In other words, a refusal to enlarge the franchise would not furnish any casus belli.

This course having been adopted, the negotiations entered on a new phase with the Conference at Bloemfontein, where President Kruger met the British High Commissioner. Such a direct interchange of views between the leading representatives of two Powers may often be expedient, because it helps the parties to get sooner to close quarters with the substantial points of difference, and so facilitates a compromise. But its utility depends on two conditions. Either the basis of discussion should be arranged beforehand, leaving only minor matters to be adjusted, or else the proceedings should be informal and private. At Bloemfontein neither condition existed. No basis had been previously arranged. The Conference was formal and[Pg xxxi] (although the press were not admitted) virtually public, each party speaking before the world, each watched and acclaimed by its supporters over the country. The eyes of South Africa were fixed on Bloemfontein, so that when the Conference came to its unfruitful end, the two parties were practically further off than before, and their failure to agree accentuated the bitterness both of the Transvaal Boers and of the English party in the Colonies. To the more extreme men among the latter this result was welcome. There was already a war party in the Colony, and voices clamorous for war were heard in the English press. Both then and afterwards every check to the negotiations evoked a burst of joy from organs of opinion at home and in the Cape, whose articles were unfortunately telegraphed to Pretoria. Worse still, the cry of "Avenge Majuba" was frequently heard in the Colonies, and sometimes even in England.

The story of the negotiations which followed during the months of July, August and September, cannot be told fully here, because it is long and intricate, nor summarized, because the fairness of any summary not supported by citations would be disputed. There are, however, some phenomena in the process of drifting towards war which may be concisely noticed.

One of these is that the contending parties were at one moment all but agreed. The Transvaal Government offered to give the suffrage after five years residence (which was what had been asked by the High Commissioner at Bloemfontein) coupled with certain conditions, which had little importance, and were afterwards so explained as to have even less. This was, from their point of view, a great concession, one to[Pg xxxii] which they expected opposition from the more conservative section of their own burghers. The British negotiators, though they have since stated that they meant substantially to accept this proposal, sent a reply whose treatment of the conditions was understood as a refusal, and which appeared to raise further questions; and when the Transvaal went back to a previous offer, which had previously been held to furnish a basis for agreement, the British Government declined to recur to that basis, as being no longer tenable after the later offer. The Boers, who had expected (from informal communications) that the five years offer would be readily accepted, seem to have thought that there was no longer any chance of a settlement, because fresh demands would follow each concession. They ought, however, to have persevered with their five years offer, which they could the more easily have done because they had tacitly dropped the unsustainable claim to be a "sovereign and independent state," and expressed themselves ready to abide by the Convention of 1884. The British Government, on its part, would seem to have thought, when the five years offer was withdrawn because the conditions attached to it were not accepted, that the Boers had been trifling with them, and resolved to exact all they demanded, even though less than all would have represented a diplomatic victory. Thus a conflict was precipitated which a more cautious and tactful policy might have avoided.

The controversy continued through three months to turn on the question of the franchise, nor were any demands for the redress of Uitlander grievances ever formulated and addressed to the Transvaal either under the Convention of 1884 or in respect of the general[Pg xxxiii] rights at international law which Britain possessed. When the franchise negotiations came to an impasse, the British Government announced (September 22nd) that their demands and scheme for a "final settlement of the issues created by the policy of the Republic"—a phrase which pointed to something more than the redress of grievances—would be presented to the Republic. These demands, however, never were presented at all. After an interval of seventeen days from the announcement just mentioned, the Transvaal declared war (October 9th and 11th). The terms of their ultimatum were offensive and peremptory, such as no Government could have been expected to listen to. Apart, however, from the language of the ultimatum, a declaration of war must have been looked for. From the middle of July the British Government had been strengthening its garrison in South Africa, and the despatch of one body of troops after another had been proclaimed with much emphasis in the English newspapers. Early in October it was announced that the Reserves would be called out and a powerful force despatched. The Transvaal had meantime been also preparing for war, so that the sending of British troops might well, after the beginning of September, be justified as a necessary precaution, since the forces then in South Africa were inferior in numbers to those the Boers could muster. But when the latter knew that an overwhelming force would soon confront them, and draw round them a net of steel, whence they could not escape, they resolved to seize the only advantage they possessed, the advantage of time, and to smite before their enemy was ready. It[Pg xxxiv] was therefore, only in a technical or formal sense that they can be said to have begun the war; for a weak State, which sees its enemy approach with a power that will soon be irresistible, has only two alternatives, to submit or to attack at once. In such a quarrel the responsibility does not necessarily rest with those who strike first. It rests with those whose action has made bloodshed inevitable.

A singular result of the course things took was that war broke out before any legitimate casus belli had arisen. Some one has observed that whereas many wars have been waged to gain subjects, none was ever waged before to get rid of subjects by making it easier for them to pass under another allegiance. The franchise, however, did not constitute a legitimate cause of war, for the British Government always admitted they had no right to demand it. The real cause of war was the menacing language of Britain, coupled with her preparations for war. These led the Boers also to arm, and, as happened with the arming and counter-arming of Prussia and Austria in 1866, when each expected an attack from the other, war inevitably followed. To brandish the sword before a cause for war has been shown not only impairs the prospect of a peaceful settlement, but may give the world ground for believing that war is intended.

By making the concession of the franchise the aim of their efforts, and supporting it by demonstrations which drove their antagonist to arms, the British Government placed themselves before the world in the position of having caused a war without ever formulating a casus belli, and thereby exposed their country[Pg xxxv] to unfavourable comment from other nations. The British negotiators were, it may be said, placed in a dilemma by the distance which separated their army from South Africa, and which obliged them to move troops earlier than they need otherwise have done, even at the risk (which, however, they do not seem to have fully grasped) of precipitating war. But this difficulty might have been avoided in one of two ways. They might have pressed their suggestion for an extension of the franchise in an amicable way, without threats and without moving troops, and have thereby kept matters from coming to a crisis. Or, on the other hand, if they thought that the doggedness of the Transvaal would yield to nothing but threats, they might have formulated demands, not for the franchise, but for the redress of grievances, demands the refusal or evasion of which would constitute a proper cause of war, and have, simultaneously with the presentation of those demands, sent to South Africa a force sufficient at least for the defence of their own territory. The course actually taken missed the advantages of either of these courses. It brought on war before the Colonies were in a due state of defence, and it failed to justify war by showing any cause for it such as the usage of civilized States recognizes.

As Cavour said that any one can govern with a state of siege, so strong Powers dealing with weak ones are prone to think that any kind of diplomacy will do. The British Government, confident in its strength, seems to have overlooked not only the need for taking up a sound legal position, but the importance of retaining the good will of the Colonial Dutch, and of[Pg xxxvi] preventing the Orange Free State from taking sides with the Transvaal. This was sure to happen if Britain was, or seemed to be, the aggressor. Now the British Government by the attitude of menace it adopted while discussing the franchise question, which furnished no cause for war, by the importance it seemed to attach to the utterances of the body calling itself the Uitlander Council in Johannesburg (a body which was in the strongest opposition to the Transvaal authorities), as well as by other methods scarcely consistent with diplomatic usage, led both the Transvaal and the Free State to believe that they meant to press matters to extremities, and that much more than the franchise or the removal of certain grievances was involved; in fact, that the independence of the Republic itself was at stake.[2]

They cannot have intended this, and indeed they expressly disclaimed designs on the independence of the Transvaal. Nevertheless the Free State, when it saw negotiations stopped after September 22nd, and an overwhelming British force ordered to South Africa while the proposals foreshadowed in the despatch of September 22nd remained undisclosed, became convinced that Britain meant to crush the Transvaal. Being bound by treaty to support the Transvaal if the latter was unjustly attacked, and holding the conduct of Britain in refusing arbitration and resorting to force[Pg xxxvii] without a casus belli to constitute an unjust attack, the Free State Volksraad and burghers, who had done their utmost to avert war, unhesitatingly threw in their lot with the sister Republic. The act was desperate, but it was chivalric. The Free State, hitherto happy, prosperous and peaceful, had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Few of her statesmen can have doubted that Britain must prevail and that their Republic would share the ruin which awaited the Transvaal Dutch. Nevertheless honour and the sense of kinship prevailed. It is to be hoped that the excited language in which the passionate feelings of the Free State have found expression will not prevent Englishmen from recognizing in the conduct of this little community a heroic quality which they would admire if they met it in the annals of ancient Greece.

It has been suggested that the question of responsibility for the war is really a trivial one, because the negotiations were all along, on one side or on both, unreal and delusive, masking the conviction of both parties that they must come to blows at last. It is said that a conflict for supremacy between the English and Dutch races in South Africa was inevitable, and it is even alleged that there was a long-standing conspiracy among the Dutch, as well in the Colonies as in the Republics, to overmaster the British element and oust Britain from the country.

On this hypothesis several observations may be made.

One is that it seems to be an afterthought, intended to excuse the failure of diplomacy to untie the knot.[Pg xxxviii] No one who studies the despatches can think that either the Transvaal Government or the British Government regarded war as inevitable when the one made, and the other sent a reply intended to accept, the proposals of August 19th. Nothing is easier than to bring charges of bad faith, but he who peruses these despatches with an impartial mind will find little or nothing to justify any such imputation on either party. Another is, that the allegation that a calamity was inevitable is one so easy to make and so hard to refute that it is constantly employed to close an embarrassing discussion. You cannot argue with a fatalist, any more than with a prophet. Nations whose conscience is clear, statesmen who have foresight and insight, do not throw the blame for their failures upon Destiny. The chieftain in Homer, whose folly has brought disaster, says, "It is not I who am the cause of this: it is Zeus, and Fate, and the Fury that walketh in darkness." "It could not have been helped anyhow," "It was bound to come"—phrases such as these are the last refuge of despairing incompetence.

The hypothesis that the Dutch all over South Africa were leagued for the overthrow of British power is so startling that it needs to be supported by wide and weighty evidence. Is such evidence forthcoming? It has not been produced. One who has not been in South Africa since 1895 dare not rely on his own observation to deny the allegation. But neither can Englishmen at home accept the assertions of partisans in South Africa, the extravagance of whose language shows that they have been carried away by party passion.[Pg xxxix]

The probabilities of the case are altogether against the hypothesis, and support the view of a temperate writer in the Edinburgh Review for October, who describes it as "a nightmare." What are these probabilities?

The Dutch in the Cape had been loyal till December 1895, and had indeed been growing more and more loyal during the last fifteen years. The Africander Bond had shaken itself free from the suspicions once entertained of its designs. Its leader, Mr. Hofmeyr, was conspicuously attached to the Imperial connection, and was, indeed, the author of a well-known scheme for an Imperial Customs Union. Even after December, 1895, its indignation at the attack on the Transvaal had not affected the veneration of the Dutch party for the British Crown, so warmly expressed in 1897. In 1898 the Cape Assembly, in which there was a Dutch majority led by a Ministry supported by the Bond, voted unanimously a large annual contribution to Imperial naval defence. Every effort was made by Mr. Hofmeyr and by the Prime Minister of the Cape to induce the Transvaal to make concessions which might avert war. As regards the Free State, its Dutch burghers had been for many years on the best terms with their English fellow-burghers and with the British Government. They had nothing to gain by a racial conflict, and their President, who is understood to have suggested the Bloemfontein Conference, as well as Mr. Fischer, one of their leading statesmen, strove hard to secure peace till immediately before war broke out.

There was, moreover, no prospect of success for an effort to overthrow the power of Britain. The Dutch[Pg xl] in the Colony were not fighting men like their Transvaal brethren, and were, except for voting purposes, quite unorganized. Those of the Free State were a mere militia, with no experience of war, and had possessed, at least down to 1895, when I remember to have seen their tiny arsenal, very little in the way of war munitions. The Transvaal Boers were no doubt well armed and good fighters, but there were after all only some twenty or twenty-five thousand of them, a handful to contend against the British Empire. The Transvaal Government was, moreover, from its structure and the capacity of the men who composed it, if not indisposed to indulge in day-dreams, at any rate unfit to prosecute so vast an enterprise.

There seems therefore to be no foundation in any facts which have so far been made public for the belief in this "conspiracy of the Dutch race," or for the inevitableness of the imagined conflict.

The truth would appear to be that the Transvaal people did at one time cherish the hope of extending their Republic over the wide interior. They were stopped on the west in 1884. They were stopped on the north in 1890. They were stopped in their effort to reach the sea in 1894. After that year British territory surrounded them on all sides except where they bordered the Portuguese on the north-east. Many of them, including the President, doubtless cherished the hope of some time regaining a complete independence such as that of the Free State. Some ardent spirits dreamt of a Dutch South African Republic with Pretoria for its future capital; and there were probably a few men of the same[Pg xli] visionary type in the Colony and the Free State who talked in the same wild way, especially after the Jameson invasion had stirred Dutch feeling to its depths. But from such dreams and such talk it is a long step to a "conspiracy of the Dutch over all South Africa." The possibility that the Dutch element would some day or other prevail, a possibility to which the slowness of British immigration and the natural growth of the Dutch population gave a certain substance in it down to 1885, was in that year destroyed by the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand, which brought a new host of English-speaking settlers into South Africa, and assured the numerical and economic preponderance of the English in the progressive and expanding regions of the country. It is also true that the Transvaal Government made military preparations and imported arms on a large scale. They expected a rising even before 1895; and after 1895 they also expected a fresh invasion. But there is not, so far as the public know, any shred of evidence that they contemplated an attack upon Britain. The needs of defence, a defence in which they doubtless counted on the aid of the Free State and of a section of their own Uitlanders, sufficiently explain the accumulation of warlike munitions on which so much stress has been laid.

The conclusion to which an examination of the matter leads is that no evidence whatever has been produced either that there was any such conspiracy as alleged, or that a conflict between Dutch and English was inevitable. Such a conflict might, no doubt, have possibly some day arisen. But it is at[Pg xlii] least equally probable that it might have been avoided. The Transvaal people were not likely to provoke it, and every year made it less likely that they could do so with any chance of success. The British element was increasing, not only around their State, but within it. The prospect of support from a great European Power had vanished. When their aged President retired from the scene, their old dissensions, held in check only by the fear of Britain, would have reappeared, and their vicious system of government would have fallen to pieces. So far as Britain was concerned, the way to avert a conflict was to have patience. Haste had been her bane in South Africa. It was haste which annexed the Transvaal in 1877, when a few months' delay might have given her the country. It was haste which in 1880 wrecked the plan of South African Confederation. It was haste which brought about that main source of recent troubles, the invasion by the South Africa Company's police in 1895.

In these reflections upon recent events nothing has been said, because nothing could now be profitably said, upon two aspects of the matter—the character and conduct of the persons chiefly concerned, and the subterranean forces which are supposed to have been at work on both sides. These must be left to some future historian, and they will form an interesting chapter in his book. He will have proof positive of many things which can now only be conjectured, and of some things which, though they may be known to a few, ought not to be stated until proof of them can be produced.[Pg xliii]

It is right, however, even while war is raging, to consider the circumstances that have led to war, so far as these can be discussed from the information which we all possess, because a fair consideration of those circumstances ought to influence the view which Englishmen take of their antagonists, and ought to affect their judgment of the measures proper to be taken when war comes to its end, and arrangements have to be made for the resettlement of the country. Those who have read the historical chapters of this book, and have reflected on the history of other British colonies, and particularly of Canada, will have drawn the moral, which I have sought to enforce in the concluding chapter, that what South Africa most needs is the reconcilement and ultimate fusion of the two white races. Reconcilement and fusion have now, to all appearances, been thrown back into a dim and distant future. That man must be sanguine indeed who expects, as some persons say they do expect, to see the relations of the two races placed on a better footing by a bitter war between them, a war which has many of the incidents of a civil war, and is waged on one side by citizen soldiers. To most observers it seems more likely to sow a crop of dragon's teeth which will produce a harvest, if not of armed men, yet of permanent hatred and disaffection. Nevertheless, even at the darkest moment, men must work with hope for the future, and strive to apply the principles of policy which experience has approved. The first principle which governs the relation of Britain to her self-governing colonies is that she must do all she can to keep them contented and loyal. She cannot hope permanently[Pg xliv] to retain any which have become disloyal, and the defection of one may be the signal for the loosening of the tie which binds the others. The gift of self-government practically makes the maintenance of the Imperial connection dependent on the will of the colony; and where self-government exists, voting is more powerful than arms. The Transvaal Republic has been often troublesome, but an unfriendly neighbour is less dangerous than a disaffected colony. A wise policy will therefore use with moderation the opportunities which the conclusion of the present war will afford for resettling the political arrangements of the country, remembering that the Dutch and British races have got to live together, looking forward to a time, probably less than a century distant, when the exhaustion of mineral wealth will have made South Africa again a pastoral and agricultural country, and thereby increased the importance, relatively to the town-dwelling English, of that Dutch element which is so deeply rooted in the soil. To reconcile the races by employing all the natural and human forces which make for peace and render the prosperity of each the prosperity of both, and so to pave the way for the ultimate fusion of Dutchman and Englishman in a common Imperial as well as a common Africander patriotism—this should be the aim of every government that seeks to base the world-wide greatness of Britain on the deepest and surest foundations.

October 23rd, 1899.

[Pg xlv]

NOTE

I have to thank Sir Donald Currie and Messrs. A.S. and G.G. Brown for the permission kindly given me to use the maps in the excellent "Guide to South Africa" (published by the Castle Mail Packets Company) in the preparation of the three maps contained in this volume; and I trust that these maps will prove helpful to the reader, for a comprehension of the physical geography of the country is essential to a comprehension of its history.

The friends in South Africa to whom I am indebted for many of the facts I have stated and views I have expressed are too numerous to mention: but I cannot deny myself the pleasure of returning thanks for the genial hospitality and unfailing kindness which I received in every part of the country.

September 13th, 1897.

MAPS AT END OF VOLUME

Political Map of South Africa.
Orographical Map of South Africa.
Rainfall Map of South Africa.

[Pg xlvii]

CONTENTS

[Pg lv]

AREA AND POPULATION OF THE SEVERAL COLONIES, REPUBLICS AND TERRITORIES IN SOUTH AFRICA

[Pg lvii]

DATES OF SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA

[Pg lix]

INTRODUCTION

In the latter part of the year 1895 I travelled across South Africa from Cape Town to Fort Salisbury in Mashonaland, passing through Bechuanaland and Matibililand. From Fort Salisbury, which is only two hundred miles from the Zambesi, I returned through Manicaland and the Portuguese territories to Beira on the Indian Ocean, sailed thence to Delagoa Bay and Durban, traversed Natal, and visited the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Basutoland, and the eastern province Cape Colony. The country had long possessed a great interest for me, and that interest was increased by studying on the spot its physical character as well as the peculiar economic and industrial conditions which have made it unlike the other newly settled countries of the world. Seeing these things and talking with the leading men in every part of the country, I began to comprehend many things that had previously been obscure to me, and saw how the political troubles of the land were connected with the life which nature imposed on the people. Immediately after my return to Europe, fresh political troubles broke out, and events occurred in the Transvaal which fixed the eyes of the whole world upon South Africa. I had not travelled with the view of writing a book; but the interest which the events just mentioned have aroused, and which is likely to be sustained for a good while to come, leads me to believe that the impressions of a traveller who has visited other new countries may be useful to those who desire to know what South Africa[Pg lx] is really like, and why it makes a noise and stir in the world disproportionate to its small population.

I have called the book "Impressions" lest it should be supposed that I have attempted to present a complete and minute account of the country. For this a long residence and a large volume would be required. It is the salient features that I wish to describe. These, after all, are what most readers desire to know: these are what the traveller of a few weeks or months can give, and can give all the better because the details have not become so familiar to him as to obscure the broad outlines.

Instead of narrating my journey, and weaving into the narrative observations on the country and people, I have tried to arrange the materials collected in a way better fitted to present to the reader in their natural connection the facts he will desire to have. Those facts would seem to be the following: (1) the physical character of the country, and the aspects of its scenery; (2) the characteristics of the native races that inhabit it; (3) the history of the natives and of the European settlers, that is to say the chief events which have made the people what they now are; (4) the present condition of the several divisions of the country, and the aspects of life in it; (5) the economic resources of the country, and the characteristic features of its society and its politics.

These I have tried to set forth in the order above indicated. The first seven chapters contain a very brief account of the physical structure and climate, since these are the conditions which have chiefly determined the economic progress of the country and the lines of European migration, together with remarks on the wild animals, the vegetation, and the scenery. Next follows a sketch of the three aboriginal races, and an outline of the history of the whites since their first arrival, four centuries ago. The earlier events are lightly touched on, while those which have brought[Pg lxi] about the present political situation are more fully related. In the third part of the book, asking the reader to accompany me on the long journey from Cape Town to the Zambesi Valley and back again, I have given in four chapters a description of the far interior as one sees it passing from barbarism to civilization—its scenery, the prospects of its material development, the life which its new settlers lead. These regions, being the part of the country most lately brought under European administration, seem to deserve a fuller treatment than the older and better-known regions. Three other chapters give a more summary account of Natal, of the Transvaal gold-fields, of that model republic the Orange Free State, and of Basutoland, a native state under British protection which possesses many features of peculiar interest. In the fourth and last division of the book several questions of a more general character are dealt with which could not conveniently be brought into either the historical or the descriptive parts. I have selected for discussion those topics which are of most permanent importance and as to which the reader is most likely to be curious. Among them are the condition of the natives, and their relations to the white people; the aspects of social and political life; the situation of affairs in the Transvaal in 1895, and the causes which brought about the Reform rising and the expedition of Dr. Jameson; and finally, the economic prospects of the country, and the political future of its colonies and republics.

In these concluding chapters, as well as in the historical sketch, my aim has been to set forth and explain facts rather than to pass judgments upon the character and conduct of individuals. Whoever desires to help others to a fair view of current events must try not only to be impartial, but also to avoid expressing opinions when the grounds for those opinions cannot be fully stated; and where controversy is raging[Pg lxii] round the events to be described, no judgment passed on individual actors could fail to be deemed partial by one set of partizans or by the other. Feeling sure that the present problems will take some time to solve, I have sought to write what those who desire to understand the country may find useful even after the next few years have passed. And, so far from wishing to champion any view or to throw any fresh logs on the fire of controversy that has been blazing for the last few years, I am convinced that the thing now most needed in the interests of South Africa is to let controversies die out, to endeavour to forget the causes of irritation, and to look at the actual facts of the case in a purely practical spirit.

Altogether apart from its recent troubles, South Africa is an interesting, and indeed fascinating subject of study. There are, of course, some things which one cannot expect to find in it. There has not yet been time to evolve institutions either novel or specially instructive, nor to produce new types of character (save that of the Transvaal Boer) or new forms of social life. There are no ancient buildings, except a few prehistoric ruins; nor have any schools of architecture or painting or literature been as yet developed. But besides the aspects of nature, often weird and sometimes beautiful, there are the savage races, whose usages and superstitions open a wide field for research, and the phenomena of whose contact with the whites raise some grave and gloomy problems. There are the relations of the two European races—races which ought long ago to have been happily blended into one, but which have been kept apart by a train of untoward events and administrative errors. Few of the newer countries have had a more peculiar or more chequered history; and this history needs to be studied with a constant regard to the physical conditions that have moulded it. Coming down to our own time, nowhere are the[Pg lxiii] struggles of the past seen to be more closely intertwined with the troubles of the present; nor does even Irish history furnish a better illustration of the effect of sentiment upon practical politics. Few events of recent times have presented more dramatic situations, and raised more curious and intricate issues of political and international morality, than those which have lately been set before us by the discovery of the Transvaal gold-fields and the rush of nineteenth-century miners and speculators into a pastoral population which retains the ideas and habits of the seventeenth-century. Still more fascinating are the problems of the future. One can as yet do little more than guess at them; but the world now moves so fast, and has grown so small, and sees nearly every part of itself so closely bound by ties of commerce or politics to every other part, that it is impossible to meditate on any great and new country without seeking to interpret its tendencies by the experience of other countries, and to conjecture the rôle it will be called on to play in the world-drama of the centuries to come. I have sought, therefore, not only to make South Africa real to those who do not know it, and to give them the materials for understanding what passes there and following its fortunes with intelligence, but also to convey an impression of the kind of interest it awakens. It is still new: and one sees still in a fluid state the substance that will soon crystallize into new forms. One speculates on the result which these mingled forces, these ethnic habits and historical traditions, and economic conditions, will work out. And reflecting on all these things, one feels sure that a country with so commanding a position, and which has compressed so much history into the last eighty years of its life, will hold a conspicuous place in that southern hemisphere which has in our own times entered into the political and industrial life of the civilized world.

PART I

NATURE

[Pg 3]

CHAPTER I

PHYSICAL FEATURES

To understand the material resources and economic conditions of South Africa, and, indeed, to understand the history of the country and the political problems which it now presents, one must first know something of its physical structure. The subject may seem dry, and those readers who do not care for it may skip this chapter. But it need not be uninteresting, and it is certainly not uninstructive. For myself, I can say that not only South African history, but also the prospects of South African industry and trade, were dark matters to me till I had got, by travelling through the country, an idea of those natural features of the southern part of the continent which have so largely governed the course of events and have stamped themselves so deeply upon the habits of the people. Some notion of these features I must now try to convey. Fortunately, they are simple, for nature has worked in Africa, as in America, upon larger and broader lines than she has done in Europe. The reader will do well to keep a map beside him, and refer[3] constantly to it, for descriptions without a map avail little.[Pg 4]

Africa south of the Zambesi River consists, speaking broadly, of three regions. There is a strip of lowland lying along the coast of the Indian Ocean, all the way round from Cape Town, past Durban and Delagoa Bay and Beira, till you reach the mouth of the Zambesi. On the south, between Cape Town and Durban, this strip is often very narrow, for in many places the hills come, as they do at Cape Town, right down to the sea. But beyond Durban, as one follows the coast along to the north-east, the level strip widens. At Delagoa Bay it is some fifteen or twenty miles wide; at Beira it is sixty or eighty miles wide, so that the hills behind cannot be seen from the coast; and farther north it is still wider. This low strip is in many places wet and swampy, and, being swampy, is from Durban northward malarious and unhealthful in the highest degree. Its unhealthfulness is a factor of prime importance in what may be called the general scheme of the country, and has had, as we shall presently see, the most important historical consequences.

Behind the low coast strip rise the hills whose slopes constitute the second region. They rise in most places rather gradually, and they seldom (except in Manicaland, to be hereafter described) present striking forms. The neighbourhood of Cape Town is almost the only place where high mountains come close to the shore—the only place, therefore, except the harbour of St. John's far to the east, where there is anything that can be called grand coast scenery. As one travels inland the hills become constantly higher, till at a distance of thirty or forty miles from the sea they have reached an average height of from 3000 to 4000 feet, and sixty miles from 5000 to 6000 feet. These hills, intersected by valleys which grow narrower and have steeper sides the farther inland one goes, are the spurs or outer declivity of a long range of mountains which runs all the way from Cape Town to the Zambesi Valley, a distance of sixteen hundred miles, and is now usually[Pg 5] called by geographers (for it has really no general name) the Drakensberg or Quathlamba Range. Their height varies from 3000 to 7000 feet, some of the highest lying not far to the north-east of Cape Town. In one region, however, several summits reach to 11,000 feet. This is Basutoland, the country that lies at the corner where Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange Free State meet. It is a region remarkable in several respects, for its scenery as well as for its history, and for the condition of the native race that inhabits it, and I shall have to give some account of it in a later chapter. These mountains of Basutoland are the loftiest in Africa south of Kilimandjaro, and keep snow on their summits for several months in the year.

Behind the Quathlamba Range the country spreads out to the north and west in a vast tableland, sometimes flat, sometimes undulating, sometimes intersected by ridges of rocky hills. This is the third region. Its average height above the sea varies from 3000 to 5000 feet, and the hills reach in places nearly 6000. Thus the Quathlamba Range may be regarded as being really the edge of the tableland, and when in travelling up from the coast one reaches the water-shed, or "divide" (an American term which South Africans have adopted), one finds that on the farther or northerly side there is very little descent. The peaks which when seen from the slopes towards the coast looked high and steep are on this inner side insignificant, because they rise so little above the general level of the plateau. This plateau runs away inland to the west and north-west, and occupies seven-eighths of the surface of South Africa. It dips gently on the north to the valley of the Zambesi; but on the west spreads out over the Kalahari Desert and the scarcely less arid wastes of Damaraland, maintaining (except along the lower course of the Orange River) an altitude of from 3000 to 4000 feet above the sea, until within a comparatively short distance of the Atlantic Ocean.[Pg 6]

The physical structure of the country is thus extremely simple. There is only one considerable mountain-chain, with a vast table-land filling the interior behind it, and a rough, hilly country lying between the mountains and the low belt which borders on the Indian Ocean. Let the reader suppose himself to be a traveller wishing to cross the continent from east to west. Starting from a port, say Delagoa Bay or Beira, on the Portuguese coast, the traveller will in a few hours, by either of the railways which run westward from those ports, traverse the low strip which divides them from the hill-country. To ascend the valleys and cross the water-shed of the great Quathlamba Range on to the plateau takes a little longer, yet no great time. Then, once upon the plateau, the traveller may proceed steadily to the west for more than a thousand miles over an enormous stretch of high but nearly level land, meeting no considerable eminence and crossing no perceptible water-shed till he comes within sight of the waves of the Atlantic. Or if he turns to the north-west he will pass over an undulating country, diversified only by low hills, till he dips slowly into the flat and swampy ground which surrounds Lake Ngami, itself rather a huge swamp than a lake, and descends very gradually from that level to the banks of the Zambesi, in the neighbourhood of the great Victoria Falls. In fact, this great plateau is South Africa, and all the rest of the country along the sea-margin a mere appendage to it. But so large a part of the plateau is, as we shall see presently, condemned by its dryness to remain sterile and very thinly peopled, that the interior has not that preponderating importance which its immense area might seem to give it.

It is not worth while to describe the minor ridges,—though some of them, especially in Cape Colony, are abrupt and high enough to be called Mountains,—for none has any great importance as affecting either[Pg 7] material or historical conditions. The longest are those which run parallel to the dreary and almost uninhabited west coast, and form the terraces by which the great plateau sinks down to the margin of the Atlantic. Neither can I touch on the geology, except to observe that a great part of the plateau, especially in the northern part and towards the north-east end of the Quathlamba Range, consists of granite or gneiss, and is believed to be of very great antiquity, i.e., to have stood, as it now stands, high above the level of the sea from a very remote period of the earth's history. The rocks of the Karroo region are more recent. Nowhere in South Africa has any area of modern volcanic action, much less any active volcano, been discovered. More ancient eruptive rocks, such as greenstones and porphyries, are of frequent occurrence, and are often spread out in level sheets above the sedimentary beds of the Karroo and of the Basutoland and Free State ranges.

Finally, it must be noted that the coast has extremely few harbours. From Cape Town eastward and north-eastward there is no sheltered deep-water haven till one reaches that of Durban, itself troubled by a bar, and from Durban to the Zambesi no good ports save Delagoa Bay and Beira. On the other side of the continent, Saldanha Bay, twenty miles north of Cape Town, is an excellent harbour. After that the Atlantic coast shows none for a thousand miles.

So much for the surface and configuration of the country. Now let us come to the climate, which is a not less important element in making South Africa what it is.

The heat is, of course, great, though less great than a traveller from North Africa or India expects to find in such a latitude. Owing to the vast mass of water in the southern hemisphere, that hemisphere is cooler in the same latitude than is the northern. Cape Town, in latitude 34° S., has a colder winter and not so hot a[Pg 8] summer as Gibraltar and Aleppo, in latitude 36° N. Still the summer temperature is high even at Durban, in latitude 30° S., while the northern part of the Transvaal Republic, and all the territories of the British South Africa Company, including Matabililand and Mashonaland, lie within the tropic of Capricorn, that is to say, correspond in latitude to Nubia and the central provinces of India between Bombay and Calcutta.

The climate is also, over most of the country, extremely dry. Except in a small district round Cape Town, at the southern extremity of the continent, there is no proper summer and winter, but only a dry season, the seven or eight months when the weather is colder, and a wet season, the four or five months when the sun is highest. Nor are the rains that fall in the wet season so copious and continuous as they are in some other hot countries; in many parts of India, for instance, or in the West Indies and Brazil. Thus even in the regions where the rainfall is heaviest, reaching thirty inches or more in the year, the land soon dries up and remains parched till the next wet season comes. The air is therefore extremely dry, and, being dry, it is clear and stimulating in a high degree.

Now let us note the influence upon the climate of that physical structure we have just been considering. The prevailing wind, and the wind that brings most of the rain in the wet season, is the east or south-east. It gives a fair supply of moisture to the low coast strip which has been referred to above. Passing farther inland, it impinges upon the hills which run down from the Quathlamba Range, waters them, and sometimes falls in snow on the loftiest peaks. A certain part of the rain-bearing clouds passes still farther inland, and scatters showers over the eastern part of the tableland, that is to say, over the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, eastern Bechuanaland, and the territories still[Pg 9] farther north, toward the Zambesi. Very little humidity, however, reaches the tracts farther to the west. The northern part of Cape Colony as far as the Orange River, the western part of Bechuanaland, and the wide expanse of Damaraland have a quite trifling rainfall, ranging from four or five to ten inches in the whole year. Under the intense heat of the sun this moisture soon vanishes, the surface bakes hard, and the vegetation withers. All this region is therefore parched and arid, much of it, in fact, a desert, and likely always to remain so.

These great and dominant physical facts—a low coast belt, a high interior plateau, a lofty, rugged mountain-range running nearly parallel to, and not very far from, the shore of the ocean, whence the rainclouds come, a strong sun, a dry climate—have determined the character of South Africa in many ways. They explain the very remarkable fact that South Africa has, broadly speaking, no rivers. Rivers are, indeed, marked on the map—rivers of great length and with many tributaries; but when in travelling during the dry season you come to them you find either a waterless bed or a mere line of green and perhaps unsavoury pools. The streams that run south and east from the mountains to the coast are short and rapid torrents after a storm, but at other times dwindle to feeble trickles of mud. In the interior there are, to be sure, rivers which, like the Orange River or the Limpopo, have courses hundreds of miles in length. But they contain so little water during three-fourths of the year as to be unserviceable for navigation, while most of their tributaries shrink in the dry season to a chain of pools, scarcely supplying drink to the cattle on their banks. This is one of the reasons why the country remained so long unexplored. People could not penetrate it by following waterways, as happened both in North and in South America; they were obliged to travel by ox-waggon, making only some[Pg 10] twelve or sixteen miles a day, and finding themselves obliged to halt, when a good bit of grass was reached, to rest and restore the strength of their cattle. For the same reason the country is now forced to depend entirely upon railways for internal communication. There is not a stream (except tidal streams) fit to float anything drawing three feet of water.

It is a curious experience to travel for hundreds of miles, as one may do in the dry season in the north-eastern part of Cape Colony and in Bechuanaland, through a country which is inhabited, and covered in some places with wood, in others with grass or shrublets fit for cattle, and see not a drop of running water, and hardly even a stagnant pond. It is scarcely less strange that such rivers as there are should be useless for navigation. But the cause is to be found in the two facts already stated. In those parts where rain falls it comes at one season, within three or four months. Moreover, it comes then in such heavy storms that for some hours, or even days, the streams are so swollen as to be not only impassable by waggons, but also unnavigable, because, although there is plenty of water, the current is too violent. Then when the floods have ceased the streams fall so fast, and the channel becomes so shallow, that hardly even a canoe will float. The other fact arises from the proximity to the east coast of the great Quathlamba chain of mountains. The rivers that flow from it have mostly short courses, while the few that come down from behind and break through it, as does the Limpopo, are interrupted at the place where they break through by rapids which no boat can ascend.

[Pg 11]

CHAPTER II

HEALTH

The physical conditions just described determine the healthfulness of the country, and this is a matter of so much moment, especially to those who think of settling in South Africa, that I take the earliest opportunity of referring to it.

The sun-heat would make the climate very trying to Europeans, and of course more trying the farther north toward the Equator they live, were it not for the two redeeming points I have dwelt on—the elevation and the dryness of the interior. To be 3000, 4000, or 5000 feet above the sea is for most purposes the same thing as being in a more temperate latitude, and more than five-sixths in area of the districts which are now inhabited by Europeans have an elevation of fully 3000 feet. Not merely the tablelands of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, but also by far the larger part of Cape Colony and nearly the whole of Natal (excluding a small strip along the coast), attain this elevation. Thus even in summer, when the heat is great during the day, the coolness of the night refreshes the system. The practical test of night temperature is whether one wishes for a blanket to sleep under. In Madras and Bombay all the year round, in New York through several months of summer, in Paris or sometimes even in London for a few days in July or August, a light blanket is oppressive, and the continu[Pg 12]ance of the high day temperature through the hours of darkness exhausts and enfeebles all but vigorous constitutions. But in South Africa it is only along the coast, in places like Durban, Delagoa Bay, or Beira, that one feels inclined to dispense with a woollen covering at night, while in Johannesburg or Bloemfontein a good thick blanket is none too much even in November, before the cooling rains begin, or in December, when the days are longest. In fact, the fall of temperature at sunset is often a source of risk to those who, coming straight from Europe, have not yet learned to guard against sudden changes, for it causes chills which, if they find a weak organ to pounce upon, may produce serious illness. These rapid variations of temperature are not confined to the passage from day to night. Sometimes in the midst of a run of the usual warm, brilliant weather of the dry season there will come a cold, bitter south east wind, covering the sky with gray clouds and driving the traveller to put on every wrap he possesses. I remember, toward the end of October, such a sudden "cold snap" in Matabililand, only twenty degrees from the equator. One shivered all day long under a thick greatcoat, and the natives lit fires in front of their huts and huddled round them for warmth. Chills dangerous to delicate people are apt to be produced by these changes, and they often turn into feverish attacks, not malarial, though liable to be confounded with malarial fevers. This risk of encountering cold weather is a concomitant of that power of the south-east wind to keep down the great heats, which, on the whole, makes greatly for the salubrity of the country; so the gain exceeds the loss. But new comers have to be on their guard, and travellers will do well, even between the tropic and the equator, to provide themselves with warm clothing.

Strong as the sun is, its direct rays seem to be much less dangerous than in India or the eastern United States. Sunstroke is unusual, and one sees few peo[Pg 13]ple wearing, even in the tropical north, those hats of thick double felt or those sun-helmets which are deemed indispensable in India. In fact, Europeans go about with the same head-gear which they use in an English summer. But the relation of sun-stroke to climate is obscure. Why should it be extremely rare in California, when it is very common in New York in the same latitude? Why should it be almost unknown in the Hawaiian Islands, within seventeen degrees of the equator? Its rarity in South Africa is a great point in favour of the healthfulness of the country, and also of the ease and pleasantness of life. In India one has to be always mounting guard against the sun. He is a formidable and ever-present enemy, and he is the more dangerous the longer you live in the country. In South Africa it is only because he dries up the soil so terribly that the traveller wishes to have less of him. The born Africander seems to love him.

The dryness of the climate makes very strongly for its salubrity. It is the absence of moisture no less than the elevation above sea-level that gives to the air its fresh, keen, bracing quality, the quality which enables one to support the sun-heat, which keeps the physical frame in vigour, which helps children to grow up active and healthy, which confines to comparatively few districts that deadliest foe of Europeans, swamp-fever. Malarial fever in one of its many forms, some of them intermittent, others remittent, is the scourge of the east coast as well as of the west coast. To find some means of avoiding it would be to double the value of Africa to the European powers which have been establishing themselves on the coasts. No one who lives within thirty miles of the sea nearly all the way south from Cape Guardafui to Zululand can hope to escape it. It is frequent all round the great Nyanza lakes, and particularly severe in the valley of the Nile from the lakes downward to Khartoum. It prevails[Pg 14] through the comparatively low country which lies along the Congo and the chief tributaries of that great stream. It hangs like a death-cloud over the valley of the Zambesi, and is found up to a height of 3000 or 4000 feet, sometimes even higher, in Nyassaland and the lower parts of the British territories that stretch to Lake Tanganyika. The Administrator of German East Africa has lately declared that there is not a square mile of that vast region that can be deemed free from it. Even along the generally arid shores of Damaraland there are spots where it is to be feared. But Cape Colony and Natal and the Orange Free State are almost exempt from it. So, too, are all the higher parts of the Transvaal, of Bechuanaland, of Matabililand, and of Mashonaland. Roughly speaking, one may say that the upper boundary line of malarial fevers in these countries is about 4500 feet above the sea, and where fevers occur at a height above 3000 feet they are seldom of a virulent type. Thus, while the lower parts of the Transvaal between the Quathlamba Mountains and the sea are terribly unhealthy, while the Portuguese country behind Delagoa Bay and Beira as far as the foot of the hills is equally dangerous,—Beira itself has the benefit of a strong sea-breeze,—by far the larger part of the recently occupied British territories north and west of the Transvaal is practically safe. It is, of course, proper to take certain precautions, to avoid chills and the copious use of alcohol and it is specially important to observe such precautions during and immediately after the wet season, when the sun is raising vapours from the moist soil, when new vegetation has sprung up, and when the long grass which has grown during the first rains is rotting under the later rains. Places which are quite healthful in the dry weather, such as Gaberones and the rest of the upper valley of the rivers Notwani and Limpopo in eastern Bechuanaland, then become dangerous, because they lie on the banks of streams which[Pg 15] inundate the lower grounds. Much depends on the local circumstances of each spot. To illustrate the differences between one place and another, I may take the case of the three chief posts in the territories of the British South Africa Company. Buluwayo, nearly 4000 feet above the sea, is always practically free from malaria, for it stands in a dry, breezy upland with few trees and short grass. Fort Victoria, 3670 feet above the sea, is salubrious enough during the dry season, but often feverish after the rains, because there is some wet ground near it. Fort Salisbury, 4900 feet above the sea, is now healthful at all times, but parts of it used to be feverish at the end of the rainy season, until they were drained in the beginning of 1895. So Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal Republic, is apt to be malarious during the months of rain, because (although 4470 feet above the sea) it lies in a well-watered hollow; while at Johannesburg, thirty miles off, on the top of a high, bare, stony ridge, one has no occasion to fear fever, though the want of water and proper drainage, as well as the quantity of fine dust from the highly comminuted ore and "tailings" with which the air is filled, had until 1896 given rise to other maladies, and especially to septic pneumonia. These will diminish with a better municipal administration, and similarly malaria will doubtless vanish from the many spots where it is now rife when the swampy grounds have been drained and the long grass eaten down by larger herds of cattle.

It is apparently the dryness and the purity of the air which have given South Africa its comparative immunity from most forms of chest disease. Many sufferers from consumption, for whom a speedy death, if they remained in Europe, had been predicted, recover health, and retain it till old age. The spots chiefly recommended are on the high grounds of the interior plateau, where the atmosphere is least humid. Ceres, ninety-four miles by rail from Cape Town, and[Pg 16] Beaufort West, in the Karroo, have been resorted to as sanatoria; and Kimberley, the city of diamonds, has an equally high reputation for the quality of its air. However, some of the coast districts are scarcely less eligible, though Cape Town has too many rapid changes of weather, and Durban too sultry a summer, to make either of them a desirable place of residence for invalids.

Apart from all questions of specific complaints, there can be no doubt as to the general effect of the climate upon health. The aspect of the people soon convinces a visitor that, in spite of its heat, the country is well fitted to maintain in vigour a race drawn from the cooler parts of Europe. Comparatively few adult Englishmen sprung from fathers themselves born in Africa are as yet to be found. But the descendants of the Dutch and Huguenot settlers are Africanders up to the sixth or seventh generation, and the stock shows no sign of losing either its stature or its physical strength. Athletic sports are pursued as eagerly as in England.

[Pg 17]

CHAPTER III

WILD ANIMALS AND THEIR FATE

When first explored, South Africa was unusually rich in the kinds both of plants and of animals which it contained; and until forty or fifty years ago the number, size, and beauty of its wild creatures were the things by which it was chiefly known to Europeans, who had little suspicion of its mineral wealth, and little foreboding of the trouble that wealth would cause. Why it was so rich in species is a question on which geology will one day be able to throw light, for much may depend on the relations of land and sea in earlier epochs of the earth's history. Probably the great diversities of elevation and of climate which exist in the southern part of the continent have contributed to this profuse variety; and the fact that the country was occupied only by savages, who did little or nothing to extinguish any species nature had planted, may have caused many weak species to survive when equally weak ones were perishing in Asia and Europe at the hands of more advanced races of mankind. The country was therefore the paradise of hunters. Besides the lion and the leopard, there were many other great cats, some of remarkable beauty. Besides the elephant, which was in some districts very abundant, there existed two kinds of rhinoceros, as well as the hippopotamus and the giraffe. There was a wonderful[Pg 18] profusion of antelopes,—thirty-one species have been enumerated,—including such noble animals as the eland and koodoo, such beautiful ones as the springbok and klipspringer, such fierce ones as the blue wildebeest or gnu. There were two kinds of zebra, a quagga, and a buffalo, both huge and dangerous. Probably nowhere in the world could so great a variety of beautiful animals be seen or a larger variety of formidable ones be pursued.

All this has changed, and changed of late years with fatal speed, under the increasing range and accuracy of firearms, the increasing accessibility of the country to the European sportsman, and the increasing number of natives who possess guns. The Dutch Boer of eighty years ago was a good marksman and loved the chase, but he did not shoot for fame and in order to write about his exploits, while the professional hunter who shot to sell ivory or rare specimens had hardly begun to exist. The work of destruction has latterly gone on so fast that the effect of stating what is still left can hardly be to tempt others to join in that work, but may help to show how urgent is the duty of arresting the process of extermination.

When the first Dutchmen settled at the Cape the lion was so common as to be one of the every-day perils of life. Tradition points out a spot in the pleasure-ground attached to the Houses of Parliament at Cape Town where a lion was found prowling in what was then the commandant's garden. In 1653 it was feared that lions would storm the fort to get at the sheep within it, and so late as 1694 they killed nine cows within sight of the present castle. To-day, however, if the lion is to be found at all within the limits of Cape Colony, it is only in the wilderness along the banks of the Orange River. He was abundant in the Orange Free State when it became independent in 1854, but has been long extinct there. He survives in a few spots[Pg 19] in the north of the Transvaal and in the wilder parts of Zululand and Bechuanaland, and is not unfrequent in Matabililand and Mashonaland. One may, however, pass through those countries, as I did in October, 1895, without having a chance of seeing the beast or even hearing its nocturnal voice, and those who go hunting this grandest of all quarries are often disappointed. In the strip of flat land between the mountains and the Indian Ocean behind Sofala and Beira, and in the Zambesi valley, there remain lions enough; but the number diminishes so fast that even in that malarious and thinly peopled land none may be left thirty years hence.

The leopard is still to be found all over the country, except where the population is thickest; and as the leopard haunts rocky places, it is, though much hunted for the sake of its beautiful skin, less likely to be exterminated. Some of the smaller carnivora, especially the pretty lynxes, have now become very rare. There is a good supply of hyenas, but they are ugly.

Elephants used to roam in great herds over all the more woody districts, but have now been quite driven out of Cape Colony, Natal, and the two Dutch republics, save that in a narrow strip of forest country near the south coast, between Mossel Bay and Algoa Bay, some herds are preserved by the Cape government. So, too, in the north of the Transvaal there are still a few left, also specially preserved. It is only on the east coast south of the Zambesi, and here and there along that river, that the wild elephant can now be found. From these regions it will soon vanish, and unless something is done to stop the hunting of elephants the total extinction of the animal in Africa may be expected within another half-century; for the foolish passion for slaughter which sends so-called sportsmen on his track, and the high price of ivory, are lessening its numbers day by day. A similar fate[Pg 20] awaits the rhinoceros, once common even near the Cape, where he overturned one day the coach of a Dutch governor. The white kind, which is the larger, is now all but extinct, while the black rhinoceros has become scarce even in the northern regions between the Limpopo and the Zambesi. The hippopotamus, protected by his aquatic habits, has fared better, and may still be seen plunging and splashing in the waters of the Pungwe, the Limpopo, and other rivers in Portuguese East Africa. But Natal will soon know this great amphibian no more; and within Cape Colony, where the creature was once abundant even in the swamps that bordered Table Bay, he is now to be found only in the pools along the lower course of the Orange River. The crocodile holds his ground better, and is still a serious danger to oxen who go down to drink at the streams. In Zululand and all along the east coast, as well as in the streams of Mashonaland and Matabililand, there is hardly a pool which does not contain some of these formidable saurians. Even when the water shrinks in the dry season till little but mud seems to be left, the crocodile, getting deep into the mud, maintains a torpid life till the rains bring him back into activity. Lo Bengula sometimes cast those who had displeased him, bound hand and foot, into a river to be devoured by these monsters, which he did not permit to be destroyed, probably because they were sacred to some tribes.

The giraffe has become very scarce, though a herd or two are left in the south of Matabililand, and a larger number in the Kalahari Desert. So, also, the zebra and many of the species of antelopes, especially the larger kinds, like the eland and the sable, are disappearing, while the buffalo is now only to be seen (except in a part of the Colony where a herd is preserved) in the Portuguese territories along the Zambesi and the east coast. The recent cattle-plague[Pg 21] has fallen heavily upon him. So the ostrich would probably now remain only in the wilds of the Kalahari had not large farms been created in Cape Colony, where young broods are reared for the sake of the feathers. On these farms, especially near Graham's Town and in the Oudtshorn district, one may see great numbers; nor is there a prettier sight than that of two parent birds running along, with a numerous progeny of little ones around them. Though in a sense domesticated, they are often dangerous, for they kick forward and claw downward with great violence, and the person whom they knock down and begin to trample on has little chance of escape with his life. Fortunately, it is easy to drive them off with a stick or even an umbrella; and we were warned not to cross an ostrich-farm without some such defence.

Snakes, though there are many venomous species, seem to be less feared than in India or the wilder parts of Australia. The python grows to twenty feet or more, but is, of course, not poisonous, and never assails man unless first molested. The black momba, which is nearly as large as a rattlesnake, is, however, a dangerous creature, being ready to attack man without provocation, and the bite may prove fatal in less than an hour. One sees many skins of this snake in the tropical parts of South Africa, and hears many thrilling tales of combats with them. They are no longer common in the more settled and temperate regions.

Although even in Cape Colony and the Dutch republics there is still more four-footed game to be had than anywhere in Europe, there remain only two regions where large animals can be killed in any considerable numbers. One of these is the Portuguese territory between Delagoa Bay and the Zambesi, together with the adjoining parts of the Transvaal, where the lower spurs of the Quathlamba Range descend to the plain. This district is very malarious during and after the[Pg 22] rains, and most of it unhealthy at all seasons. The other region is the Kalahari Desert and the country north of it between Lake Ngami and the Upper Zambesi. The Kalahari is so waterless as to offer considerable difficulties to European hunters, and the country round Lake Ngami is swampy and feverish. So far the wild creatures have nature in their favour; yet the passion for killing is in many persons so strong that neither thirst nor fever deters them, and if the large game are to be saved, it will clearly be necessary to place them under legal protection. This has been attempted so far as regards the elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, and eland. In German East Africa Dr. von Wissmann, the Administrator of that territory, has recently (1896) gone further, and ordained restrictions on the slaughter of all the larger animals, except predatory ones. The governments of the two British colonies and the two Boer republics, which have already done well in trying to preserve some of the rarest and finest beasts, ought to go thoroughly into the question and enact a complete protective code. Still more necessary is it that a similar course should be taken by the British South Africa Company and by the Imperial Government, in whose territories there still survive more of the great beasts. It is to be hoped that even the lion and some of the rare lynxes will ultimately receive consideration. Noxious as they are, it would be a pity to see them wholly exterminated. When I was in India, in the year 1888, I was told that there were only seven lions then left in that vast area, all of them well cared for. The work of slaughter ought to be checked in South Africa before the number gets quite so low as this, and though there may be difficulties in restraining the natives from killing the big game, it must be remembered that as regards many animals it is the European rather than the native, who is the chief agent of destruction.

The predatory creatures which are now most harmful[Pg 23] to the farmer are the baboons, which infest rocky districts and kill the lambs in such great numbers that the Cape government offers bounties for their slaughter. But no large animal does mischief for a moment comparable to that of the two insect plagues which vex the eastern half of the country, the white ants and the locusts. Of these I shall have something to say later.

[Pg 24]

CHAPTER IV

VEGETATION

The flora of South Africa is extremely rich, showing a number of genera, and of species which, in proportion to its area, exceeds the number found in most other parts of the world. But whether this wealth is due to the diversity of physical conditions which the country presents, or rather to geological causes, that is, to the fact that there may at some remote period have been land connections with other regions which have facilitated the immigration of plants from various sides, is a matter on which science cannot yet pronounce, for both the geology and the flora of the whole African continent have been very imperfectly examined. It is, however, worth remarking that there are marked affinities between the general character of the flora of the south-western corner of South Africa and that of the flora of south-western Australia, and similar affinities between the flora of south-eastern and tropical Africa and the flora of India, while the relations to South America are fewer and much less marked. This fact would seem to point to the great antiquity of the South Atlantic Ocean.

To give in such a book as this even the scantiest account of the plants of South Africa would obviously be impossible. All I propose is to convey some slight impression of the part which its vegetation, and particularly its trees, play in the landscape and in the[Pg 25] economic conditions of the country. Even this I can do but imperfectly, because, like most travellers, I passed through large districts in the dry season, when three-fourths of the herbaceous plants are out of flower.

No part of the country is richer in beautiful flowers than the immediate neighbourhood of Cape Town. This extreme south-western corner of Africa has a climate of the south temperate zone; that is to say, it has a real summer and a real winter, and gets most of its rain in winter, whereas the rest of South Africa has only a wet season and a dry season, the latter coming in winter. So, too, this corner round Cape Town has a vegetation characteristically its own, and differing markedly from that of the arid Karroo regions to the north, and that of the warm subtropical regions in the east of the Colony and in Natal. It is here that the plants flourish which Europeans and Americans first came to know and which are still to them the most familiar examples of the South African flora. Heaths, for instance, of which there are said to be no less than three hundred and fifty species in this small district, some of extraordinary beauty and brilliance, are scarcely found outside of it. I saw two or three species on the high peaks of Basutoland, and believe some occur as far north as the tropic on the tops of the Quathlamba Range; but in the lower grounds, and even on the plateau of the Karroo they are absent. The general aspect of the vegetation on the Karroo, and eastward over the plateau into Bechuanaland and the Transvaal, is to the traveller's eye monotonous—a fact due to the general uniformity of the geological formations and the general dryness of the surface. In Natal and in Mashonaland types different from those of either the Cape or the Karroo appear, and I have never seen a more beautiful and varied alpine flora than on a lofty summit of Basutoland which I ascended in early summer. But even in Mashonaland, and in Matabililand still more,[Pg 26] the herbaceous plants make, at least in the dry season, comparatively little show. I found the number of conspicuous species less than I had expected, and the diversity of types from the types that prevail in the southern part of the plateau (in Bechuanaland and the Orange Free State) less marked. This is doubtless due to the general similarity of the conditions that prevail over the plateau. Everywhere the same hot days and cold nights, everywhere the same dryness.

However, I must avoid details, especially details which would be interesting only to a botanist, and be content with a few words on those more conspicuous features of the vegetation which the traveller notes, and which go to make up his general impression of the country.

Speaking broadly, South Africa is a bare country, and this is the more remarkable because it is a new country, where man has not had time to work much destruction. There are ancient forests along the south coast of Cape Colony and Natal, the best of which are (in the former colony) now carefully preserved and administered by a Forest Department of Government. Such is the great Knysna forest, where elephants still roam wild. But even in these forests few trees exceed fifty or sixty feet in height, the tallest being the so-called yellow-wood, and the most useful the sneeze-wood. On the slopes of the hills above Graham's Town and King William's Town one finds (besides real forests here and there) immense masses of dense scrub, or "bush," usually from four to eight feet in height, sometimes with patches of the prickly-pear, an invader from America, and a formidable one; for its spines hurt the cattle and make passage by men a troublesome business. It was this dense, low scrub which constituted the great difficulty of British troops in the fierce and protracted Kafir wars of fifty years ago; for the ground which the scrub covers was impassable except by nar[Pg 27]row and tortuous paths known only to the natives, and it afforded them admirable places for ambush and for retreat. Nowadays a large part of the bush-covered land is used for ostrich-farms, and it is, indeed, fit for little else. The scrub is mostly dry, while the larger forests are comparatively damp, and often beautiful with flowering trees, small tree-ferns, and flexile climbers. But the trees are not lofty enough to give any of that dignity which a European forest, say in England or Germany or Norway, often possesses, and as the native kinds are mostly evergreens, their leaves have comparatively little variety of tint. One of the most graceful is the curious silver-tree, so called from the whitish sheen of one side of its leaves, which grows abundantly on the slopes of Table Mountain, but is found hardly anywhere else in the Colony.

If this is the character of the woods within reach of the coast rains, much more conspicuous is the want of trees and the poorness of those scattered here and there on the great interior plateau. In the desert region, that is to say, the Karroo, the northern part of Cape Colony to the Orange River, western Bechuanaland, and the German territories of Namaqualand and Damaraland, there are hardly any trees, except small, thorny mimosas (they are really acacias, the commonest being Acacia horrida), whose scanty, light-green foliage casts little shade. On the higher mountains, where there is a little more moisture, a few other shrubs or small trees may be found, and sometimes beside a watercourse, where a stream runs during the rains, the eye is refreshed by a few slender willows; but speaking generally, this huge desert, one-third of South Africa, contains nothing but low bushes, few of which are fit even for fuel. Farther east, where the rainfall is heavier, the trees, though still small, are more frequent and less thorny. Parts of the great plain round Kimberley were tolerably well wooded thirty years ago, but the trees have all been cut down[Pg 28] to make mine props or for fire-wood. North of Mafeking the rolling flats and low hills of Bechuanaland are pretty fairly wooded, and so to a less degree are the adjoining parts of the Transvaal and Matabililand. The road going north from Mafeking passes through some three hundred miles of such woodlands, but a less beautiful or interesting woodland I have never seen. The trees are mostly the thorny mimosas I have mentioned. None exceed thirty, few reach twenty-five, feet. Though they grow loosely scattered, the space between them is either bare or occupied by low and very prickly bushes. The ground is parched, and one can get no shade, except by standing close under a trunk somewhat thicker than its neighbours. Still farther north the timber is hardly larger, though the general aspect of the woods is improved by the more frequent occurrence of flowering trees, some sweet-scented, with glossy leaves and small white flowers, some with gorgeous clusters of blossoms. Three are particularly handsome. One, usually called the Kafir-boom, has large flowers of a brilliant crimson. Another (Lonchocarpus speciosus[4]), for which no English name seems to exist, shows lovely pendulous flowers of a bluish lilac, resembling in colour those of the wistaria. The third is an arboraceous St. John's wort (Hypericum Schimperi[4]), which I found growing in a valley of Manicaland, at a height of nearly 4000 feet above the sea. All three would be great ornaments to a south European shrubbery could they be induced to bear the climate, which, in the case of the two latter (for I hardly think the Kafir-boom would suit a colder air), seems not impossible. In[Pg 29] Manicaland, among the mountains which form the eastern edge of the plateau, the trees are taller, handsomer, and more tropical in their character, and palms, though of no great height, are sometimes seen. But not even in the most humid of the valleys and on the lower spurs of the range, where it sinks into the coast plain, nor along the swampy banks of the Pungwe River, did I see any tree more than sixty feet high, and few more than thirty. Neither was there any of that luxuriant undergrowth which makes some tropical forests, like those at the foot of the Nilghiri Hills in India or in some of the isles of the Pacific, so impressive as evidences of the power and ceaseless activity of nature.

The poverty of the woods in Bechuanaland and Matabililand seems to be due not merely to the dryness of the soil and to the thin and sandy character which so often marks it, but also to the constant grass-fires. The grass is generally short, so that these fires do not kill the trees; nor does one hear of such great forest conflagrations as are frequent and ruinous in Western America and by no means unknown in the south of Cape Colony. But these fires doubtless injure the younger trees sufficiently to stunt their growth, and this mischief is, of course, all the greater when an exceptionally dry year occurs. In such years the grass-fires, then most frequent, may destroy the promise of the wood over a vast area.

The want of forests in South Africa is one of the greatest misfortunes of the country, for it makes timber costly; it helps to reduce the rainfall, and it aggravates the tendency of the rain, when it comes, to run off rapidly in a sudden freshet. Forests have a powerful influence upon climate in holding moisture,[5] and not[Pg 30] only moisture, but soil also. In South Africa the violent rain-storms sweep away the surface of the ground, and prevent the deposition of vegetable mould. Nothing retains that mould or the soil formed by decomposed rock as well as a covering of wood and the herbage which the neighbourhood of comparatively moist woodlands helps to support. It is much to be desired that in all parts of the country where trees will grow trees should be planted, and that those which remain should be protected. Unfortunately, most of the South African trees grow slowly, so where planting has been attempted it is chiefly foreign sorts that are tried. Among these the first place belongs to the Australian gums, because they shoot up faster than any others. One finds them now everywhere, mostly in rows or groups round a house or a hamlet, but sometimes also in regular plantations. They have become a conspicuous feature in the landscape of the veldt plateau, especially in those places where there was no wood, or the little that existed has been destroyed. Kimberley, for instance, and Pretoria are beginning to be embowered in groves of eucalyptus; Buluwayo is following suit; and all over Matabililand and Mashonaland one discovers in the distance the site of a farm-steading or a store by the waving tops of the gum-trees. If this goes on these Australian immigrants will sensibly affect the aspect of the country, just as already they have affected that of the Riviera in south-eastern France, of the Campagna of Rome, of the rolling tops of the Nilghiri Hills in Southern India, from which, unhappily, the far more beautiful ancient groves ("sholas") have now almost disappeared. Besides those gums, another Australasian tree, the thin-foliaged and unlovely, but quick-growing "beefwood," has been largely planted at Kimberley and some other places. The[Pg 31] stone-pine of Southern Europe, the cluster-pine (Pinus Pinaster), and the Aleppo or Jerusalem pine (Pinus Halepensis), have all been introduced and seem to do well. The Australian wattles have been found very useful in helping to fix the soil on sandy flats, such as those near Cape Town, and the bark of one species is an important article of commerce in Natal, where (near Maritzburg, for instance) it grows profusely. But of all the immigrant trees none is so beautiful as the oak. The Dutch began to plant it round Cape Town early in the eighteenth century, and it is now one of the elements which most contribute to the charm of the scenery in this eminently picturesque south-west corner of the country. Nothing can be more charming than the long oak avenues which line the streets of Stellenbosch, for instance; and they help, with the old-fashioned Dutch houses of that quaint little town, to give a sort of Hobbema flavour to the foregrounds.

The changes which man has produced in the aspect of countries, by the trees he plants and the crops he sows, are a curious subject for inquiry to the geographer and the historian. These changes sometimes take place very rapidly. In the Hawaiian Islands, for instance, discovered by Captain Cook little more than a century ago, many of the shrubs which most abound and give its tone to the landscape have come (and that mostly not by planting, but spontaneously) from the shores of Asia and America within the last eighty years. In Egypt most of the trees which fill the eye in the drive from Cairo to the pyramids were introduced by Mehemet Ali, so that the banks of the Nile, as we see them, are different not only from those which Herodotus saw, but even from those which Napoleon saw. In North Africa the Central American prickly-pear and the Australian gum make the landscape quite different from that of Carthaginian or even of Roman[Pg 32] times. So South Africa is changing—changing all the more because many of the immigrant trees thrive better than the indigenous ones, and are fit for spots where the latter make but little progress; and in another century the country may wear an aspect quite unlike that which it now presents.

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CHAPTER V

PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF THE VARIOUS POLITICAL DIVISIONS

Hitherto I have spoken of South Africa as a natural whole, ignoring its artificial division into Colonies and States. It may be well to complete the account of the physical characteristics of the country by giving the reader some notion of the aspects of each of the political divisions, and thereby a notion also of their relative importance and resources as wealth-producing regions.

CAPE COLONY

Cape Colony is a huge territory more than twice as large as the United Kingdom. But very little of it is available for tillage, and much of it is too arid even for stock-keeping. The population, including natives, is only seven to the square mile. Nearly the whole of it is high country. All along its westerly coast and its southerly coast there is a strip of low ground bordering the ocean, which in some places is but a mile or two wide, and in others, where a broad valley opens spreads backward, giving thirty or forty square miles of tolerably level or undulating ground. The rich wine and corn district round Stellenbosch and Paarl and northward towards Malmesbury is such a tract. Behind this low strip the country rises, sometimes in[Pg 34] steep acclivities, up which a road or railway has to be carried in curves and zigzags, sometimes in successive terraces, the steps, so to speak, by which the lofty interior breaks down towards the sea.

Behind these terraces and slopes lies the great tableland described in a preceding chapter. Though I call it a tableland, it is by no means flat, for several long, though not lofty, ranges of hills, mostly running east and west, intersect it. Some tracts are only 2000 feet, others as much as 5000 feet, above the sea, while the highest hilltops approach 8000 feet. The part of this high country which lies between longitude 20° and 25° E., with the Nieuweld and Sneeuwberg mountains to the north of it, and the Zwarte Berg to the south, is called the Great Karroo. (The word is Hottentot, and means a dry or bare place.) It is tolerably level, excessively dry, with no such thing as a running stream over its huge expanse of three hundred miles long and half as much wide, nor, indeed, any moisture, save in a few places shallow pools which almost disappear in the dry season. The rainfall ranges from five to fifteen inches in the year. It is therefore virtually a desert, bearing no herbage (except for a week or two after a rainstorm), and no trees, though there are plenty of prickly shrubs and small bushes, some of these succulent enough, when they sprout after the few showers that fall in the summer, to give good browsing to sheep and goats. The brilliancy of the air, the warmth of the days, and the coldness of the nights remind one who traverses the Karroo of the deserts of Western America between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, though the soil is much less alkaline, and the so-called "sage-brush" plants characteristic of an alkaline district are mostly absent. To the north of the Karroo and of the mountains which bound it, a similar district, equally arid, dreary, and barren, stretches away to the banks of the Orange River, which here in its lower course has less[Pg 35] water than in its upper course, because, like the Nile, it receives no affluents and is wasted by the terrible sun. In fact, one may say that from the mountains dividing the southern part of the Karroo from the coast lands all the way north to the Orange River, a distance of nearly four hundred miles, nature has made the country a desert of clay and stone (seldom of sand), though man has here and there tried to redeem it for habitation.

The north-eastern part of the interior of Cape Colony is more generally elevated than the south-western. From Graaf-Reinet northward to Kimberley and Mafeking, and north-eastward to the borders of Basutoland, the country is 4000 feet or more above sea-level; much of it is nearly level, and almost all of it bare of wood. It is better watered than the western districts, enjoying a rainfall of from ten to twenty-five inches in the year, and is therefore mostly covered with grass after the rains, and not merely with dry thorny bushes. Nevertheless, its general aspect in the dry season is so parched and bare that the stranger is surprised to be told that it supports great quantities of cattle, sheep, and goats. The south-eastern part, including the Quathlamba Range, and the hilly country descending from that range to the sea, has a still heavier rainfall and is in some places covered with forest. Here the grass is richer, and in the valleys there is plenty of land fit for tillage without irrigation.

THE COLONY OF NATAL

Much smaller, but more favoured by nature, is the British colony of Natal, which adjoins the easternmost part of Cape Colony, and now includes the territories of Zululand and Tonga land. Natal proper and Zululand resemble in their physical conditions the south-eastern corner of Cape Colony. Both lie entirely on the sea slope of the Quathlamba Range, and are covered by mountains[Pg 36] and hills descending from that range. Both are hilly or undulating, with a charming variety of surface; and they are also comparatively well watered, with a perennial stream in every valley. Hence there is plenty of grass, and towards the coast plenty of wood also, while the loftier interior is bare. The climate is much warmer than that of Cape Colony, and in the narrow strip which borders the sea becomes almost tropical. Nor is this heat attributable entirely to the latitude. It is largely due to the great Mozambique current, which brings down from the tropical parts of the Indian Ocean a vast body of warm water which heats the adjoining coast just as the Gulf Stream heats the shores of Georgia and the Carolinas; and the effect of this mass of hot water upon the air over it would doubtless be felt much more in Natal were it not for the rapid rise of the ground from the sea in that colony. Pietermaritzburg, the capital, is only some fifty miles from the coast as the crow flies. But though it lies in a valley, it is 2225 feet above sea-level, and from it the country steadily rises inland, till at Laing's Nek (the watershed between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic), the height of 5300 feet is reached, and the winter cold is severe. Nearly the whole of Natal and four-fifths of Zululand may thus be deemed a temperate country, where Europeans can thrive and multiply. So far as soil goes it is one of the richest as well as one of the fairest parts of South Africa. Tongaland, a smaller district, lies lower and is less healthy.

GERMAN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA

Very different is the vast German territory (322,000 square miles) which stretches northward from Cape Colony, bounded on the south by the Orange River, on the north by the West African territories of Portugal, on the east by Bechuanaland. Great Namaqualand and Damaraland constitute an enormous wilderness,[Pg 37] very thinly peopled, because the means of life are very scanty. This wilderness is, except the narrow and sandy coast strip, a high country (3000 to 4500 feet above sea-level) and a dry country, drier even than the Karroo, and far too dry for any kind of cultivation. Some parts, especially those in the south-west, are hopelessly parched and barren; others have small bushes or grass; while on the higher grounds and generally in the far northern parts, where the Ovampo tribe dwell, grass is abundant, and as cattle can thrive there is also population. Copper has been discovered in considerable quantities, and other minerals (including coal) are believed to exist. But the country, taken all in all, and excepting the little explored districts of the north-east, toward the Upper Zambesi,—districts whose resources are still very imperfectly known,—is a dreary and desolate region, which seems likely to prove of little value. Germany now owns the whole of it, save the port of Walfish Bay, which has been retained for and is administered by Cape Colony.

PORTUGUESE SOUTH-EAST AFRICA

On the opposite side of the continent Portugal holds the country which lies along the Indian Ocean from British Tongaland northward to the Zambesi. Close to the sea it is level, rising gently westward in hills, and in some places extending to the crest of the Quathlamba Mountains. Thus it has considerable variety of aspect and climate, and as the rain falls chiefly on the slopes of the mountains, the interior is generally better watered than the flat seaboard, which is often sandy and worthless. Much of this region is of great fertility, capable of producing all the fruits of the tropics. But much of it, including some of the most fertile parts, is also very malarious, while the heat is far too great for European labour. When plantations are established throughout it, as they have been in a few—but only a[Pg 38] few—spots by the Portuguese, it will be by natives that they will be cultivated. The Kafir population is now comparatively small, but this may be due rather to the desolating native wars than to the conditions of the soil.

So much for the four maritime countries. There remain the two Dutch republics and the British territories which have not yet been formed into colonies.

THE ORANGE FREE STATE

The Orange Free State (48,000 square miles) lies entirely on the great plateau, between 4000 and 5000 feet above sea-level. It is in the main a level country, though hills are scattered over it, sometimes reaching a height of nearly 6000 feet. A remarkable feature of most of these hills, as of many all over the plateau, is that they are flat-topped, and have often steep, even craggy escarpments. This seems due to the fact that the strata (chiefly sandstone) are horizontal; and very often a bed of hard igneous rock, some, kind of trap or greenstone, or porphyry, protects the summit of the hill from the disintegrating influences of the weather. It is a bare land, with very little wood, and that small and scrubby, but is well covered with herbage, affording excellent pasture during two-thirds of the year. After the first rains, when these wide stretches of gently undulating land are dressed in their new vesture of brilliant green, nothing can be imagined more exhilarating than a ride across the wide expanse; for the air is pure, keen, and bracing, much like that of the high prairies of Colorado or Wyoming. There are fortunately no blizzards, but violent thunderstorms are not uncommon, and the hailstones—I have seen them as big as bantams' eggs—which fall during such storms sometimes kill the smaller animals, and even men. Dry as the land appears to the eye during the winter, the larger streams do not wholly fail, and water can[Pg 39] generally be got. The south-eastern part of the Free State, especially along the Caledon River, is extremely fertile, one of the best corn-growing parts of Africa. The rest is fitter for pasture than for tillage, except, of course, on the alluvial banks of the rivers, and nearly the whole region is in fact occupied by huge grazing farms. As such a farm needs and supports only a few men, the population grows but slowly. The Free State is nearly as big as England and just as big as the State of New York; but it has only 77,000 white inhabitants and about 130,000 natives.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC

Somewhat larger,—about as large as Great Britain and nearly two-thirds the size of France—is the South African Republic, which we commonly talk of as the Transvaal. Of its white population, which numbers some 170,000, two-thirds are in the small mining district of the Witwatersrand. All the Transvaal, except a strip on the eastern and another strip on the northern border along the river Limpopo, also belongs to the great plateau and exhibits the characteristic features of the plateau. The hills are, however, higher than in the Free State, and along the east, where the Quathlamba Range forms the outer edge of the plateau, they deserve to be called mountains, for some of them reach 7000 feet. These high regions are healthy, for the summer heats are tempered by easterly breezes and copious summer rains. The lower parts lying toward the Indian Ocean and the Limpopo River are feverish, though drainage and cultivation may be expected to reduce the malaria and improve the conditions of health. Like the Free State, the Transvaal is primarily a pasture land, but in many parts the herbage is less juicy and wholesome than in the smaller republic, and belongs to what the Dutch Boers call "sour veldt." There are trees in the more[Pg 40] sheltered parts, but except in the lower valleys, they are small, and of no economic value. The winter cold is severe, and the fierce sun dries up the soil, and makes the grass sear and brown for the greater part of the year. Strong winds sweep over the vast stretches of open upland, checked by no belts of forest. It is a country whose aspect has little to attract the settler. No one would think it worth fighting for so far as the surface goes; and until sixteen years ago nobody knew that there was enormous wealth lying below the surface.

BRITISH TERRITORIES—BECHUANALAND

Of one British territory outside the two colonies, viz., Basutoland, I shall have to speak fully hereafter. A second, Bechuanaland, including the Kalahari Desert, is of vast extent, but slender value. It is a level land lying entirely on the plateau between 3,000 and 4000 feet above the sea, and while some of its streamlets drain into the Limpopo, and so to the Indian Ocean, others flow westward and northward into marshes and shallow lakes, in which they disappear. One or two, however, succeed, in wet seasons, in getting as far as the Orange River, and find through it an outlet to the sea. It is only in the wet season that the streamlets flow, for Bechuanaland is intensely dry. I travelled four hundred miles through it without once crossing running water, though here and there in traversing the dry bed of a brook one was told that there was water underneath, deep in the sand. Notwithstanding this superficial aridity, eastern Bechuanaland is deemed one of the best ranching tracts in South Africa, for the grass is sweet, and the water can usually be obtained by digging, though it is often brackish. There is also plenty of wood—thin and thorny, but sufficiently abundant to diversify the aspect of what would otherwise be a most dreary and monotonous region.[Pg 41]

THE TERRITORIES OF THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY

North of Bechuanaland and the Transvaal, and stretching all the way to the Zambesi, are those immense territories which have been assigned to the British South Africa Company as the sphere of its operations, and to which the name of Rhodesia has been given. Matabililand and Mashonaland, the only parts that have been at all settled, are higher, more undulating, and altogether more attractive than Bechuanaland, with great swelling downs somewhat resembling the Steppes of Southern Russia or the prairies of Kansas. Except in the east and south-east, the land is undulating rather than hilly, but in the south-west, towards the Upper Limpopo, there lies a high region, full of small rocky heights often clothed with thick bush—a country difficult to traverse, as has been found during the recent native outbreak; for it was there that most of the Kafirs took shelter and were found difficult to dislodge. Towards the south-east, along the middle course of the Limpopo, the country is lower and less healthy. On the northern side of the central highlands, the ground sinks towards the Zambesi, and the soil, which among the hills is thin or sandy, becomes deeper. In that part and along the river banks there are great possibilities of agricultural development, while the uplands, where the subjacent rock is granite or gneiss, with occasional beds of slate or schist, are generally barer and more dry, fit rather for pasture than for tillage. More rain falls than in Bechuanaland, so it is only at the end of the dry season, in October, that the grass begins to fail on the pastures. The climate, though very warm,—for here we are well within the tropics,—is pleasant and invigorating, for nowhere do brighter and fresher breezes blow, and the heat of the afternoons is forgotten in the[Pg 42] cool evenings. It is healthy, too, except along the swampy river banks and where one descends to the levels of the Zambesi, or into the Limpopo Valley.

The reader will have gathered from this general sketch that there are no natural boundaries severing from one another the various political divisions of South Africa. The north-eastern part of Cape Colony is substantially the same kind of country as the Orange Free State and Eastern Bechuanaland; the Transvaal, or at least three-fourths of its area, is physically similar to the Free State; the boundary between Cape Colony and Natal is an artificial one; while Matabililand and Mashonaland present features resembling those of the Northern Transvaal, differing only in being rather hotter and rather better watered. So far as nature is concerned, the conditions she prescribes for the life of man, the resources she opens to his energies, are very similar over these wide areas, save, of course, that some parts are much richer than others in mineral deposits. It is only along the frontier line which divides Natal and the Portuguese dominions from the Transvaal and the territories of the British South Africa Company that a political coincides with a physical line of demarcation. Even German South-west Africa differs scarcely at all from the Kalahari Desert, which adjoins it and which forms the western part of Bechuanaland, and differs little also from the north-western regions of Cape Colony. If the reader will compare the two physical maps contained in this volume with the map which shows the political divisions of the country he will notice that these political divisions do not correspond with the areas where more or less rain falls, or where the ground is more or less raised above the sea or traversed by mountain chains. The only exception is to be found in the fact that the boundary of Natal towards Basutoland and the Orange Free State has been drawn along the watershed between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, and that the[Pg 43] boundary line between the Portuguese territories and those of the Transvaal Republic and of the British South Africa Company, is in many places the line of division between the mountains and the low country. The Orange River and the Limpopo have, in parts of their courses, been taken as convenient political frontiers. But rivers, though convenient for this purpose to the statesman and the geographer, are not natural boundaries in the true sense of the term. And thus we may say that the causes which have cut up South Africa into its present Colonies and States have been (except as aforesaid) historical causes, rather than differences due to the hand of nature.

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CHAPTER VI

NATURE AND HISTORY

Now that some general idea of how nature has shaped and moulded South Africa has been conveyed to the reader, a few pages may be devoted to considering what influence on the fortunes of the country and its inhabitants has been exerted by its physical character. The history of every country may be regarded as the joint result of three factors—the natural conditions of the country itself, the qualities of the races that have occupied it, and the circumstances under which their occupation took place. And among savage or barbarous people natural conditions have an even greater importance than they have in more advanced periods of civilisation, because they are more powerful as against man. Man in his savage state is not yet able to resist such conditions or to turn them to serve his purposes, but is condemned to submit to the kind of life which they prescribe.

This was the case with the first inhabitants of South Africa. They seem to have entered it as savages, and savages they remained. Nature was strong and stern; she spread before them no such rich alluvial plains as tempted cultivation in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. Intellectually feeble, and without the patience or the foresight to attempt to till the soil in a land where droughts are frequent and disastrous, the Bushmen were content with killing game, and the[Pg 45] Hottentots with living on the milk of their cattle. Such a life, which was one of uncertainty and often of hardship, permitted no accumulation of wealth, gave no leisure, suggested no higher want than that of food, and was in all respects unfavourable to material progress. Even the Bantu people, who probably came later and were certainly more advanced, for they carried on some little cultivation of the soil, remained at a low level. Nature gave them, except in dry years, as much corn as they needed in return for very little labour. Clothing they did not need, and their isolation from the rest of the world left them ignorant of luxuries. When the European voyagers found them at the end of the fifteenth century, they were making little or no advance in the arts of life.

Upon the growth of European settlements the influence of the physical structure of the country has been very marked. When the Portuguese had followed the long line of coast from the mouth of the Orange River to that of the Zambesi, and from the mouth of the Zambesi northward to Zanzibar, they settled only where they heard that gold and ivory could be obtained. Their forts and trading stations, the first of which dates from 1505, were therefore planted on the coast northward from the Limpopo River. Sofala, a little south of the modern port of Beira, was the principal one. Here they traded, and twice or thrice they made, always in search of the gold-producing regions, expeditions inland. These expeditions, however, had to traverse the flat and malarious strip of ground which lies along the Indian Ocean. A large part of the white troops died, and the rest arrived at the higher ground so much weakened that they could achieve no permanent conquests, for they were opposed by warlike tribes. In the course of years a small population speaking Portuguese, though mixed with native blood, grew up along the coast. The climate, however, destroyed what vigour the whites had brought from Europe, and by degrees[Pg 46] they ceased to even attempt to conquer or occupy the interior. The heat and the rains, together with fever, the offspring of heat and rains, checked further progress. Three centuries passed, during which the knowledge of south-eastern Africa which the civilised world had obtained within the twenty years that followed the voyages of Vasco da Gama, was scarcely increased.

During those three centuries, America, which had not been discovered till six years after Bartholomew Diaz passed the Cape of Good Hope, had been, all except a part of the north-west, pretty thoroughly explored and partitioned out among five European powers. Large and prosperous colonies had sprung up and before the end of the eighteenth century one great independent state had established itself. The discovery of Australia and New Zealand came much later than that of America; but within one century from the first European settlement in Australia (A.D. 1787) the whole continent, though its interior is uninviting, had been traversed along many lines, and five prosperous European colonies had grown to importance. The slow progress of exploration and settlement in South Africa during so long a period is therefore a noteworthy phenomenon which deserves a few observations.

As regards the Portuguese part of the East African coast, the explanation just given is sufficient. As regards that part of the West coast which lies south of the Portuguese colony of Angola, the natural features of the country make no explanation needed. No more arid or barren coast is to be found anywhere, and in its whole long stretch there is but one tolerable port, that of Walfish Bay. The inland region is scarcely better. Much of it is waterless and without herbage. No gold nor ivory nor other article of value was obtainable. Accordingly, nobody cared to settle or explore, and the land would probably be still lying unclaimed had not[Pg 47] the settlement of Herr Lüderitz and a vague desire for territorial expansion prompted Germany to occupy it in 1884.

The south coast, from the Cape to the Tugela River, was much more attractive. Here the climate was salubrious, the land in many places fertile, and everywhere fit for sheep or cattle. Here, accordingly, a small European community, first founded in 1652, grew up and spread slowly eastward and northward along the shore during the century and a half from its first establishment. The Dutch settlers did not care to penetrate the interior, because the interior seemed to offer little to a farmer. Behind the well-watered coast belt lay successive lines of steep mountains, and behind those mountains the desert waste of the Karroo, where it takes six acres to keep a sheep. Accordingly, it was only a few bold hunters, a few farmers on the outskirts of the little maritime colony, and a few missionaries, who cared to enter this wide wilderness.

When exploration began, it began from this south-west corner of Africa. It began late. In 1806, when the British took the Cape from the Dutch, few indeed were the white men who had penetrated more than one hundred miles from the coast, and the farther interior was known only by report. For thirty years more progress was slow; and it is within our own time that nearly all the exploration, and the settlement which has followed quickly on the heels of exploration, has taken place. Just sixty years ago the Dutch Boers passed in their heavy waggons from Cape Colony to the spots where Bloemfontein and Pretoria now stand. In 1854-56 David Livingstone made his way through Bechuanaland to the falls of the Zambesi and the west coast at St. Paul de Loanda. In 1889 the vast territories between the Transvaal Republic and the Zambesi began to be occupied by the Mashonaland pioneers. All these explorers, all the farmers, missionaries, hunters, and mining prospectors, came up into South Central[Pg 48] Africa from the south-west extremity of the continent over the great plateau. They moved north-eastward, because there was more rain, and therefore more grass and game in that direction than toward the north. They were checked from time to time by the warlike native tribes; but they were drawn on by finding everywhere a country in which Europeans could live and thrive. It was the existence of this high and cool plateau that permitted their discoveries and encouraged their settlement. And thus the rich interior has come to belong, not to the Portuguese, who first laid hold of South Africa, but to the races who first entered the plateau at the point where it is nearest the sea, the Dutch and the English. Coming a thousand miles by land, they have seized and colonised the country that lies within sixty or eighty miles of the ocean behind the Portuguese settlements, because they had good healthy air to breathe during all those thousand miles of journey; while the Portuguese, sunk among tropical swamps, were doing no more than maintain their hold upon the coast, and were allowing even the few forts they had established along the lower course of the Zambesi to crumble away.

The same natural conditions, however, which have made the plateau healthy, have kept it sparsely peopled. Much of this high interior, whose settlement has occupied the last sixty years, is a desert unfit, and likely to be always unfit, for human habitation. Even in those parts which are comparatively well watered, the grazing for sheep and cattle is so scanty during some months of the year that farms are large, houses are scattered far from one another, and the population remains extremely thin. The Wilderness of the Karroo cuts off Cape Town and its comparatively populous neighbourhood from the inhabited, though thinly inhabited, pastoral districts of the Orange Free State. Between these two settled districts there are only a few villages, scattered at intervals of many miles along a line of[Pg 49] railway four hundred miles in length. In the Free State and the Transvaal the white population is extremely sparse, save in the mining region of the Witwatersrand, because ranching requires few hands, and only a few hundred square miles out of many thousands have been brought under cultivation. Thus, while the coolness of the climate has permitted Europeans to thrive in these comparatively low latitudes, its dryness has kept down their numbers and has retarded not only their political development, but their progress in all those arts and pursuits which imply a tolerably large and varied society. The note of South African life, the thing that strikes the traveller with increasing force as he visits one part of the country after another, is the paucity of inhabitants, and the isolated life which these inhabitants, except in six or seven towns, are forced to lead. This is the doing of nature. She has not severed the country into distinct social or political communities by any lines of physical demarcation, but she has provided such scanty means of sustenance for human life and so few openings for human industry unaided by capital, that the settlers (save where capital has come to their aid) remain few indeed, and one may call the interior of South Africa a vast solitude, with a few oases of population dotted here and there over it.

[Pg 50]

CHAPTER VII

ASPECTS OF SCENERY

The sketch I have given of the physical character of South Africa will doubtless have conveyed to the reader that the country offers comparatively little to attract the lover of natural scenery. This impression is true if the sort of landscape we have learned to enjoy in Europe and in the eastern part of the United States be taken as the type of scenery which gives most pleasure. Variety of form, boldness of outline, the presence of water in lakes and running streams, and, above all, foliage and verdure, are the main elements of beauty in those landscapes; while if any one desires something of more imposing grandeur, he finds it in snow-capped mountains like the Alps or the Cascade Range, or in majestic crags such as those which tower over the fiords of Norway. But the scenery of South Africa is wholly unlike that of Europe or of most parts of America. It is, above all things, a dry land, a parched and thirsty land, where no clear brooks murmur through the meadow, no cascade sparkles from the cliff, where mountain and plain alike are brown and dusty except during the short season of the rains. And being a dry land, it is also a bare land. Few are the favoured spots in which a veritable forest can be seen; for though many tracts are wooded, the trees are almost always thin and stunted. In Matabililand, for instance, though a great part of the surface is covered[Pg 51] with wood, you see no trees forty feet high, and few reaching thirty; while in the wilderness of the Kalahari Desert and Damaraland nothing larger than a bush is visible, except the scraggy and thorny mimosa.

These features of South Africa—the want of water and the want of greenness—are those to which a native of Western Europe finds it hardest to accustom himself, however thoroughly he may enjoy the brilliant sun and the keen dry air which go along with them. And it must also be admitted that over very large areas the aspects of nature are so uniform as to become monotonous. One may travel eight hundred miles and see less variety in the landscape than one would find in one-fourth of the same distance anywhere in Western Europe or in America east of the Alleghany Mountains. The same geological formations prevail over wide areas, and give the same profile to the hilltop, the same undulations to the plain; while in travelling northward toward the Equator the flora seems to change far less between 34° and 18° south latitude than it changes in the journey from Barcelona to Havre, through only half as many degrees of latitude.

There are, nevertheless, several interesting bits of scenery in South Africa, which, if they do not of themselves repay the traveller for so long a journey, add sensibly to his enjoyment. The situation of Cape Town, with a magnificent range of precipices rising behind it, a noble bay in front, and environs full of beautiful avenues and pleasure-grounds, while bold mountain-peaks close the more distant landscape, is equalled by that of few other cities in the world. Constantinople and Naples, Bombay and San Francisco, cannot boast of more perfect or more varied prospects. There are some fine pieces of wood and water scenery along the south coast of Cape Colony, and one of singular charm in the adjoining colony of Natal, where the suburbs of Durban, the principal port, though they lack the grandeur which its craggy[Pg 52] heights give to the neighbourhood of Cape Town have, with a warmer climate, a richer and more tropically luxuriant vegetation. In the great range of mountains which runs some seventeen hundred miles from Cape Town almost to the banks of the Zambesi, the scenery becomes striking in three districts only. One of these is Basutoland, a little native territory which lies just where Cape Colony, the Orange Free State, and Natal meet. Its peaks are the highest in Africa south of Mount Kilimanjaro, for several of them reach 11,000 feet. On the south-east this mountain-land, the Switzerland of South Africa, faces Natal and East Griqualand with a long range of formidable precipices, impassable for many miles. The interior contains valleys and glens of singular beauty, some wild and rugged, some clothed with rich pasture. The voice of brooks, a sound rare in Africa, rises from the hidden depths of the gorges, and here and there torrents plunging over the edge of a basaltic cliff into an abyss below make waterfalls which are at all seasons beautiful, and when swollen by the rains of January majestic. Except wood, of which there is unhappily nothing more than a little scrubby bush in the sheltered hollows, nearly all the elements of beauty are present; and the contrast between the craggy summits and the soft rich pasture and cornlands which lie along their northern base, gives rise to many admirable landscapes.

Two hundred miles north-north-east of Basutoland the great Quathlamba Range rises in very bold slopes from the coast levels behind Delagoa Bay, and the scenery of the valleys and passes is said to be extremely grand. Knowing it, however, only by report, I will not venture to describe it. Nearly five hundred miles still farther to the north, in the district called Manicaland, already referred to, is a third mountain region, less lofty than Basutoland, but deriving a singular charm from the dignity and variety of its mountain[Pg 53] forms. The whole country is so elevated that summits of 7000 or even 8000 feet do not produce any greater effect upon the eye than does Ben Lomond as seen from Loch Lomond, or Mount Washington from the Glen House. But there is a boldness of line about these granite peaks comparable to those of the west coast of Norway or of the finest parts of the Swiss Alps. Some of them rise in smooth shafts of apparently inaccessible rock; others form long ridges of pinnacles of every kind of shape, specially striking when they stand out against the brilliantly clear morning or evening sky. The valleys are well wooded, the lower slopes covered with herbage, so the effect of these wild peaks is heightened by the softness of the surroundings which they dominate, while at the same time the whole landscape becomes more complex and more noble by the mingling of such diverse elements. No scenery better deserves the name of romantic. And even in the tamer parts, where instead of mountains there are only low hills, or "kopjes" (as they are called in South Africa), the slightly more friable rock found in these hills decomposes under the influence of the weather into curiously picturesque and fantastic forms, with crags riven to their base, and detached pillars supporting loose blocks and tabular masses, among or upon which the timid Mashonas have built their huts in the hope of escaping the raids of their warlike enemies, the Matabili.

Though I must admit that South Africa, taken as a whole, offers far less to attract the lover of natural beauty than does Southern or Western Europe or the Pacific States of North America, there are two kinds of charm which it possesses in a high degree. One is that of colour. Monotonous as the landscapes often are, there is a warmth and richness of tone about them which fills and delights the eye. One sees comparatively little of that whitish-blue limestone which so often gives a hard and chilling aspect to the scenery of the lower[Pg 54] ridges of the Alps and of large parts of the coasts of the Mediterranean. In Africa even the grey granite or gneiss has a deeper tone than these limestones, and it is frequently covered by red and yellow lichens of wonderful beauty. The dark basalts and porphyries which occur in many places, the rich red tint which the surface of the sandstone rocks often takes under the scorching sun, give depth of tone to the landscape; and though the flood of midday sunshine is almost overpowering, the lights of morning and evening, touching the mountains with every shade of rose and crimson and violet, are indescribably beautiful. It is in these morning and evening hours that the charm of the pure dry air is specially felt. Mountains fifty or sixty miles away stand out clearly enough to enable all the wealth of their colour and all the delicacy of their outlines to be perceived; and the eye realises, by the exquisitely fine change of tint between the nearer and the more distant ranges, the immensity and the harmony of the landscape. Europeans may think that the continuous profusion of sunlight during most of the year may become wearisome. I was not long enough in the country to find it so, and I observed that those who have lived for a few years in South Africa declare they prefer that continuous profusion to the murky skies of Britain or Holland or North Germany. But even if the fine weather which prevails for eight months in the year be monotonous, there is compensation in the extraordinary brilliancy of the atmospheric effects throughout the rainy season, and especially in its first weeks. During nine days which I spent in the Transvaal at that season, when several thunderstorms occurred almost every day, the combinations of sunshine, lightning, and cloud, and the symphonies—if the expression may be permitted—of light and shade and colour which their changeful play produced in the sky and on the earth, were more various and more wonderful than a whole year would furnish forth for enjoyment in Europe.[Pg 55]

The other peculiar charm which South African scenery possesses is that of primeval solitude and silence. It is a charm which is differently felt by different minds. There are many who find the presence of what Homer calls "the rich works of men" essential to the perfection of a landscape. Cultivated fields, gardens, and orchards, farmhouses dotted here and there, indications in one form or another of human life and labour, do not merely give a greater variety to every prospect, but also impart an element which evokes the sense of sympathy with our fellow-beings, and excites a whole group of emotions which the contemplation of nature, taken by itself, does not arouse. No one is insensible to these things and some find little delight in any scene from which they are absent. Yet there are other minds to which there is something specially solemn and impressive in the untouched and primitive simplicity of a country which stands now just as it came from the hands of the Creator. The self-sufficingness of nature, the insignificance of man, the mystery of a universe which does not exist, as our ancestors fondly thought, for the sake of man, but for other purposes hidden from us and for ever undiscoverable—these things are more fully realised and more deeply felt when one traverses a boundless wilderness which seems to have known no change since the remote ages when hill and plain and valley were moulded into the forms we see to-day. Feelings of this kind powerfully affect the mind of the traveller in South Africa. They affect him in the Karroo, where the slender line of rails, along which his train creeps all day and all night across wide stretches of brown desert and under the crests of stern dark hills, seems to heighten by contrast the sense of solitude—a vast and barren solitude interposed between the busy haunts of men which he has left behind on the shores of the ocean and those still busier haunts whither he is bent, where the pick and hammer sound upon the Witwatersrand, and the[Pg 56] palpitating engine drags masses of ore from the depths of the crowded mine. They affect him still more in the breezy highlands of Matabililand, where the eye ranges over an apparently endless succession of undulations clothed with tall grass or waving wood, till they sink in the blue distance toward the plain through which the great Zambesi takes its seaward course.

The wilderness is indeed not wholly unpeopled. Over the wide surface of Matabililand and Mashonaland—an area of some two hundred thousand square miles—there are scattered natives of various tribes, whose numbers have been roughly estimated at from 250,000 to 400,000 persons. But one rarely sees a native except along a few well-beaten tracks, and still more rarely comes upon a cluster of huts in the woods along the streamlets or half hidden among the fissured rocks of a granite kopje. The chief traces of man's presence in the landscape are the narrow and winding footpaths which run hither and thither through the country, and bewilder the traveller who, having strayed from his waggon, vainly hopes by following them to find his way back to the main track, or the wreaths of blue smoke which indicate the spot where a Kafir has set the grass on fire to startle and kill the tiny creatures that dwell in it.

Nothing is at first more surprising to one who crosses a country inhabited by savages than the few marks of their presence which strike the eye, or at least an unpractised eye. The little plot of ground the Kafirs have cultivated is in a few years scarcely distinguishable from the untouched surface of the surrounding land, while the mud-built hut quickly disappears under the summer rains and the scarcely less destructive efforts of the white ants. Here in South Africa the native races seem to have made no progress for centuries, if, indeed, they have not actually gone backward; and the feebleness of savage man[Pg 57] intensifies one's sense of the overmastering strength of nature. The elephant and the buffalo are as much the masters of the soil as is the Kafir, and man has no more right to claim that the land was made for him than have the wild beasts of the forest who roar after their prey and seek their meat from God.

These features of South African nature, its silence, its loneliness, its drear solemnity, have not been without their influence upon the mind and temper of the European settler. The most peculiar and characteristic type that the country has produced is the Boer of the eastern plateau, the offspring of those Dutch Africanders who some sixty years ago wandered away from British rule into the wilderness. These men had, and their sons and grandsons have retained, a passion for solitude that even to-day makes them desire to live many miles from any neighbour, a sturdy self-reliance, a grim courage in the face of danger, a sternness from which the native races have often had to suffer. The majesty of nature has not stimulated in them any poetical faculty. But her austerity, joined to the experiences of their race, has contributed to make them grave and serious, closely bound to their ancient forms of piety, and prone to deem themselves the special objects of divine protection.

PART II

A SKETCH OF SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY

[Pg 61]

CHAPTER VIII

THE NATIVES: HOTTENTOTS, BUSHMEN, AND KAFIRS

By far the most interesting features in the history of South Africa have been the relations to one another of the various races that inhabit it. There are seven of these races, three native and four European. The European races, two of them, especially the Dutch and the English, are, of course, far stronger, and far more important as political factors, than are the natives. Nevertheless, the natives have an importance too, and one so great that their position deserves to be fully set forth and carefully weighed. For, though they are inferior in every point but one, they are in that point strong. They are prolific. They already greatly outnumber the whites, and they increase faster.

The cases of conflict or contact between civilized European man and savage or semi-civilized aboriginal peoples, which have been very numerous since the tide of discovery began to rise in the end of the fifteenth century, may be reduced to three classes.

The first of these classes includes the cases where the native race, though perhaps numerous, is comparatively weak, and unable to assimilate European civilization, or to thrive under European rule (a rule which has often been harsh), or even to survive in the presence of a European population occupying its country. To this class belong such cases as the extinction of the natives of the Antilles by the Spaniards, the disappearance of[Pg 62] the natives of Southern Australia and Tasmania before British settlement, the dying out, or retirement to a few reserved tracts, of the aborigines who once occupied all North America east of the Rocky Mountains. The Russian advance in Siberia, the advance of Spanish and Italian and German colonists in the territories of La Plata in South America, may be added to this class, for though the phenomena are rather those of absorption than of extinction, the result is practically the same. The country becomes European and the native races vanish.

An opposite class of cases arises where Europeans have conquered a country already filled by a more or less civilized population, which is so numerous and so prolific as to maintain itself with ease in their presence. Such a case is the British conquest of India. The Europeans in India are, and must remain, a mere handful among the many millions of industrious natives, who already constitute, in many districts, a population almost too numerous for the resources of the country to support. Moreover, the climate is one in which a pure European race speedily dwindles away. The position of the Dutch in Java, and of the French in Indo-China, is similar; and the French in Madagascar will doubtless present another instance.

Between these two extremes lies a third group of cases—those in which the native race is, on the one hand, numerous and strong enough to maintain itself in the face of Europeans, while, on the other hand, there is plenty of room left for a considerable European population to press in, climatic conditions not forbidding it to spread and multiply. To this group belong such colonizations as those of the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru, of the Russians in parts of Central Asia, of the French in Algeria and Tunis, of the Spaniards in the Canary Isles, and of the English and Americans in Hawaii. In all these countries the new race and the old race can both live and thrive, neither of them killing[Pg 63] off or crowding out the other, though in some, as in Hawaii, the natives tend to disappear, while in others, as in Algeria, the immigrants do not much increase. Sometimes, as in the Canary Isles and Mexico, the two elements blend, the native element being usually more numerous, though less advanced; and a mixed race is formed by intermarriage. Sometimes they remain, and seem likely to remain, as distinct as oil is from water.

South Africa belongs to this third class of cases. The Dutch and the English find the country a good one and become fond of it. There is plenty of land for them. They enjoy the climate. They thrive and multiply. But they do not oust the natives, except sometimes from the best lands, and the contact does not reduce the number of the latter. The native—that is to say, the native of the Kafir race—not merely holds his ground, but increases far more rapidly than he did before Europeans came, because the Europeans have checked intertribal wars and the slaughter of the tribesmen by the chiefs and their wizards, and also because the Europeans have opened up new kinds of employment. As, therefore, the native will certainly remain, and will, indeed, probably continue to be in a vast majority, it is vital to a comprehension of South African problems to know what he has been and may be expected to become.

The native races are three, and the differences between them are marked, being differences not only of physical appearance and of language, but also of character, habits, and grade of civilization. These three are the Bushmen, the Hottentots, and those Bantu tribes whom we call Kafirs.

The Bushmen were, to all appearance, the first on the ground, the real aborigines of South Africa. They are one of the lowest races to be found anywhere, as low as the Fuegians or the "black fellows" of Australia, though perhaps not quite so low as the Veddahs of Ceylon or the now extinct natives of[Pg 64] Tasmania. They seem to have been originally scattered over all South Africa, from the Zambesi to the Cape, and so late as eighty years ago were almost the only inhabitants of Basutoland, where now none of them are left. They were nomads of the most primitive type, neither tilling the soil nor owning cattle, but living on such wild creatures as they could catch or smite with their poisoned arrows, and, when these failed, upon wild fruits and the roots of plants. For the tracking and trapping of game they had a marvellous faculty, such as neither the other races nor any European could equal. But they had no organization, not even a tribal one, for they wandered about in small groups; and no religion beyond some vague notion of ghosts, and of spirits inhabiting or connected with natural objects; while their language was a succession of clicks interrupted by grunts. Very low in stature, and possibly cognate to the pygmies whom Mr. H.M. Stanley found in Central Africa, they were capable of enduring great fatigue and of travelling very swiftly. Untamably fierce unless caught in childhood, and incapable of accustoming themselves to civilized life, driven out of some districts by the European settlers, who were often forced to shoot them down in self-defence, and in other regions no longer able to find support owing to the disappearance of the game, they are now almost extinct, though a few remain in the Kalahari Desert and the adjoining parts of northern Bechuanaland and western Matabililand, toward Lake Ngami. I saw at the Kimberley mines two or three dwarf natives who were said to have Bushmen blood in them, but it is no longer easy to find in the Colony a pure specimen. Before many years the only trace of their existence will be in the remarkable drawings of wild animals with which they delighted to cover the smooth surfaces of sheltered rocks. These drawings, which are found all the way from the Zambesi to the Cape, and from Manicaland westward, are executed in red, yellow, and black pigments, and are often[Pg 65] full of spirit. Rude, of course, they are, but they often convey the aspect, and especially the characteristic attitude, of the animal with great fidelity.

The second native race was that which the Dutch called Hottentot, and whom the Portuguese explorers found occupying the maritime region in the south-west corner of the continent, to the east and to the north of the Cape of Good Hope. They are supposed to have come from the north and dispossessed the Bushmen of the grassy coast lands, driving them into the more arid interior. But of this there is no evidence; and some have even fancied that the Hottentot race itself may have been a mixed one, produced by intermarriage between Bushmen and Kafirs. Be this as it may, the Hottentots were superior to the Bushmen both physically and intellectually. They were small men, but not pygmies, of a reddish or yellowish black hue, with no great muscular power in their slender frames. Their hair, very short and woolly, grew, like that of the Bushmen, in small balls or tufts over the skull, just as grass tufts grow separate from one another in the drier parts of the veldt. They possessed sheep and also cattle, lean beasts with huge horns; and they roved hither and thither over the country as they could find pasture for their animals, doing a little hunting, but not attempting to till the soil, and unacquainted with the metals. Living in tribes under their chiefs, they fought a little with one another, and a great deal with the Bushmen, who tried to prey upon their cattle. They were a thoughtless, cheerful, good-natured, merry sort of people, whom it was not difficult to domesticate as servants, and their relations with the Dutch settlers, in spite of two wars, were, on the whole, friendly. Within a century after the foundation of Cape Colony, their numbers, never large, had vastly diminished, partly from the occupation by the colonists of their best grazing-grounds, but still more from the ravages of small-pox and other epidemics, which ships touching[Pg 66] on their way from the East Indies brought into the country. In A.D. 1713 whole tribes perished in this way. I speak of the Hottentots in the past tense, for they are now, as a distinct race, almost extinct in the Colony, although a good deal of their blood has passed into the mixed coloured population of Cape Town and its neighbourhood—a population the other elements of which are Malays from the Dutch East Indies, and the descendants of slaves brought from the West Coast of Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From unions between Hottentot women and the Dutch sprang the mixed race whom the Dutch call Bastards and the English Griquas, and who, though now dying out, like the French and Indian half-breeds of Western Canada, played at one time a considerable part in colonial politics. Along the south bank of the Orange River and to the north of it, in Great Namaqualand, small tribes, substantially identical with the Hottentots, still wander over the arid wilderness. But in the settled parts of the Colony the Hottentot, of whom we used to hear so much, and whom the Portuguese remembering the death of the viceroy D'Almeida (who was killed in a skirmish in A.D. 1510), at one time feared so much, has vanished more completely than has the Red Indian from the Atlantic States of North America. And the extinction or absorption of the few remaining nomads will probably follow at no distant date.

Very different have been the fortunes, very different are the prospects, of the third and far more numerous South African race, those whom we call Kafirs, and who call themselves Abantu or Bantu ("the people"). The word "Kafir" is Arabic. It has nothing to do with Mount Kaf (the Caucasus), but means an infidel (literally, "one who denies"), and is applied by Mussulmans not merely to these people, but to other heathen also, as, for instance, to the idolaters of Kafiristan, in the Hindu-Kush Mountains. The Portuguese doubt[Pg 67]less took the name from the Arabs, whom they found established at several points on the East African coast northward from Sofala, and the Dutch took it from the Portuguese, together with such words as "kraal" (corral), and "assagai." The Bantu tribes, if one may include under that name all the blacks who speak languages of the same general type, occupy the whole of East Africa southward from the Upper Nile, where that river issues from the great Nyanza lakes, together with the Congo basin and most of South-west Africa. They include various groups, such as the Ama-Kosa tribes (to which belong the Tembus and Pondos), who dwell on the coast of Cape Colony eastward from the Great Fish River; the Ama-Zulu group, consisting of the Zulus proper (in Natal and Zululand), the Swazis, the Matabili, farther to the north, and the Angoni, in Nyassaland, beyond the Zambesi River; the Amatonga group, between Zululand and Delagoa Bay; the Bechuana group, including the Bamangwato, the Basuto and the Barolongs, as well as the Barotse, far off on the middle course of the Zambesi; the Makalaka or Maholi, and cognate tribes, inhabiting Mashonaland and Manicaland. The linguistic and ethnical affinities of these groups and tribes are still very imperfectly known, but their speech and their habits are sufficiently similar to enable us to refer them to one type, just as we do the Finnic or the Slavonic peoples in Europe. And they are even more markedly unlike the Hottentots or the Bushmen than the Slavs are to the Finns, or both of these to those interesting aborigines of northern Europe, the Lapps.

The Bantu or Kafirs—I use the term as synonymous—who dwell south of the Zambesi are usually strong and well-made men, not below the average height of a European. In colour they vary a good deal; some are as black as the Gulf of Guinea negro, some rather brown than black. All have the thick lips, the woolly hair, and the scanty beard of the negro, and nearly all the[Pg 68] broad, low nose; yet in some the nose is fairly high, and the cast of features suggests an admixture of Semitic blood—an admixture which could be easily explained by the presence, from a pretty remote time, of Arab settlers, as well as traders, along the coast of the Indian Ocean. As the Bantu vary in aspect, so do they also in intelligence. No tribe is in this respect conspicuously superior to any other, though the Zulus show more courage in fight than most of the others, the Fingos more aptitude for trade, the Basutos more disposition to steady industry. But, while the general level of intellect is below that of the Red Indians or the Maoris or the Hawaiians (if rather above that of the Guinea negroes), individuals are now and then found of considerable talents and great force of character. Three such men as the Zulu Tshka, the Basuto Moshesh, and the Bechuana Khama, not to speak of those who, like the eloquent missionary Tiyo Soga, have received a regular European education, are sufficient to show the capacity of the race for occasionally reaching a standard which white men must respect. And in one regard the Bantu race shows a kind of strength which the Red Indians and Polynesians lack. They are a very prolific people, and under the conditions of peace which European rule secures they multiply with a rapidity which some deem alarming.

How long the various Bantu tribes have been in South Africa is a question on which no light has yet been thrown, or can, indeed, be expected. Some of them have a vague tradition that they came from the north; but the recollections of savages seldom go back more than five or six generations, and retain little except the exploits or the genealogy of some conspicuous chief. When the Portuguese arrived in the end of the fifteenth century, they found Kafirs already inhabiting the country from Natal northward. But apparently they did not then extend as far to the west of Natal as they do now; and there is no reason to think that con[Pg 69]siderable parts of the interior, such as the region which is now the Orange Free State and Basutoland, were not yet occupied, but left to the wandering Bushmen. The Kafirs were then, and continued down to our own time, in a state of incessant tribal warfare; and from time to time one martial tribe, under a forceful chief, would exterminate or chase away some weaker clan and reduce wide areas to a wilderness. Of any large conquests, or of any steady progress in the arts either of war or of peace, there is no record, and indeed, in the general darkness, no trace. The history of the native races, so far as ascertainable, begins with the advent of the whites, and even after their advent remains extremely shadowy until, early in this century, the onward march of settlement gave the Dutch and English settlers the means of becoming better acquainted with their black neighbours.

Across this darkness there strikes one ray of light. It is a very faint ray, but in the absence of all other light it is precious. It is that which is supplied by the prehistoric ruins and the abandoned gold-workings of Mashonaland.

[Pg 70]

CHAPTER IX

OUT OF THE DARKNESS—ZIMBABWYE

The ruined buildings of Mashonaland and Matabililand have excited in recent years an amount of interest and curiosity which is disproportionate to their number, size, and beauty, but by no means disproportionate to their value as being the only record, scant as it is, we possess of what has been deemed an early South African civilization. I will describe in the fewest words such of these buildings as I saw, leaving the reader of archæological tastes to find fuller details in the well-known book of that enterprising explorer, the late Mr. Theodore Bent. Some short account of them seems all the more needed, because the first descriptions published gave the impression that they were far more considerable than they really are.

Scattered over the plateau of southern Mashonaland and Matabililand, from its mountainous edge on the east to the neighbourhood of Tati on the west, there are to be found fragments of walls built of small blocks of granite resembling paving stones (usually about a foot long by six inches high), but often larger, not cut smooth, but chipped or trimmed to a fairly uniform size. These walls are without mortar or other cementing material, but the stones are so neatly set together, and the wall usually so thick, that the structure is compact and cohesive. The walls are mostly thinner at the top than at the base. The only ornamentation[Pg 71] consists in placing some of the layers at an acute angle to the other layers above and below, so as to produce what is called the herring-bone pattern. Occasionally a different pattern is obtained by leaving spaces at intervals between the horizontal stones of certain layers, making a kind of diaper. In some cases this ornamentation, always very simple, occurs only on one part of the wall, and it has been said that it occurs usually if not invariably on the part which faces the east. I heard of ten or twelve such pieces of wall in different parts of the plateau, and saw photographs of most of these. Probably others exist, for many districts, especially in the hills, have been imperfectly explored, and trees easily conceal these low erections. One was described to me, where the walls are the facings of seven terraces, rising one above another to a sort of platform on the top. This I have not seen; but it is probably similar to one which I did see and examine at a place called Dhlodhlo, about fifty miles south-east of Bulawayo. This group of ruins, one of the most interesting in the country, stands high among rocky hills, from which a superb view is gained over the wide stretches of rolling table-land to the north and north-west, a charming situation which might have attracted the old builders did they possess any sense of beauty. On a low eminence there has been erected such a wall of such hewn, or rather trimmed, stones as I have just described. It is now about twenty feet in height, and may have originally been higher. On the eastern side this wall consists of three parts, each about six feet high, with two narrow terraces, each from five to six feet wide, between them, the second wall rising from the first terrace, and the third or highest wall from the second terrace. On this side some of the stone courses have the simple forms of ornamental pattern already mentioned. On the opposite, or western and north-western, side only one terrace and a low, unornamented wall of trimmed stones are[Pg 72] now discernible. To the north, still within what seems to have been the main inclosing wall, are small inclosures built of trimmed stone, which may have been chambers originally roofed with wood or bushes. At the top of the highest wall there is at the north-north-west end a small level platform of earth or rubble, which seems to have been filled in behind the terraced walls. This platform is approached by a narrow passage between walls of trimmed stone, at one point in which there appears to have been a sort of narrow gateway barely wide enough for two persons to pass. There is no trace of any stone building on the top of the platform, and the remains of clay huts which one finds there may well be quite modern. To the south of this principal structure there is a second small hill or boss of granite, protected on three sides by steep sheets of granite rock. Its top is inclosed by a low wall of trimmed stones, now in places quite broken away, with no trace of any stone building within. All round on the lower ground are large inclosures rudely built of rough stones, and probably intended for cattle-kraals. They may be quite modern, and they throw no light on the purpose of the ancient buildings. Nor is much light to be obtained from the objects which have been found in the ruins. When I was there they were being searched by the Mashonaland Ancient Ruins Exploration Company, a company authorized by the British South Africa Company to dig and scrape in the ancient buildings of the country for gold or whatever else of value may be there discoverable, an enterprise which, though it may accelerate the progress of archæological inquiry, obviously requires to be conducted with great care and by competent persons. So far as I could observe, all due care was being used by the gentleman in charge of the work at Dhlodhlo; but considering how easy it is to obliterate the distinctive features of a ruin and leave it in a condition unfavourable to[Pg 73] future examination, it seems desirable that the company should, as a rule, await the arrival of trained archæologists rather than hurry on explorations by amateurs, however zealous and well intentioned. Of the objects found, which were courteously shown to me, some are modern, such as the bits of pottery, apparently Indian or Chinese, the bits of glass, the bullets and fragments of flint-lock muskets, a small cannon, and an iron hammer. These are doubtless of Portuguese origin, though it does not follow that any Portuguese expedition ever penetrated so far inland, for they may have been gifts or purchases from the Portuguese established on the coast four or five hundred miles away. So, too, the silver and copper ornaments found, and some of the gold ones (occasionally alloyed with copper), which show patterns apparently Portuguese, may be recent. There are also, however, some gold ornaments, such as beads, bangles (a skeleton was found with bangles on the legs and a bead necklace), and pieces of twisted gold wire, which may be far more ancient, and indeed as old as the structure itself. A small crucible with nuggets and small bits of gold goes to indicate that smelting was carried on, though the nearest ancient gold-workings are six miles distant. Probably here, as at Hissarlik and at Carthage, there exist remains from a long succession of centuries, the spot having been occupied from remote antiquity.[6] At present it is not only uninhabited, but regarded by the natives with fear. They believe it to be haunted by the ghosts of the departed, and are unwilling, except in the daytime and for wages paid by the Exploration Company, to touch or even to enter the ruins. They can hardly be persuaded even to[Pg 74] relate such traditions as exist regarding the place. All that has been gathered is that it was the dwelling of a line of mambos, or chiefs, the last of whom was burned here by Mosilikatze, the Matabili king, when he conquered the country sixty years ago. (The place does show marks of fire.) But the buildings were here long before the mambos reigned, and who built them, or why, no one knows. The natives come sometimes to make offerings to ancestral ghosts, especially when they ask for success in hunting; and if the hunt be successful, strips of meat are cut off and placed in cleft sticks for the benefit of the ghosts.

Three hypotheses have been advanced regarding the Dhlodhlo building. One regards them as a fortress. The objection to this is that the terraced and ornamented wall is so far from contributing to defence that it actually facilitates attack; for, by the help of the terraces and of the interstices among the stones which the ornamental pattern supplies, an active man could easily scale it in front. Moreover, there is hard by, to the north, a higher and more abrupt hill which would have offered a far better site for a fort. The second view is that Dhlodhlo was a mining station, where slaves were kept at work; but if so, why was it not placed near the old gold-workings instead of some miles off, and of what use were the terraced walls? The inquirer is therefore led to the third view—that the building was in some way connected with religious worship, and that the ornament which is seen along the eastern wall was placed there with some religious motive. There is, however, nothing whatever to indicate the nature of that worship, nor the race that practised it, for no objects of a possibly religious character (such as those I shall presently mention at Zimbabwye) have been found here.

I visited a second ruin among the mountains of Mashonaland, near the Lezapi River, at a place called Chipadzi's grave, a mile from the kraal of a chief named[Pg 75] Chipunza. Here a rocky granite kopje, almost inaccessible on two sides, is protected on one of the other sides by a neatly built wall of well-trimmed stones, similar to that of Dhlodhlo, but without ornament. The piece that remains is some fifty yards long, five feet thick at the base, and eleven feet high at its highest point. It is obviously a wall of defence, for the only erections within are low, rough inclosures of loose stones, and three clay huts, one of which covers the grave of Chipadzi, a chief who died some twenty years ago, and who was doubtless interred here because the place was secluded and already in a fashion consecrated by the presence of the ancient wall. That the wall is ancient hardly admits of doubt, for it is quite unlike any of the walls—there are not many in the country—which the Kafirs now build, these being always of stones entirely untrimmed and very loosely fitted together, though sometimes plastered with mud to make them hold.[7] There is nothing to see beyond the wall itself, and the only interest of the place is in its showing that the race who built Dhlodhlo and other similar walls in Matibililand were probably here also.

Much larger and more remakable is the group of ruins (situated seventeen miles from Fort Victoria, in southern Mashonaland) which goes by the name of the Great Zimbabwye. This Bantu word is said to denote a stone building, but has often been used to describe the residence of a great chief, whatever the materials of which it is constructed. It is a common noun, and not the name of one particular place. Europeans, however, confine it to this one ruin, or rather to two ruined buildings[Pg 76] near each other. One of these is on the top of a rocky and in parts precipitous hill, the other in a valley half a mile from the foot of the hill.

The first, which we may call the Fort, consists of a line of wall, in parts double, defending the more accessible parts of the eastern and south-eastern end of the hill or kopje, which is about 500 feet high, and breaks down on its southern side in a nearly vertical sheet of granite. The walls, which in some places are thirty feet high, are all built of small trimmed blocks of granite such as I have already described, without mortar, but neatly fitted together. They are in excellent preservation, and are skilfully constructed in a sort of labyrinth, so as to cover all the places where an enemy might approach. From the openings in the wall, where doors were probably placed, passages are carried inward, very narrow and winding, so that only one person at a time can pass, and completely commanded by the high wall on either side. Everything speaks of defence, and everything is very well adapted, considering the rudeness of the materials, for efficient defence. There is no sort of ornament in the walls, except that here and there at the entrances some stones are laid transversely to the others, and that certain long, thin pieces of a slaty stone, rounded so that one might call them stone poles—they are about five to seven feet long—project from the top of the wall. Neither is there any trace of an arch or vaulted roof. None of what look like chambers has a roof. They were doubtless covered with the branches of trees. Very few objects have been found throwing any light on the object of the building or its builders, and these have been now removed, except some small pieces of sandstone, a rock not found in the neighbourhood, which (it has been conjectured) may have been brought for the purposes of mining.

The other building is much more remarkable. It stands on a slight eminence in the level ground between the hill on which the Fort stands and another[Pg 77] somewhat lower granite hill, and is about a third of a mile from the Fort. It consists of a wall, rather elliptical than circular in form, from thirty to forty feet high, fourteen feet thick near the ground, and from six to nine thick at the top, where one can walk along a considerable part with little difficulty. This wall is built of the same small, well-trimmed blocks of granite, nicely fitted together, and for more than half the circumference is in excellent preservation, although shrubs and climbing vines have here and there rooted themselves in it. The rest of it is more or less broken, and in one place quite overthrown. There are two gates, at the west and the north. The wall is quite plain, except for about one-third (or perhaps a little less) of the outer face, where there is such an ornament as I have already described, of two courses of stones set slantingly at an acute angle to the ordinary flat courses above and below. These two courses are the fifth and seventh from the top. In the space surrounded by the wall, which is about three-quarters of an acre, are some small inclosures of trimmed stone, apparently chambers. There is also a singular wall running parallel to the inner face of the great inclosing wall for some twenty yards, leaving between it and that inner face a very narrow passage, which at one point must have been closed by a door (probably of stone), for at that point steps lead up on either side, and hollow spaces fit for receiving a door remain. At one end this passage opens into a small open space, where the most curious of all the erections are to be found, namely, two solid towers of trimmed stones. One of these is quite low, rising only some five feet from the ground. The other is more than forty feet high, overtopping the great inclosing wall (from which it is eight feet distant) by about five feet, and has a bluntly conical top. It reminds one a little of an Irish round tower, though not so high, save that the Irish towers are hollow and this solid, or of a Buddhist tope, save that the topes[Pg 78] which are solid, are very much thicker. There is nothing whatever to indicate the purpose of this tower, but the fact that the space in which it and the smaller tower stand is cut off from the rest of the enclosed area by a pretty high wall seems to show that it was meant to be specially protected or was deemed to be specially sacred.

Outside the main inclosing wall are several small inclosures of irregular shape, surrounded by similar walls of trimmed stones, but all low and broken and with nothing inside. One of these joins on to the main wall of the great inclosure.

This is all that there is to see at Zimbabwye. What I have described seems little, and that little is simple, even rude. The interest lies in guessing what the walls were built for, and by whom. Comparatively little has been discovered by digging. No inscriptions whatever have been found. Some figures of birds rudely carved in a sort of soapstone were fixed along the top of the walls of the Fort, and have been removed to the Cape Town museum. It is thought that they represent vultures, and the vulture was a bird of religious significance among some of the Semitic nations. Fragments of soapstone bowls were discovered, some with figures of animals carved on them, some with geometrical patterns, while on one were marks which might possibly belong to some primitive alphabet. There were also whorls somewhat resembling those which occur so profusely in the ruins of Troy, and stone objects which may be phalli, though some at least of them are deemed by the authorities of the British Museum (to whom I have shown them) to be probably pieces used for playing a game like that of fox-and-geese. The iron and bronze weapons which were found may have been comparatively modern, but the small crucibles for smelting gold, with tools and a curious ingot-mould (said to resemble ancient moulds used at tin workings) were apparently ancient.

What purpose were these buildings meant to serve?[Pg 79] That on the hill was evidently a stronghold, and a stronghold of a somewhat elaborate kind, erected against an enemy deemed formidable. The large building below can hardly have been a place of defence, because it stands on level ground with a high, rocky hill just above it, which would have afforded a much stronger situation. Neither was it a mining station, for the nearest place where any trace of gold has been found is seven miles away, and in a mining station, even if meant to hold slave workers, there would have been no use for a wall so lofty as this. Two hypotheses remain: that this was the residence of a chief, or that it was erected for the purposes of religious worship. It may have been both—a palace, so to speak, with a temple attached. The presence of the inner inclosure, guarded by its separate wall, and with its curious tower, is most plausibly explained by supposing a religious purpose; for as religion is the strangest of all human things, and that in which men most vary, so it is naturally called in to explain what is otherwise inexplicable.

What, then, was the religion of those who built this shrine, if shrine it was? The ornamentation of that part of the outer wall which faces the rising sun suggests sun-worship. The phalli (if they are phalli) point to one of the Oriental forms of the worship of the forces of nature. The birds' heads may have a religious significance, and possibly the significance which it is said that vultures had in the Syrian nature-worship. These data give some slight presumptions, yet the field for conjecture remains a very wide one, and there is nothing in the buildings to indicate the particular race who erected the Fort and the Temple (if it was a temple). However, the tower bears some resemblance to a tower which appears within a town wall on an ancient coin of the Phœnician city of Byblus; and this coincidence, slight enough, has, in the dearth of other light, been used to support the view that the builders belonged to some Semitic race.[Pg 80]

Had we nothing but the ruined walls of Zimbabwye, Dhlodhlo, and the other spots where similar ruins have been observed, the problem would be insoluble. We could only say that the existing native races had at some apparently distant time been more civilized than they are now and capable of building walls they do not now build, or else we should suppose that some now extinct race had built these. But there are other facts known to us which suggest, though they do not establish, an hypothesis regarding the early history of the country.

In very remote times there existed, as is known from the Egyptian monuments, a trade from South-east Africa into the Red Sea. The remarkable sculptures at Deir el Bahari, near Luxor, dating from the time of Queen Hatasu, sister of the great conqueror Thothmes III. (B.C. 1600?), represent the return of an expedition from a country called Punt, which would appear, from the objects brought back, to have been somewhere on the East African coast.[8] Much later the Book of Kings (1 Kings ix. 26-28; x. 11, 15, 22) tells us that Solomon and Hiram of Tyre entered into a sort of joint adventure trade from the Red Sea port of Ezion-geber to a country named Ophir, which produced gold. There are other indications that gold used to come from East Africa, but so far as we know it has never been obtained in quantity from any part of the coast between Mozambique and Cape Guardafui. Thus there are grounds for believing that a traffic between the Red Sea and the coast south of the Zambesi may have existed from very remote times. Of its later existence there is of course no doubt. We know from Arabian sources that in the eighth century an Arab tribe defeated in war established itself on the African coast south of Cape Guardafui, and that from the ninth century onward there was a considerable[Pg 81] trade between South-east Africa and the Red Sea ports—a trade which may well have existed long before. And when the Portuguese began to explore the coast in 1496 they found Arab chieftains established at various points along it as far south as Sofala, and found them getting gold from the interior. Three things, therefore, are certain—a trade between South-east Africa and the Red Sea, a certain number of Arabs settled along the edge of the ocean, and an export of gold. Now all over Mashonaland and Matabililand ancient gold-workings have been observed. Some are quite modern,—one can see the wooden supports and the iron tools not yet destroyed by rust,—and it would seem from the accounts of the natives that the mining went on to some small extent down to sixty years ago, when the Matabili conquered the country. Others, however, are, from the appearance of the ground, obviously much more ancient. I have seen some that must have been centuries old, and have been told of others apparently far older, possibly as old as the buildings at Zimbabwye. I was, moreover, informed by Mr. Cecil Rhodes (who is keenly interested in African archæology) that he had seen on the high plateau of Inyanga, in eastern Mashonaland, some remarkable circular pits lined with stone, and approached in each case by a narrow subterranean passage, which can best be explained by supposing them to have been receptacles for the confinement of slaves occupied in tilling the soil, as the surrounding country bears mark, in the remains of ancient irrigation channels, of an extensive system of tillage where none now exists. The way in which the stones are laid in these pit-walls is quite unlike any modern Kafir work, and points to the presence of a more advanced race. Putting all these facts together, it has been plausibly argued that at some very distant period men more civilized than the Kafirs came in search of gold into Mashonaland, opened these mines, and obtained from them the gold which found its way[Pg 82] to the Red Sea ports, and that the buildings whose ruins we see were their work. How long ago this happened we cannot tell, but if the strangers came from Arabia they must have done so earlier than the time of Mohammed, for there is nothing of an Islamic character about the ruins or the remains found, and it is just as easy to suppose that they came in the days of Solomon, fifteen centuries before Mohammed. Nor can we guess how they disappeared: whether they were overpowered and exterminated by the Kafirs, or whether, as Mr. Selous conjectures, they were gradually absorbed by the latter, their civilization and religion perishing, although the practice of mining for gold remained. The occasional occurrence among the Kafirs of faces with a cast of features approaching the Semitic has been thought to confirm this notion, though nobody has as yet suggested that we are to look here for the lost Ten Tribes. Whoever these people were, they have long since vanished. The natives seem to have no traditions about the builders of Zimbabwye and the other ancient walls, though they regard the ruins with a certain awe, and fear to approach them at twilight.

It is this mystery which makes these buildings, the solitary archæological curiosities of South Africa, so impressive. The ruins are not grand, nor are they beautiful; they are simple even to rudeness. It is the loneliness of the landscape in which they stand, and still more the complete darkness which surrounds their origin, their object, and their history, that gives to them their unique interest. Whence came the builders? What tongue did they speak? What religion did they practise? Did they vanish imperceptibly away, or did they fly to the coast, or were they massacred in a rising of their slaves? We do not know; probably we shall never know. We can only say, in the words of the Eastern poet:

[Pg 83]

CHAPTER X

THE KAFIRS: THEIR HISTORY AND INSTITUTIONS

The curtain rises upon the Kafir peoples when the Portuguese landed on the east coast of Africa in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Arab sheiks then held a few of the coast villages, ruling over a mixed race, nominally Mohammedan, and trading with the Bantu tribes of the interior. The vessels of these Arabs crossed the Indian Ocean with the monsoon to Calicut and the Malabar coast, and the Indian goods they carried back were exchanged for the gold and ivory which the natives brought down. The principal race that held the country between the Limpopo and the Zambesi was that which the Portuguese called Makalanga or Makaranga, and which we call Makalaka. They are the progenitors of the tribes who, now greatly reduced in numbers and divided into small villages and clans, occupy Mashonaland. Their head chief was called the Monomotapa, a name interpreted to mean "Lord of the Mountain" or "Lord of the Mines." This personage was turned by Portuguese grandiloquence into an emperor, and by some European geographers into the name of an empire; so Monomotapa came to figure on old maps as the designation of a vast territory.

When, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Dutch at the Cape began to learn something of the Kafirs who dwelt to the eastward, they found that[Pg 84] there was no large dominion, but a great number of petty tribes, mostly engaged in war with one another. Some were half nomad, none was firmly rooted in the soil; and the fact that tribes who spoke similar dialects were often far away from one another, with a tribe of a different dialect living between, indicated that there had been many displacements of population of which no historical record existed. Early in the present century events occurred which showed how such displacements might have been brought about. In the last years of the eighteenth century Dingiswayo, the exiled son of the chief of the Abatetwa tribe, which lived in what is now Zululand, found his way to the Cape, and learned to admire the military organization of the British troops who were then holding the Colony. Returning home and regaining his throne, he began to organise and drill his warriors, who before that time had fought without order or discipline, like other savages. His favourite officer was Tshaka, a young chief, also exiled, who belonged to the then small tribe of Zulus. On the death of Dingiswayo, Tshaka was chosen its chief by the army, and the tribes that had obeyed Dingiswayo were thenceforward known under the name of Zulus. Tshaka, who united to his intellectual gifts a boundless ambition and a ruthless will, further improved the military system of his master, and armed his soldiers with a new weapon, a short, broad-bladed spear, fit for stabbing at close quarters, instead of the old light javelin which had been theretofore used. He formed them into regiments, and drilled them to such a perfection of courage that no enemy could withstand their rush, and the defeated force, except such as could escape by fleetness of foot, was slaughtered on the spot. Quarter had never been given in native wars, but the trained valour of the Zulus, and their habit of immediately engaging the enemy hand to hand, not only gave them an advantage like that which suddenly made the Spartan infantry superior[Pg 85] to all their neighbours, but rendered their victories far more sanguinary than native battles had previously been Tshaka rapidly subjected or blotted out the clans that lived near, except the Swazis, a kindred tribe whose difficult country gave them some protection. He devastated all the region round that of his own subjects, while the flight before his warriors of the weaker tribes, each of which fell upon its neighbours with the assagai, caused widespread slaughter and ruin all over South-east Africa. Natal became almost a desert, and of the survivors who escaped into the mountains, many took to human flesh for want of other food. To the north of the Vaal River a section of the Zulu army, which had revolted under its general, Mosilikatze, carried slaughter and destruction through the surrounding country for hundreds of miles, till it was itself chased away beyond the Limpopo by the emigrant Boers, as will be related in the following chapter.

To trace the history of these various native wars would occupy far more space than I can spare. I will sum up their general results.

A new and powerful kingdom, far stronger than any other native monarchy we know to have existed before or since, was formed by the Zulus. It remained powerful under Dingaan (who murdered his half brother Tshaka in 1828), Panda (brother of Tshaka and Dingaan), and Cetewayo (son of Panda), till 1879, when it was overthrown by the British.

Various offshoots from the Zulu nation were scattered out in different directions. The Matabili occupied Matabililand in 1838. The Angoni had before that year crossed the Zambesi and settled in Nyassaland, where they are still formidable to their native neighbours and troublesome to the whites.

Kafir tribes from the north-east were chased southward into the mountain country now called Basutoland, most of which had been previously inhabited only by[Pg 86] Bushmen, and here the Basuto kingdom was built up out of fugitive clans, by the famous chief Moshesh, between 1820 and 1840.

Some of the Bechuana tribes were driven from the east into their present seats in Bechuanaland, some few far north-west to the banks of the Zambesi, where Livingstone found them.

Not only what is now Natal, but most of what is now the Orange Free State, with a part of the Transvaal, was almost denuded of inhabitants. This had the important consequence of inducing the emigrants from Cape Colony, whose fortunes I shall trace in the following chapter, to move toward these regions and establish themselves there.

The Gaza tribe, of Zulu race, but revolters from Tshaka, broke away from that tyrant, and carried fire and sword among the Tongas and other tribes living to the west and north-west of Delagoa Bay. In 1833 they destroyed the Portuguese garrison there. In 1862 a chief called Mzila became their king, and established his dominion over all the tribes that dwell on the eastern slope of the Quathlamba Mountains, between the Limpopo and the Zambesi. He and his son Gungunhana, who in 1896 was seized and carried off by the Portuguese, were for a time at the head of the third great native power in South Africa, the other two being that of Cetewayo, which perished in 1879, and that of Lo Bengula, overthrown in 1893. All three chiefs were Zulus in blood. Originally small in number, this race has played by far the greatest part in the annals of the native peoples.

The career of Tshaka has deserved some description, because it changed the face of South Africa in a somewhat similar way, allowing for the difference of scale, to that in which the career of Tshaka's contemporary, Napoleon Bonaparte, changed the face of Europe. But in 1836, eight years after Tshaka's death, the white man, who had hitherto come in contact with[Pg 87] the Kafirs only on the Zambesi and at a few points on the south-eastern and southern coast, began that march into the interior which has now brought him to the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Thenceforward the wars of the natives among themselves cease to be important. It is their strife with the European conqueror that is of consequence, and the narrative of that strife belongs to the history of the European colonies and republics, which will be given in the two succeeding chapters. This, however, seems the right place for some remarks on the government and customs of the Kafir tribes, intended to explain the conditions under which these tribes have met and attempted to resist the white strangers who have now become their rulers.

The Kafirs were savages, yet not of a low type, for they tilled the soil, could work in metals, spoke a highly developed language, and had a sort of customary law. The south-east coast tribes, Zulus, Pondos, Tembus, Kosas, inhabiting a fairly well-watered and fertile country, were, as a rule, the strongest men and the fiercest fighters; but the tribes of the interior were not inferior in intellect, and sometimes superior in the arts. Lower in every respect were the west-coast tribes. They dwelt in a poor and almost waterless land, and their blood was mixed with that of Hottentots and Bushmen. In every race the organization was by families, clans, and tribes, the tribe consisting of a number of clans or smaller groups, having at its head one supreme chief, belonging to a family whose lineage was respected. The power of the chief was, however, not everywhere the same. Among the Zulus, whose organization was entirely military, he was a despot whose word was law. Among the Bechuana tribes, and their kinsfolk the Basutos, he was obliged to defer to the sentiment of the people, which (in some tribes) found expression in a public meeting where every freeman had a right to speak and might differ from the[Pg 88] chief.[9] Even such able men as the Basuto Moshesh and the Bechuana Khama had often to bend to the wish of their subjects, and a further check existed in the tendency to move away from a harsh and unpopular chief and place one's self under the protection of some more tactful ruler. Everywhere, of course, the old customs had great power, and the influence of the old men who were most conversant with them was considerable. The chief of the whole tribe did not interfere much with affairs outside his own particular clan, and was a more important figure in war-time than during peace. Aided by a council of his leading men, each chief administered justice and settled disputes; and it was his function to allot land to those who asked for a field to till, the land itself belonging to the tribe as a whole. The chiefs act gave a title to the piece allotted so long as it was cultivated, for public opinion resented any arbitrary eviction; but pasture-land was open to all the cattle of the clansmen. It was in cattle that the wealth of a chief or a rich man lay, and cattle, being the common measure of value, served as currency, as they serve still among the more remote tribes which have not learned to use British coin. Polygamy was practised by all who could afford it, the wife being purchased from her father with cattle, more or fewer according to her rank. This practice, called lobola, still prevails universally, and has caused much perplexity to the missionaries. Its evil effects are obvious, but it is closely intertwined with the whole system of native society. A chief had usually a head wife, belonging to some important house, and her sons were preferred in succession to those of the inferior wives. In some tribes the chief, like a Turkish sultan, had no regular wife, but only concubines. Among the coast tribes no one, except a chief, was suffered to marry any one of kin to him. There was great pride of birth among the[Pg 89] head chiefs, and their genealogies have in not a few cases been carefully kept for seven or eight generations.

Slavery existed among some of the tribes of the interior, and the ordinary wife was everywhere little better than a slave, being required to do nearly all the tillage and most of the other work, except that about the cattle, which, being more honourable, was performed by men. The male Kafir is a lazy fellow who likes talking and sleeping better than continuous physical exertion, and the difficulty of inducing him to work is the chief difficulty which European mine-owners in South Africa complain of. Like most men in his state of civilization, he is fond of hunting, even in its lowest forms, and of fighting. Both of these pleasures are being withdrawn from him, the former by the extinction of the game, the latter by the British Government; but it will be long before he acquires the habits of steady and patient industry which have become part of the character of the inhabitants of India.

War was the natural state of the tribes toward one another, just as it was among the Red Indians and the primitive Celts, and indeed generally everywhere in the early days of Europe. Their weapons were the spear or assagai, and a sort of wooden club, occasionally a crescent-shaped battle-axe, and still less frequently the bow. Horses were unknown, for the ox, sheep, goat and dog were over all South Africa the only domesticated quadrupeds. One tribe, however, the Basutos, now breeds horses extensively, and has turned them to account in fighting. The rapid movement of their mounted warriors was one of the chief difficulties the colonial forces had to deal with in the last Basuto war. The courage in war which distinguished the tribes of Zulu and Kosa race was all the more creditable because it had not, like that of the Mohammedan dervishes of the Sudan, or of Mohammedans anywhere engaged in a jehad, a religious motive and the promise of future bliss behind it. The British army has en[Pg 90]countered no more daring or formidable enemies. Nine wars were needed to subjugate the Kafirs of the southern coast, although till recently they had few firearms. But the natives had no idea of the tactics needed in facing a civilized foe. As in their battles with the Boers they were destroyed by the fire of horsemen riding up, delivering a volley, and riding off before an assagai could reach them, so in the great war with Cetewayo in 1879 they fought in the open and were mowed down by British volleys; and in 1893 the Matabili perished in the same way under the fire of riflemen and Maxim guns sheltered behind a laager of wagons.

Religion was a powerful factor in Kafir life; but religion did not mean the worship of any deity, for there was no deity. Still less had it any moral significance. To the Kafirs, as to most savage races, the world was full of spirits—spirits of the rivers, the mountains, and the woods. Most important were the ghosts of the dead, who had power to injure or to help the living, and who were therefore propitiated by offerings at stated periods, as well as on occasions when their aid was specially desired. This kind of worship, the worship once most generally diffused throughout the world, and which held its ground among the Greeks and Italians in the most flourishing period of ancient civilization, as it does in China and Japan to-day, was and is virtually the religion of the Kafirs. It was chiefly rendered to the ghosts of the chiefs, who retained in the spirit world the exceptional importance they had held among the living; and it had much weight in maintaining loyalty to a chief, because revolt against him was an insult to a powerful set of ghosts. The ghost dwelt at the spot where the body was buried, and it was therefore at the grave that the offerings, mostly of cakes and Kafir beer, were made. Occasionally animals were killed, not so much by way of sacrifice as for the sake of providing the[Pg 91] ghost with a specially precious kind of food, though the two ideas run close together in most primitive worships.[10] Among the Matabili, for instance, there was once a year a great feast in honour of the king's ancestors, who were supposed to come and join in the mirth. It was also to the grave that those who wished to call up the ghost by spells went to effect their nefarious purpose, and the real place of interment of a great chief was for this reason sometimes concealed, I found at Thaba Bosiyo, the famous stronghold of the Basuto chief Moshesh, that his body had been secretly removed from the place where he was buried to baffle the wizards, who might try to use his ghost against the living. The ghost is, of course, apt to be spiteful, that of an uncle (I was told) particularly so; and if he is neglected he is extremely likely to bring some evil on the family or tribe. Sometimes the spirit of an ancestor passes into an animal, and by preference into that of a snake, not that it lives in the snake, but that it assumes this form when it wishes to visit men. A particular kind of green snake is revered by the Matabili for this reason. And most, if not all, tribes had an animal which they deemed to be of kin to them, and which they called their "siboko," a term apparently corresponding to the totem of the North American Indians. Creatures of this species they never killed, and some tribes took their name from it. Thus the Ba-Taung are the people of the lion; the Ba-Mangwato have the duyker antelope for their totem; and in the Basuto pitso (public meeting) an orator will begin by addressing his audience as "sons of the crocodile." Of human sacrifices there seems to be no trace. Men were killed for all possible reasons, but never as offerings. And, indeed, to have so killed[Pg 92] them would have been to treat the ghosts as cannibals, a view foreign to native habits, for though human flesh has been resorted to in times of severe famine, it has never been regularly eaten, and the use of it excites disgust.

Whether the Kafirs had any idea of a supreme being is a question which has been much discussed. In several tribes the word, differently spelled "Umlimo" or "Mlimo" or "Molimo" (said to mean "hidden" or "unseen"), is used to denote either a power apparently different from that of the nature sprites or ghosts of the dead, or else the prophet or soothsayer who delivers messages or oracles supposed to emanate from this power. The missionaries have in their native versions of the Bible used the term to translate the word "God." Sometimes, among the Tongas at least, the word tilo (sky) is used to describe a mysterious force; as, for instance, when a man dies without any apparent malady, he is said to be killed by the tilo.[11] On the whole, after many inquiries from missionaries and others who know the natives well, I was led to the conclusion that the Kafirs have a vague notion of some power transcending that of common ghosts, and able to affect the operations of nature (as, for instance, to send rain), but far too dimly conceived to be properly describable as a divine being.[12] Or to put the thing in other words, the ordinary and familiar nature-sprites and ghosts of the departed do not exhaust the possibilities of super-human agency; for there remains, as among the Athenians whose altar St. Paul found (Acts xvii. 23), an "Unknown God," or rather unknown power, probably associated with the heavens above, whose interference[Pg 93] may produce results not attainable through inferior spiritual agencies. One of the difficulties in reaching any knowledge of the real belief of the people is that they are usually examined by leading questions, and are apt to reply affirmatively to whatever the querist puts to them. Their thoughts on these dark subjects are either extremely vague and misty or extremely material; the world of abstract thought, in which European minds have learned to move with an ease and confidence produced by the possession of a whole arsenal of theological and metaphysical phrases, being to them an undiscovered country.

Since there were no deities and no idols, there were no priests; but the want of a priesthood was fully compensated by the presence of wizards; for among the Kafirs, as among other primitive peoples, there was and is an absolute belief in the power of spells, and of sorcery generally. These wizards, like the medicine men among the Red Indians, were an important class, second only to the chiefs. They were not a caste, though very often the son of a wizard would be brought up to the profession. The practitioners were on the lookout for promising boys, and would take and train one to witchcraft, imparting their secrets, which included a remarkable knowledge of the properties of various plants available for poison or healing. Sometimes the wizard acted as a physician; sometimes he would attempt to make rain; sometimes he would profess to deliver messages from the unseen world, and in these cases he might become a terrible power for mischief. Such a revelation made to the Kosa clans on the south coast in 1856-57, directing them to kill their cattle and destroy their grain, because the ghosts of their ancestors were coming to drive out the whites, led to the death by famine of more than 30,000 people. Such a revelation proceeding from a soothsayer, occasionally called the Mlimo, who dwelt in a cavern among granite rocks in the Matoppo[Pg 94] Hills at a place called Matojeni, south-east of Bulawayo[13] (oracles have always tended to come from caves), had much to do with the rising of the Matabili in 1896. But the most frequent and most formidable work done by the wizard was that of "smelling out" persons who were bewitching others so as to cause sickness or misfortune. In this branch of his profession the wizard often became the engine of the jealousy or rapacity of the chief, who would secretly prompt him to denounce a prominent or a wealthy man. Suspicion being once roused, the victim had little chance: he was despatched, and his property seized by the chief. Witchcraft, and the murders it gave rise to, have been the darkest side of native life. The sorcerer has usually been the enemy of the missionary, who threatens his gains; but his power is now generally declining, and the British Government forbids the practice of smelling out witches, as well as many other shocking and disgusting rites which used to accompany the admission of boys and girls to the status of adults, or were practised at sundry festivals. Of the faith in minor and harmless spells one finds instances everywhere. In Matabililand, for instance, a boy was pointed out to me who had just been occupied in putting a charm into the footprint of a lion, in order to prevent the unwelcome visitor from returning; and nearly every native wears some kind of amulet.[14] These beliefs will take a long time to die, but the missionaries have now usually the good sense to see that they do little harm.[Pg 95]

As their religious customs were rather less sanguinary than those of the Guinea Coast negroes, so the Kafirs themselves were, when the whites first saw them, somewhat more advanced in civilization. Compared with the Red Indians of America, they stood at a point lower than that of the Iroquois or Cherokees, but superior to the Utes or to the Diggers of the Pacific coast. They could work in iron and copper, and had some notions of ornament. Their music is rude, but not wholly devoid of melody, and they use instruments of stone, wood, and iron, by striking which a kind of tune can be played. Some tribes, such as the Tongas, have good voices, and a marked taste for music. They have some simple games, and a folk-lore which consists chiefly in animal tales, resembling those collected by Mr. Harris in his Uncle Remus, save that the hare plays among the Bantu peoples the part of Br'er Rabbit.[15] To poetry, even in its most rudimentary forms, they do not seem to have attained. Yet they are by no means wanting in intelligence, and have, with less gaiety, more sense of dignity and more persistence in their purposes than the Guinea negro.

When the Portuguese and Dutch first knew the Kafirs, they did not appear to be making any progress toward a higher culture. Human life was held very cheap; women were in a degraded state, and sexual morality at a low ebb. Courage, loyalty to chief and tribe, and hospitality were the three prominent virtues. War was the only pursuit in which chieftains sought distinction, and war was mere slaughter and devastation, unaccompanied by any views of policy or plans of administration. The people were—and indeed still[Pg 96] are—passionately attached to their old customs, which even a king rarely ventured to disturb (though Tshaka is said to have abolished among his subjects the rite of circumcision, which is generally practised by the Kafirs); and it was probably as much the unwillingness to have their customs disturbed as the apprehension for their land that made many of the tribes oppose to the advance of the Europeans so obstinate a resistance. Though they feared the firearms of the whites, whom they called wizards, it was a long time before they realized their hopeless inferiority, and the impossibility of prevailing in war. Their minds were mostly too childish to recollect and draw the necessary inferences from previous defeats, and they never realized that the whites possessed beyond the sea an inexhaustible reservoir of men and weapons. Even the visit of Lo Bengula's envoys to England in 1891, when they were shown all the wonders of London, in order that through them the Matabili nation might be deterred from an attack on the whites, failed to produce any effect upon the minds of the young warriors, who were fully persuaded that they could destroy the few strangers in their country as easily as they had overthrown the Mashonas. The only chiefs who seem to have fully grasped the relative strength of the Europeans, and thus to have formed schemes of policy suitable to their inferior position, were Moshesh, who profited by the advice of the French missionaries, and Khama, who was himself a Christian and the pupil of missionaries. Nor did any chief ever rise to the conception of forming a league of blacks against whites.

The natives, as we shall see, have had harsh treatment from the Europeans. Many unjust things, many cruel things, many things which would excite horror if practised in European warfare, have been done against them. But whoever tries to strike the balance of good and evil due to the coming of the whites must[Pg 97] remember what the condition of the country was before the whites came. As between the different tribes there was neither justice nor pity, but simply the rule of the strongest, unmitigated by any feeling of religion or morality. In war non-combatants as well as combatants were ruthlessly slaughtered, or reserved only for slavery; and war was the normal state of things. Within each tribe a measure of peace and order was maintained. But the weak had a hard time, and those who were rich, or had roused the enmity of some powerful man, were at any moment liable to perish on the charge of witchcraft. In some tribes, such as the Matabili, incessant slaughter went on by the orders of the king. Nothing less than the prolific quality of the race could have kept South Africa well peopled in the teeth of such a waste of life as war and murder caused.

Of the character of the individual native as it affects his present relations with the whites and the probable future of the race, I shall have to speak in a later chapter (Chapter XXI), as also of the condition and prospects of the Christian missions which exist among them, and which form the main civilizing influence now at work.

[Pg 98]

CHAPTER XI

THE EUROPEANS IN SOUTH AFRICA TILL 1854

It is no less true of South Africa than it is of the old countries of Europe that to understand the temper of the people, the working of their government, the nature of the political problems which they have to solve, one must know something of their history. South Africa has had a great deal of history, especially in the present century, and there are few places in which recollections of the past are more powerful factors in the troubles of the present. In the short sketch I propose to give I shall advert only to the chief events, and particularly to those whose importance is still felt and which have done most to determine the relations of the European races to one another. The constitutional and parliamentary history of the two British colonies and the two Boer republics has been short and not specially interesting. The military history has been on a small scale. The economic and industrial history has been simple and remarkable only so far as the mines are concerned. But the history of the dealings of the white races with one another and with the blacks is both peculiar and instructive, and well deserves a fuller narrative and more elaborate treatment than I have space to give.

Four European races have occupied the country. Of those, however, who came with Vasco da Gama from Lisbon in 1497 we shall have little to say, and of the[Pg 99] handful who followed Herr Lüderitz from Bremen in 1883 still less. The interest of the tale lies in the struggles of two branches of the same Low-German stock, the Dutch and the English.

The first to appear on the scene were the men of Portugal, then in the fresh springtime of its power and with what seemed a splendid career of discovery and conquest opening before it.[16] Bartholomew Diaz, whose renown has been unjustly obscured by that of Vasco da Gama, discovered the Cape of Storms, as he called it,—the name of Good Hope was given by King John II.,—in 1486, and explored the coast as far as the mouth of the Great Fish River. In 1497-98 Da Gama, on his famous voyage to India, followed the southern and eastern coast to Melinda; and in 1502, on his second voyage, after touching at Delagoa Bay, he visited Sofala, which was then the port to which most of the gold and ivory came from the interior. Here he found Arabs established in the town, as they were in other maritime trading places all the way north to Mombasa. At what date they first settled there is unknown; probably they had traded along the coast from times long before Mohammed. They were superior to the native blacks, though mixed in blood, but of course far inferior to the Portuguese, who overthrew their power. In 1505 the Portuguese built a fort at Sofala, and from there and several other points along the coast prosecuted their trade with the inland regions, using the conquered Arabs as their agents. For a century they remained the sole masters not only of the South-east African seaboard, but of the Indian Ocean, no vessel of any other European country appearing to dispute their pre-eminence. They might, had they cared, have occupied and appropriated the[Pg 100] whole southern half of the continent; but in the sixteenth century it was not of colonization, nor even so much of conquest, that monarchs, governors, and navigators thought, but of gold. Portugal had no surplus population to spare for settling her new territories, and—not to speak of Brazil—she had a far richer trade to develop in western India than anything which Africa could offer. It may now excite surprise that she should have taken no step to claim the long stretch of country whose shores her sailors had explored, from the mouth of the Orange River on the west to that of the Limpopo on the east. But there was no gold to be had there, and a chance skirmish with the Hottentots in Table Bay, in which the viceroy D'Almeida, returning from India, was killed in 1510, gave them a false notion of the danger to be feared from that people, who were in reality one of the weakest and least formidable among African races.

Accordingly, the Portuguese, who might have possessed themselves of the temperate and healthy regions which we now call Cape Colony and Natal, confined their settlements to the malarious country north of the tropic of Capricorn. Here they made two or three attempts, chiefly by moving up the valley of the Zambesi, to conquer the native tribes, or to support against his neighbours some chieftain who was to become their vassal. Their numbers were, however, too small, and they were too feebly supported from home, to enable them to secure success. When they desisted from these attempts, their missionaries, chiefly Dominican friars, though some Jesuits were also engaged in the work, maintained an active propaganda among the tribes, and at one time counted their converts by thousands. Not only missionaries, but small trading parties, penetrated the mysterious interior; and one or two light cannons, as well as articles which must have come to Africa from India, such as[Pg 101] fragments of Indian and Chinese pottery, have been found many hundred miles from the sea.[17]

But on the whole the Portuguese exerted very little permanent influence on the country and its inhabitants. The missions died out, most of the forts crumbled away or were abandoned, and all idea of further conquest had been dropped before the end of last century. There were, indeed, two fatal obstacles to conquering or civilising work. One was the extreme unhealthiness both of the flat country which lies between the sea and the edge of the great interior plateau, and of the whole Zambesi Valley, up which most of the attempts at an advance had been made. Fever not only decimated the expeditions and the garrisons of the forts, but enervated the main body of settlers who remained on the coast, soon reducing whatever enterprise or vigour they had brought from Europe. The other was the tendency of the Portuguese to mingle their blood with that of the natives. Very few women were brought out from home, so that a mixed race soon sprang up, calling themselves Portuguese, but much inferior to the natives of Portugal. The Portuguese, even more than the Spaniards, have shown both in Brazil and in Africa comparatively little of that racial contempt for the blacks, and that aversion to intimate social relations with them, which have been so characteristic of the Dutch and the English. There have, of course, been a good many mulattos born of Dutch fathers in Africa, as of Anglo-American fathers in the West Indies and in the former slave States of North America. But the Dutch or English mulatto was almost always treated as[Pg 102] belonging to the black race, and entirely below the level of the meanest white, whereas among the Portuguese a strong infusion of black blood did not necessarily carry with it social disparity.[18]

In the beginning of the seventeenth century the Dutch, prosecuting their war against the Spanish monarchy, which had acquired the crown of Portugal in 1581 and held it till 1640, attacked the Portuguese forts on the East African coast, but after a few years abandoned an enterprise in which there was little to gain, and devoted their efforts to the more profitable field of the East Indies. With this exception, no European power troubled the Portuguese in Africa. They had, however, frequent conflicts with the natives, and in 1834 were driven from their fort at Inhambane, between Sofala and Delagoa Bay, and in 1836 from Sofala itself, which, however, they subsequently recovered. It was not till the progress of inland discovery, and especially the establishment of a Boer republic in the Transvaal had made the coast seem valuable, that two new and formidable rivals appeared on the scene.

Under the combined operation of these causes such power as Portugal possessed on this coast declined during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Except on the deadly banks of the Zambesi, she never had a permanent settlement more than fifty miles from the sea, and very few so far inland. The population that spoke Portuguese and professed Christianity did not exceed a few thousands, and of these the large majority were at least half Kafir in blood. It became plain that such life and force as the nation once possessed had, at any rate in Africa, died out, and that if ever the continent was to be developed it would not be by the race that had first explored it. Here, there[Pg 103]fore, we may leave the eastern coast and the feeble settlers who shivered with ague in its swamps, and turn our eyes to the far south, where a new and more vigorous race began, a century and a half after the time of Vasco da Gama, to lay the foundations of a new dominion.

The first Teutonic people that entered the African continent were the Vandals in the fifth century. They came across the Straits of Gibraltar as conquerors, but they soon established a powerful fleet and acquired a maritime empire in the western Mediterranean. The second band of Teutons to enter were the Dutch. They were already a sea power active in the far East, whither they had been led by their war with Spain. But it was not as conquerors that they came, nor even as settlers intending to build up a colonial community. They came to establish a place of call for their vessels trading to India, where fresh water and vegetables might be obtained for their crews, who suffered terribly from scurvy on the voyage of six months or more from the Netherlands to the ports of Farther India. From the early years of the seventeenth century both Dutch and English vessels had been in the habit of putting in to Table Bay to refit and get fresh water. Indeed, in 1620 two English commanders had landed there and proclaimed the sovereignty of King James I, though their action was not ratified either by the king or by the English East India Company. In 1648 a shipwrecked Dutch crew spent six months in Table Valley, behind the spot where Cape Town now stands, and having some seeds with them, planted vegetables and got a good crop. They represented on their return to Holland the advantages of the spot, and in 1652 three vessels despatched by the Dutch East India Company disembarked a body of settlers, under the command of Jan van Riebeek, who were directed to build a fort and hospital, and, above all, to raise vegetables and obtain from the Hottentots supplies of fresh meat for passing[Pg 104] ships. It is from these small beginnings of a kitchen-garden that Dutch and British dominion in South Africa has grown up.

The history of this Dutch settlement presents a singular contrast to that of the Portuguese. During the first quarter of a century the few settlers kept themselves within the narrow limits of the Cape peninsula. In 1680 an outlying agricultural community was planted at Stellenbosch, twenty-five miles from Cape Town, but not till the end of the century was the first range of mountains crossed. Meantime the population began to grow. In 1658 the first slaves were introduced,—West African negroes,—a deplorable step, which has had the result of making the South African whites averse to open-air manual work and of practically condemning South Africa to be a country of black labour. Shortly afterwards the Company began to bring in Asiatic convicts, mostly Mohammedan Malays, from its territories in the East Indian Archipelago. These men intermarried with the female slaves, and to a less extent with Hottentot women, and from them a mixed coloured race has sprung up, which forms a large part of the population of Cape Town and the neighbouring districts. The influx of these inferior elements was balanced by the arrival in 1689 of about three hundred French Huguenots, a part of those who had taken refuge in Holland after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. They were persons of a high stamp, more intelligent and educated than most of the previous settlers had been, and they brought with them a strong attachment to their Protestant faith and a love of liberty. From them many of the best colonial families are sprung. At first they clung to their language, and sought to form a distinct religious community; but they were ultimately compelled to join the Dutch Reformed Church, and the use of French was forbidden in official documents or religious services. Before the middle of the eighteenth[Pg 105] century that language had disappeared, and the newcomers had practically amalgamated with their Dutch neighbours. The Company's government was impartially intolerant, and did not until 1780 permit the establishment of a Lutheran church, although many German Lutherans had settled in the country.

From the time when the settlers began to spread out from the coast into the dry lands of the interior a great change came upon them, and what we now call the distinctive South African type of character and habits began to appear. The first immigrants were not, like some of the English settlers in Virginia, men of good social position in their own country, attached to it by many ties, nor, like the English settlers in the New England colonies, men of good education and serious temper, seeking the freedom to worship God in their own way. They came from the humbler classes, and partly because they had few home ties, partly because the voyage to Holland was so long that communication with it was difficult, they maintained little connection with the mother country and soon lost their feeling for it. The Huguenot immigrants were more cultivated, and socially superior to the rude adventurers who had formed the bulk of the Dutch settlers, but they had of course no home country to look to. France had cast them out; Holland was alien in blood and speech. So it befell that of all the colonists that Europe had sent forth since the voyage of Columbus, the South African whites were those who soonest lost their bond with Europe, and were the first set of emigrants to feel themselves a new people, whose true home lay in the new land they had adopted. Thus early in South African annals were the foundations laid of what we now call the Africander sentiment—a sentiment which has become one of the main factors in the history of the country.

Nor was this all. When the comparatively small area of fertile land which could be cultivated without[Pg 106] irrigation had been taken up, the keeping of cattle suggested itself as an easy means of livelihood. The pasture, however, was so thin that it was necessary to graze the cattle over wide stretches of ground, and the farther they went into the interior the scantier was the pasture and the larger therefore did the area of land become over which a farmer let his oxen or sheep run. This process of extending cattle-farms—if farms they can be called—over the interior was materially accelerated through the destruction of the nearer Hottentot tribes by the frightful outbreak of smallpox which begun in A.D. 1713, followed by another not less virulent in 1755. The Europeans suffered severely from it, the negroes, slave and free, still more, but the Hottentots most of all. In fact, it cleared them away from all the southern and western parts of the Colony and left these regions open to Europeans. Only the Bushmen remained, whose more solitary life gave them comparative immunity from contagion. Thus from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and during the whole of it, there was a constant dispersion of settlers from the old nucleus into the circumjacent wilderness. They were required to pay a sum amounting to five pounds a year for the use of three thousand morgen (a little more than six thousand acres) of grazing ground, and were accustomed at certain seasons to drive their herds up into the deserts of the Karroo for a change of feed, just after the time when the summer rains stimulate the scrubby vegetation of that desert region. These settlers led a lonely and almost nomadic life. Much of their time was passed in their tent-waggons, in which, with their wives and children, they followed the cattle from spot to spot where the pasture was best. They became excellent marksmen and expert in the pursuit of wild beasts. Some made a living by elephant-hunting in the wilderness, and those who tended cattle learned to face the lion. They were[Pg 107] much molested by the Bushmen, whose stealthy attacks and poisoned arrows made them dangerous enemies, and they carried on with the latter a constant war, in which no quarter was given. Thus there developed among them that courage, self-reliance, and passion for independence which are characteristic of the frontiersman everywhere, coupled with a love of solitude and isolation which the conditions of western America did not produce. For in western America the numbers and ferocity of the Red Indians, and those resources of the land which encouraged the formation of agricultural and timber-producing communities, made villages follow the march of discovery and conquest, while in pastoral Africa villages were few and extremely small. Isolation and the wild life these ranchmen led soon told upon their habits. The children grew up ignorant; the women, as was natural where slaves were employed, lost the neat and cleanly ways of their Dutch ancestors; the men were rude, bigoted, indifferent to the comforts and graces of life. But they retained their religious earnestness, carrying their Bibles and the practice of daily family worship with them in their wanderings; and they retained also a passion for freedom which the government vainly endeavoured to restrain. Though magistrates, called landdrosts, were placed in a few of the outlying stations, with assessors taken from the people, called heemraden, to assist them in administering justice, it was found impossible to maintain control over the wandering cattle-men, who from their habit of "trekking" from place to place were called Trek Boers.[19] The only organization that brought them together was that which their ceaseless strife with the Bushmen enjoined. Being all accustomed to the use of arms, they formed war-parties, which from time to time attacked and rooted out the Bushmen from a disturbed area; and the government recognized these military needs and methods by appointing field-commandants to each dis[Pg 108]trict, and subordinate officers, called field-cornets, to each sub-district. These functionaries have become the basis of the system of local government among the South African Dutch, and the war-bands, called commandos, have played a great part in the subsequent military history of the country.

The eastward progress of expansion presently brought the settlers into contact with more formidable foes in the Bantu tribes, who dwelt beyond the Great Fish River. In 1779 some Kafir clans of the Kosa race crossed that river and drove off the cattle off the farmers to the west of it, and a war, the first of many fiercely fought Kafir wars, followed, which ended in the victory of the colonists.

All this while the Colony had been ruled by the Dutch East India Company through a governor and council, appointed by the directors in Holland, and responsible to them only—a system roughly similar to that which the English established in India during the eighteenth century. The administration was better or worse according to the character and capacity of the governor for the time being, but it was on the whole unpopular with the colonists, not merely because they were excluded from all share in it (except to some small extent in the courts of justice), but also because the Company kept in its own hands a monopoly of the trade, and managed trade with a view to its own commercial interests rather than to those of the community. Thus discontent grew, and this discontent was one of the causes which led to the dispersion of the people into the wilderness, whose remoteness secured to them a practical freedom. In 1779 disaffection had been so much stimulated by the maladministration of a weak governor, and by the news of the revolt of the American colonies against Great Britain, that delegates were sent to Holland to demand redress for their commercial and other grievances, as well as a share in the government of the Colony. The Company was by this time in fin[Pg 109]ancial straits, and less powerful with the States-general of the Netherlands than it had formerly been. Long negotiations followed, reforms were promised, and at last, in 1792, two commissioners were sent out to investigate and frame measures of reform. The measures they promulgated were, however, deemed inadequate by the more ardent spirits, and by those especially who dwelt in the outlying districts, where the government had exerted, and could exert, little control. In 1795, first at Graaf-Reinet and then at Swellendam, the people rose in revolt, not, as they stated, against the mother country, but against the Company. They turned out the landdrosts, and set up miniature republics, each with a representative assembly.

It would not have been difficult for the government to have reduced these risings by cutting off supplies of food. But now South Africa was suddenly swept into the great whirlpool of European politics, and events were at hand which made these petty local movements insignificant, save in so far as they were evidences of the independent spirit of the people.

From 1757, when the battle of Plassey was fought, the English power in India had been rapidly growing, and the Cape, which they had not cared to acquire in 1620, had now become in their eyes a station of capital importance. When war broke out between Britain and Holland in 1781, the English had attempted to seize the Colony, but retired when they found a strong French force prepared to aid the Dutch in its defence. Now they were again at war with Holland, which, over-run by the armies of revolutionary France, had become the Batavian Republic. In 1795 an English expedition, bearing orders from the Stadholder of the Netherlands, then a refugee in England, requiring the Company's officers to admit them, landed at Simon's Bay, and after some slight resistance obliged Cape Town and its castle to capitulate. Within a few months the insurgents at Swellendam and Graaf-Reinet submitted,[Pg 110] and British troops held the Colony till 1802, when it was restored to the Batavian Republic on the conclusion of the peace of Amiens. Next year, however, war broke out afresh; and the English government, feeling the extreme importance, in the great struggle which they were waging with Napoleon, of possessing a naval stronghold as a half-way house to India, resolved again to occupy the Cape. In 1806 a strong force was landed in Table Bay, and after one engagement the Dutch capitulated. In 1814 the English occupation was turned into permanent sovereignty by a formal cession of the Colony on the part of the then restored Stadholder, who received for it and certain Dutch possessions in South America the sum of £6,000,000.

The European population of the Colony, which was thus finally transferred to the rule of a foreign though a cognate nation, consisted in 1806 of about 27,000 persons, mostly of Dutch, with a smaller number of German or French descent. They had some 30,000 black slaves, and of the aboriginal Hottentots about 17,000 remained. Nearly all spoke Dutch, or rather the rude local dialect into which the Dutch of the original settlers (said to have been largely Frieslanders), had degenerated. The descendants of the Huguenots had long since lost their French.

No people find it agreeable to be handed over to the government of a different race, and the British administration in the Colony in those days was, though restrained by the general principles of English law, necessarily autocratic, because representative institutions had never existed at the Cape. Still things promised well for the peace and ultimate fusion of the Dutch and English races. They were branches of the same Low-German stock, separated by fourteen hundred years of separate history, but similar in the fundamental bases of their respective characters. Both were attached to liberty, and the British had indeed enjoyed at home a much fuller measure of it than had[Pg 111] the Dutch in the settled parts of the Colony. Both professed the Protestant religion, and the Dutch were less tolerant toward Roman Catholics than the English. The two languages retained so much resemblance that it was easy for an Englishman to learn Dutch and for a Dutchman to learn English. An observer might have predicted that the two peoples would soon, by intercourse and by intermarriage, melt into one, as Dutch and English had done in New York. For a time it seemed as if this would certainly come to pass. The first two British governors were men of high character, whose administration gave little ground for complaint to the old inhabitants. The Company's restrictions on trade had been abolished, and many reforms were introduced by the new rulers. Schools were founded, the administration of justice was reorganised under new courts, the breed of cattle and horses was improved, the slave-trade was forbidden, and missions to the natives were largely developed. Meanwhile local institutions were scarcely altered, and the official use of the Dutch language was maintained. The Roman-Dutch law, which had been in force under the Company's rule, was permitted to remain, and it is to-day the common law of all the British colonies and territories, as well as of the Boer Republics, in South Africa. Intermarriage began, and the social relations of the few English who had come in after 1806, with the many Dutch were friendly. In 1820 the British government sent out about five thousand emigrants from England and Scotland, who settled in the thinly occupied country round Algoa Bay on the eastern border of the Colony; and from that time on there was a steady, though never copious, influx of British settlers, through whose presence the use of the English language increased, together with a smaller influx of Germans, who soon lost their national individuality and came to speak either English or the local Dutch.

Before long, however, this fair promise of peace and[Pg 112] union was overclouded, and the causes which checked the fusion of the races in the Colony, and created two Dutch Republics beyond its limits, have had such momentous results that they need to be clearly stated.

The first was to be found in the character of the Dutch population. They were farmers, a few dwelling in villages and cultivating the soil, but the majority stock-farmers, living scattered over a wide expanse of country, for the thinness of the pasture had made and kept the stock-farms very large. They saw little of one another, and nothing of those who dwelt in the few towns which the Colony possessed. They were ignorant, prejudiced, strongly attached to their old habits, impatient of any control. The opportunities for intercourse between them and the British were thus so few that the two races acquired very little knowledge of one another, and the process of social fusion, though easy at Capetown and wherever else the population was tolerably dense, was extremely slow over the country at large. A deplorable incident which befell on the eastern border in 1815 did much to create bad blood. A slight rising, due to the attempted arrest of a farmer on a charge of maltreating his native servant, broke out there. It was soon suppressed, but of the prisoners taken six were condemned to death and five were hanged. This harsh act, which was at the time justified as a piece of "necessary firmness," produced wide-spread and bitter resentment, and the mention of Slagter's Nek continued for many years to awaken an outburst of anti-British feeling among the Boers.

A second cause was the unwisdom of the British authorities in altering (between 1825 and 1828) the old system of local government (with the effect of reducing the share in it which the citizens had enjoyed), and in substituting English for Dutch as the language to be used in official documents and legal proceedings. This was a serious hardship, for probably not more than one-sixth of the people understood[Pg 113] English. A third source of trouble arose out of the wars with the Kafirs on the eastern border. Since the first hostilities of 1779 there had been four serious struggles with the tribes who lived beyond the Fish River, and in 1834 a host of savages suddenly burst into the Colony, sweeping off the cattle and killing the farmers. After some hard fighting the Kafirs were reduced to sue for peace, and compelled by the governor to withdraw beyond the Keiskama River. But the British government at home, considering that the natives had been ill-treated by the colonists, and in fact provoked to war, overruled the governor, and allowed them to return to their old seats, where they were, no doubt, a source of danger to the border farmers. Thinking the home authorities either weak or perverse, the farmers bitterly resented this action, and began to look on the British Colonial Office as their enemy.

But the main grievance arose out of those native and colour questions which have ever since continued to trouble South Africa. Slavery had existed in the Colony since 1658, and had produced its usual consequences, the degradation of labour, and the notion that the black man has no rights against the white. In 1737 the first Moravian mission to the Hottentots was frowned upon, and a pastor who had baptized natives found himself obliged to return to Europe. The current of feeling in Europe, and especially in England, which condemned the "domestic institution" and sought to vindicate the human rights of the negro, had not been felt in this remote corner of the world, and from about 1810 onward the English missionaries gave intense offence to the colonists by espousing the cause of the natives and the slaves, and reporting every case of cruel or harsh treatment which came to their knowledge. It is said that they often exaggerated, or made charges on insufficient evidence, and this is likely enough. But it must also be remembered that they were the[Pg 114] only protectors the blacks had; and where slavery exists, and a weak race is dominated by a strong one, there are sure to be many abuses of power. When, in 1828, Hottentots and other free coloured people were placed by governmental ordinance on an equal footing with whites as regards private civil rights, the colonists were profoundly disgusted, and their exasperation was increased by the enactment of laws restraining their authority over their slaves, as well as by the charges of ill-treating the natives which continued to be brought against them by the missionaries. Finally, in 1834, the British Parliament passed a statute emancipating the slaves throughout all the British colonies, and awarding a sum of twenty million pounds sterling as compensation to the slave-owners. The part of this sum allotted to Cape Colony (a little more than three millions sterling) was considerably below the value of the slaves (about 39,000) held there, and as the compensation was made payable in London, most slave owners sold their claims at inadequate prices. Many farmers lost the bulk of their property, and labour became in many districts so scarce that agriculture could hardly be carried on. The irritation produced by the loss thus suffered, intensifying the already existing discontent, set up a ferment among the Dutch farmers. Their spirit had always been independent, and the circumstances of their isolated life had enabled them to indulge it. Even under the government of their Dutch kinsfolk they had been restless, and now they received, as they thought, one injustice after another at the hands of alien rulers. To be watched and denounced by the missionaries, to have black people put on a level with them, to lose the fruits of their victory over the Kafirs—all these things had been bad enough. Now, however, when their property itself was taken away and slavery abolished on grounds they could neither understand nor approve, they determined to endure no longer, and sought for some means of[Pg 115] deliverance. Rebellion against so strong a power as that of Britain was evidently foredoomed to failure. But to the north and east a great wild country lay open before them, where they could lead that solitary and half-nomadic life which they loved, preserve their old customs, and deal with the natives as they pleased, unvexed by the meddlesome English. Accordingly, many resolved to quit the Colony altogether and go out into the wilderness. They were the more disposed to this course, because they knew that the wars and conquests of Tshaka, the ferocious Zulu king, had exterminated the Kafir population through parts of the interior, which therefore stood open to European settlement. Thus it was that the Great Trek, as the Dutch call it,—the great emigration, or secession, as we should say,—of the Dutch Boers began in 1836, twenty-five years before another question of colour and slavery brought about a still greater secession on the other side of the Atlantic.

If the reader will here refer to the map, and measure from Cape Town a distance of about four hundred and fifty miles to the east (to the mouth of the Great Fish River), and about the same distance to the north-north-east (to where the towns of Middelburg and Colesberg now stand), he will obtain a pretty fair idea of the limits of European settlement in 1836. The outer parts of this area toward the north and east were very thinly peopled, and beyond them there was a vast wilderness, into which only a few hunters had penetrated, though some farmers had, during the last decade or two, been accustomed to drive their flocks and herds into the fringe of it after the rains, in search of fresh pastures. The regions still farther to the north and east were almost entirely unexplored. They were full of wild beasts, and occupied here and there by native tribes, some, like the various branches of the Zulu race, eminently fierce and warlike. Large tracts, however, were believed to be empty and desolate, owing to the devastations wrought during his twenty years of reign by[Pg 116] Tshaka, who had been murdered eight years before. Of the existence of mineral wealth no one dreamed. But it was believed that there was good grazing land to be found on the upland that lay north of the great Quathlamba Range (where now the map shows the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic). More to the south lay the territory we now call Natal. It was described by those very few persons who had explored it as fertile and well-watered, a country fit both for tillage and for pasture; but wide plains and high mountains had to be crossed to reach it by land from the north-west, and close to it on the north-east was the main body of the Zulu nation, under King Dingaan, the brother and sucessor of Tshaka.

Into this wilderness did the farmers set forth, and though some less laudable motives may have been mingled with the love of independence and the resentment at injustice which mainly prompted their emigration, it is impossible not to admire their strenuous and valiant spirit. They were a religious people, knowing no book but the Bible, and they deemed themselves, like many another religious people at a like crisis of their fortunes, to be under the special protection of Heaven, as was Israel when it went out of Egypt into a wilderness not so vast nor so full of perils as was that which the Boers were entering. Escaping from a sway which they compared to that of the Egyptian king, they probably expected to be stopped or turned back. But Pharaoh, though he had turned a deaf ear to their complaints, was imbued with the British spirit of legality. He consulted his attorney-general, and did not pursue them. The colonial government saw with concern the departure of so many useful subjects. But it was advised that it had no legal right to stop them, so it stood by silently while party after party of emigrants—each householder with his wife and his little ones, his flocks and his herds and all his goods—took its slow way from the eastern or northern parts of the Colony, up the slopes of the coast[Pg 117] range, and across the passes that lead into the high plateau behind. Within two years from 6,000 to 10,000 persons set forth. They travelled in large covered wagons drawn by ten or twelve yoke of oxen, and they were obliged to travel in parties of no great size, lest their cattle should exhaust the pasture along the track they followed. There was, however a general concert of plan among them, and most of the smaller groups united at spots previously fixed upon for a rendezvous. All the men were armed, for the needs of defence against the Bushmen, and the passion for killing game, had made the farmers expert in the use of the rifle. As marksmen they were unusually steady and skilful, and in the struggles that followed nothing but their marksmanship saved them. Few to-day survive of those who took part in this Great Trek, but among those few is Paul Kruger, now President of the South African Republic, who followed his father's cattle as they were driven forward across the prairie, being then a boy of ten.

I have not space to tell, save in the briefest outline, the striking and romantic story of the wanderings of the emigrant Boers and their conflicts with the native tribes. The first party, like the first host of Crusaders that started for the East in the end of the eleventh century, perished miserably. It consisted of ninety-eight persons travelling with thirty wagons. They penetrated far to the north-east, into what is now the territory of the Transvaal Republic. Some were cut off by the natives; some, reduced to a mere handful by fever and by the loss of their cattle,—for they had ventured into the unhealthy lower country to the south-east of the mountains, where the tsetse-fly abounds,—made their way to the coast at Delagoa Bay. Another party, formed by the union of a number of smaller bodies at Thaba 'Ntshu, a rocky peak in the Orange Free State, visible on the eastern horizon from the present town of Bloemfontein, advanced thence to the[Pg 118] north, and presently came in contact with a redoubtable branch of the Zulu race, famous in later history under the name of Matabili. This tribe was then ruled by the chief Umzilikazi, or Mosilikatze, a warrior of great energy and talent. He had been one of Tshaka's favourite generals, but, having incurred that king's displeasure, had fled, about A.D. 1817, with his regiment to the north-west, and established his headquarters near a place called Mosega (between Pretoria and Mafeking), in what is now the Transvaal Republic. Thence he raided and massacred the Bechuanas and other tribes of this region, though himself unable to withstand the main Zulu nation, which, under Dingaan, was living farther to the south. The Matabili provoked war by falling upon and destroying a detachment of the emigrants. Intruders the latter doubtless were, but, as the Matabili themselves had slaughtered without mercy the weaker Kafir tribes, the Boers might think they need not feel any compunction in dealing out the like measure to their antagonists. And, in point of fact, the emigrants seem all through to have treated the natives much as Israel treated the natives of Canaan, and to have conceived themselves to have Old Testament authority for occupying the territories of the heathen, and reducing them by the sternest methods to serfdom or submission. Here they had an unprovoked massacre to avenge, and they showed equal promptitude and courage. Pouncing upon Mosilikatze, they defeated his vastly superior force with so great a slaughter that he fled north-westward far away beyond the Limpopo River, and fell like a thunderbolt upon the tribes who dwelt between that stream and the Zambesi, killing many and making slaves of the rest. Here, with the king's kraal of Buluwayo for its capital, was established the kingdom of the Matabili, which remained as a terror to its neighbours till, in its turn, destroyed by Dr. Jameson and the British South Africa Company in 1893. It was a curious chain of events[Pg 119] that brought fire and slaughter so suddenly, in 1837, upon the peoples of the Zambesi Valley. As the conflicts of nomad warriors along the great wall of China in the fourth century of our era set a-going a movement which, propagated from tribe to tribe, ended by precipitating the Goths upon the Mediterranean countries, and brought Alaric to the Salarian Gate of Rome, so the collapse of the French monarchy, inducing the Revolution and the consequent war with England, carried the English to the Cape, brought the Boers into collision with the Matabili, and at last hurled the savage host of Mosilikatze on the helpless Makalakas.

The defeat and expulsion of the Matabili left the vast territories between the Orange River and the Limpopo in the hands of the Boer immigrants. Within these territories, after much moving hither and thither, those small and rude communities began to grow up which have ripened, as we shall presently see, into the two Dutch republics of our own time. But, meanwhile, a larger and better organized body of Boers, led by a capable and much-respected man named Pieter Retief, marched first eastward and then southward across the Quathlamba watershed, and descended from the plateau into the richer and warmer country between those mountains and the Indian Ocean. This region had been in 1820 almost depopulated by the invasions of Tshaka, and now contained scarce any native inhabitants. A few Englishmen had since 1824 been settled on the inlet then called Port Natal, where now the prosperous town of Durban lies beneath the villas and orchards of Berea, and (having obtained a cession of the maritime slip from King Tshaka) were maintaining there a sort of provisional republic. In 1835 they had asked to be recognised as a colony under the name of Victoria, in honour of the young princess who two years afterwards mounted the throne, and to have a legislature granted them. The British government,[Pg 120] however, was still hesitating whether it should occupy the port, so the emigrants did not trouble themselves about its rights or wishes. Thinking it well to propitiate the Zulu king, Dingaan, whose power over-shadowed the country, the Boer leaders proceeded to his kraal to obtain from him a formal grant of land. The grant was made, but next day the treacherous tyrant, offering them some native beer as a sort of stirrup-cup before their departure, suddenly bade his men fall upon and "kill the wizards." The excellent Retief perished with his whole party, and a body of emigrants not far distant was similarly surprised and massacred by a Zulu army of overwhelming strength. These cruelties roused the rest of the emigrants to reprisals, and in a fierce battle, fought on December 16, 1838, the anniversary of which is still celebrated by the people of the Transvaal, a handful of Boers overthrew Dingaan's host. Like the soldiers of Cortes in Mexico, they owed this, as other victories, not merely to their steady valour, but to their horses. Riding up to the line of savage warriors, they delivered a volley, and rode back before an assagai could reach them, repeating this manœuvre over and over again till the hostile ranks broke and fled. Ultimately their forces, united with those of a brother of Dingaan, who had rebelled against him and had detached a large part of the Zulu warriors, drove Dingaan out of Zululand in 1840. Panda, the rebel brother, was installed king in his stead, as a sort of vassal to the Boer government, which was now entitled the republic of Natalia, and the Boers founded a city, Pietermaritzburg, and began to portion out the land. They deemed the British authorities to have abandoned any claim to the country by the withdrawal of a detachment of troops which had been landed at Port Natal in 1838. But their action, and in particular their ejection from the country of a mass of Kafirs whom they proposed to place in a district already occupied by another tribe, had mean[Pg 121]while excited the displeasure of the government of Cape Colony. That government, though it had not followed them into the deserts of the interior, had never renounced, and indeed had now and then reasserted its right to consider them British subjects. They, however, repudiated all idea of subjection, holding British sovereignty to be purely territorial, so that when they had passed out of the region which the British crown claimed they had become a free and independent people, standing alone in the world. Their attempt to establish a new white state on the coast was a matter of serious concern, because it might affect trade with the interior, and plant in a region which Britain deemed her own the germ of what might become a new maritime power. And as the colonial government considered itself the general protector of the natives, and interested in maintaining the Kafirs between the Boer state and Cape Colony, the attacks of the Boers on the Kafirs who lived to the west of them toward the Colony, could not be permitted to pass unchecked. The British government, though still unwilling to assume fresh responsibilities, for in those days it was generally believed that the colonial possessions of Britain were already too extensive, nevertheless ultimately concluded, for the reasons given above, to assert its authority over Port Natal and the country behind as far as the crest of the mountains. A small force was accordingly sent to Port Natal in 1842. It was there besieged by the Boer levies, and would have been forced to surrender but for the daring ten days' ride through the whole breadth of Kaffraria of a young Englishman, Richard King, who brought the news to Graham's Town, six hundred miles distant. A force sent by sea relieved the starving garrison after a siege of twenty-six days. The Boer forces dispersed, but it was not till a year later that the territory of Natal was formally declared a British colony. Lord Stanley, then colonial secretary, was reluctant to take over the[Pg 122] responsibilities of a new dominion with a disaffected white population and a mass of savage inhabitants, and only yielded to the urgent arguments of Sir George Napier, then governor of the Cape. In 1843, after long and angry debates (sometimes interrupted by the women, who passionately denounced the British government), the Volksraad, or popular assembly of the tiny republic, submitted to the British crown, having delivered a warm but ineffectual protest against the principle of equal civil rights for whites and blacks laid down by the British government. The colony of Natal was then constituted, first (1845) as a dependency of Cape Colony, afterward (1856) as a separate colony. A part of the Boers, estimated at five hundred families, remained in it; but the majority, including all the fiercer spirits, recrossed the mountains (some forthwith, some five years later), with their cattle, and joined the mass of their fellow-emigrants who had remained on the plateaus of the interior. Meanwhile an immense influx of Kafirs, mostly from Zululand, although many belonged to other tribes whom the Zulus had conquered, repopulated the country, and in it the blacks have since been about ten times as numerous as the whites. Thus ended the Dutch republic of Natalia, after six years of troubled life. While it was fighting with the Zulus on the east, and other Kafirs on the west, it was torn by incessant intestine quarrels, and unable either to levy taxes, or to compel for any other purpose the obedience of its own citizens. But its victories over Dingaan's armies were feats of arms as remarkable as any South Africa has seen. The English are not generally slow to recognize the fine qualities of their adversaries, but they have done less than justice to the resolution and the daring which the Boers displayed in these early campaigns against the natives.[20][Pg 123]

With the British annexation of Natal ended the first of the attempts which the emigrant Boers have made to obtain access to the sea. It was a turning-point in the history of South Africa, for it secured to Great Britain that command of the coast which has ever since been seen to be more and more vital to her predominance, and it established a new centre of English settlement in a region till then neglected, from whence large territories, including Zululand and, recently, Southern Tongaland, have been acquired. Although Britain purported to act, and, indeed, in a certain sense did act, in self-defence, one cannot repress a feeling that the Boer settlers, who had occupied a territory they found vacant and had broken the power of the savage Zulu king, were hardly used. They ought, at any rate, to have had earlier notice of British intentions. But against this may be set the fact that the internal dissensions which rent the infant republic would have sooner or later brought it to the ground, compelling British intervention, and that the native races have fared better under British control than they seemed likely to do under that of the Boers, whose behaviour towards them, though little more harsh than that of the English colonists, has been much less considerate than that of the Imperial Government.

Hardly less troubled was the lot of the emigrants who had scattered themselves over the wide uplands that lie between the Orange River and the Limpopo. They, too, were engaged in incessant wars with the native tribes, who were, however, less formidable than the Zulus, and much cattle lifting went on upon both sides. Only one native tribe and one native chief stand out from the confused tangle of petty raids and forays which makes up (after the expulsion of the Matabili) the earlier annals of the Boer communities. This chief was the famous Moshesh, to speak of whose career I may digress for a moment from the thread of this narrative. The Kafir races[Pg 124] have produced within this century three really remarkable men—men who, like Toussaint l'Ouverture in Hayti, and Kamehameha I. in Hawaii, will go down in history as instances of the gifts that sometimes show themselves even among the most backward races. Tshaka, the Zulu, was a warrior of extraordinary energy and ambition, whose power of organization enabled him to raise the Zulu army within a few years to a perfection of drill and discipline and a swiftness of movement which made them irresistible, except by Europeans. Khama, the chief who still reigns among the Bechuanas, has been a social reformer and administrator of judgment, tact, and firmness, who has kept his people in domestic peace and protected them from the dangerous influences which white civilization brings with it, while at the same time helping them onward toward such improvements as their character admits. Moshesh, chief of the Basutos, was born in the end of the eighteenth century. He belonged to a small clan which had suffered severely in the wars caused by the conquest of Tshaka, whose attacks upon the tribes nearest him had driven them upon other tribes, and brought slaughter and confusion upon the whole of South-eastern Africa. Though only a younger son, his enterprise and courage soon made him a leader. The progress of his power was aided by the skill he showed in selecting for his residence and stronghold a flat topped hill called Thaba Bosiyo, fenced round by cliffs, with pasture for his cattle, and several springs of water. In this impregnable stronghold, from which he drew his title of "chief of the mountain," he resisted repeated sieges by his native enemies and by the emigrant Boers. The exploits of Moshesh against his native foes soon brought adherents round him, and he became the head of that powerful tribe, largely formed out of the fragments of other tribes scattered and shattered by war, which is now called the Basuto. Unlike[Pg 125] most Kafir warriors, he was singularly free from cruelty, and ruled his own people with a mildness which made him liked as well as respected. In 1832 he had the foresight to invite missionaries to come and settle among his people, and the following year saw the establishment of the mission of the Evangelical Society of Paris, whose members, some of them French, some Swiss, a few Scotch, have been the most potent factors in the subsequent history of the Basuto nation. When the inevitable collision between the Basutos and the white men arrived, Moshesh, partly through counsels of the missionaries, partly from his own prudence, did his best to avoid any fatal breach with the British Government. Nevertheless, he was several times engaged in war with the Orange River Boers, and once had to withstand the attack of a strong British force led by the governor of Cape Colony. But his tactful diplomacy made him a match for any European opponent, and carried him through every political danger. Moshesh died, full of years and honour, about twenty-eight years ago, having built up, out of the dispersed remnants of broken tribes, a nation which has now, under the guiding hand of the missionaries, and latterly of the British Government also, made greater progress in civilization and Christianity than any other Kafir race. Of its present condition I shall speak in a later chapter.

We may now turn back to pursue the story of the fortunes of the emigrant Boers who had remained on the landward or northerly side of the Quathlamba Range, or had returned thither from Natal. In 1843 they numbered not more than 15,000 persons all told, possibly less; for, though after 1838 fresh emigrants from the Colony had joined them, many had perished in the native wars. Subsequently, down to the end of 1847, these numbers were increased by others, who returned from Natal, displeased at the land settlement made there; and while these Natalians settled, some[Pg 126] to the south-west, round Winburg, others farther north, in the region between Pretoria and the Vaal River, the earlier Boer occupants of the latter region moved off still farther north, some to Lydenburg, some to the Zoutpansberg and the country sloping to the Limpopo River. Thus the emigrant Dutch were now scattered over an area seven hundred miles long and three hundred miles wide, an area bounded on the south-east by the Quathlamba mountain-chain, but on the north and west divided by no natural limit from the great plain which stretches west to the Atlantic and north to the Zambesi. They were practically independent, for the colonial government did not attempt to interfere with their internal affairs. But Britain still claimed that they were, in strict intendment of law, British subjects,[21] and she gave no recognition to the governments they set up. To have established any kind of administration over so wide a territory would have been in any case difficult for so small a body of people, probably about four thousand adult males; but the characteristics which had enabled them to carry out their exodus from Cape Colony and their campaigns of conquest against the natives with so much success made the task of organization still more difficult. They had in an eminent degree "the defects of their qualities." They were self-reliant and individualistic to excess; they loved not only independence, but isolation; they were resolved to make their government absolutely popular, and little disposed to brook the control even of the authorities they had themselves created. They had, in fact, a genius for disobedience; their ideal, if one can attribute any ideals to them, was that of Israel in the days when every man did that[Pg 127] which was right in his own eyes. It was only for warlike expeditions, which they had come to enjoy not only for the sake of the excitement, but also because they were able to enrich themselves by the capture of cattle, that they could be brought together, and only to their leaders in war that they would yield obedience. Very few had taken to agriculture, for which, indeed, the dry soil was seldom fitted, and the half-nomadic life of stock-farmers, each pasturing his cattle over great tracts of country, confirmed their dissociative instincts. However, the necessities of defence against the natives, and a common spirit of hostility to the claims of sovereignty which the British government had never renounced, kept them loosely together. Thus several small republican communities grew up. Each would have preferred to manage its affairs by a general meeting of the citizens, and sometimes tried to do so. But as the citizens dispersed themselves over the country, this became impossible, so authority, such slight authority as they could be induced to grant, was in each vested in a small elective assembly called the Volksraad or Council of the People.

These tiny republics were held together by a sort of faintly federative tie, which rested rather in a common understanding than upon any legal instrument, and whose observance was always subject to the passion of the moment. The communities which dwelt to the north-east, beyond the Vaal River, while distracted by internal feuds chiefly arising from personal or family enmities, were left undisturbed by the colonial government. They lived hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost, and their wars with the Kafirs scarcely affected those tribes with whom the British authorities came in contact. Those authorities, as I have already observed, were in those days, under orders received from home, anxious rather to contract than to extend the sphere of imperial influence, and cared little for what happened far out in the wilderness, except[Pg 128] whenever the action of the Boers induced troubles among the natives.

It was otherwise with the emigrants who lived to the south-west, between the Vaal River and the frontier of Cape Colony, which was then at the village of Colesberg, between what is now De Aar Junction and the upper course of the Orange River. Here there were endless bickerings between the Boers, the rapidly growing native tribe of the Basutos, and the half-breeds called Griquas, hunting clans sprung from Dutch fathers and Hottentot women, who, intermixed with white people, and to some extent civilized by the missionaries, were scattered over the country from where the town of Kimberley now stands southward to the junction of the Orange and Caledon rivers. These quarrels, with the perpetual risk of a serious native war arising from them, distressed a succession of governors at Cape Town and a succession of colonial secretaries in Downing Street. Britain did not wish (if I may use a commercial term not unsuited to her state of mind) "to increase her holding" in South Africa. She regarded the Cape as the least prosperous and promising of her colonies, with an arid soil, a population largely alien, and an apparently endless series of costly Kafir wars. She desired to avoid all further annexations of territory, because each annexation brought fresh responsibilities, and fresh responsibilities involved increased expenditure. At last a plan was proposed by Dr. Philip, a prominent missionary who had acquired influence with the government. The missionaries were the only responsible persons who knew much about the wild interior, and they were often called on to discharge functions similar to those which the bishops performed for the barbarian kings in western Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries of our era. The societies which they represented commanded some influence in Parliament; and this fact also disposed the Colonial Office to consult them. Dr.[Pg 129] Philip suggested the creation along the north-eastern border of a line of native states which should sever the Colony from the unsettled districts, and should isolate the more turbulent emigrant Boers from those who had remained quietly in the Colony. This plan was adopted. Treaties were made in 1843 with Moshesh, the Basuto chief, and with Adam Kok, a Griqua captain living on the Orange River, as a treaty had been made nine years before with another Griqua leader named Waterboer, who lived farther north (near the present site of Kimberley); and these three states, all recognized by Britain, were intended to cover the Colony on the side where troubles were most feared. But the arrangement soon broke down, for the whites would not recognize a Griqua captain, while the whole troubles between them and the natives continued. Accordingly, a forward step was taken in 1846 by placing a few British troops under a military resident at Bloemfontein, half-way between the Orange and Vaal rivers, to keep order there. And in 1848 the whole region from the Orange to the Vaal was formally annexed under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. The country had been without any government, for the emigrants who dwelt in it had no organization of their own, and did not recognize the republics beyond the Vaal.

This formal assertion of British authority provoked an outbreak among those of the emigrants, all, or nearly all, of Boer stock, who clung to their independence. Roused and reinforced by their Boer brethren from beyond the Vaal, who were commanded by Andries Pretorius, the most energetic and capable of the emigrant leaders, and the same who had besieged the British troops at Port Natal, they attacked Bloemfontein, obliged the Resident's small force to capitulate, and advanced south to the Orange River. Sir Harry Smith, then Governor of the Cape, promptly moved forward a small force, defeated the Boers in a sharp skirmish at Boomplats (August 29, 1848), and[Pg 130] re-established British authority over the Sovereignty, which was not, however, incorporated with Cape Colony. The Boers beyond the Vaal were left to themselves.

Peace, however, was not yet assured. Fresh quarrels broke out among the native tribes, ending in a war between the Basutos and the British Resident. Unsupported by a large section of the local farmers, who remained disaffected to the government, and preferred to make their own terms with the Basutos, and having only a trifling armed force at his command, the Resident fared ill; and his position became worse when Pretorius, still powerful beyond the Vaal, threatened to move in and side with the Basutos. Cape Colony was at that moment involved in a serious war with the Kafirs of the south coast, and could spare no troops for these northern troubles. So when Pretorius intimated that he and the northern Boers wished to make some permanent and pacific arrangement with Britain, which, though it did not claim their territory, still claimed their allegiance, commissioners were sent to negotiate with him and those of the northern or Transvaal group of emigrants who recognized his leadership, for there were other factions who stood apart by themselves. Thus in 1852 a convention was concluded at Sand River with "the commandant and delegates of the Boers living beyond the Vaal," by which the British government "guaranteed to the emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal River the right to manage their own affairs, and to govern themselves according to their own laws without any interference on the part of the British government," with provisions "disclaiming all alliances with any of the coloured nations north of the Vaal River," permitting the emigrants to purchase ammunition in the British colonies, and declaring that "no slavery is or shall be permitted or practised by the farmers in the country north of the Vaal River."[Pg 131]

From this Sand River convention the South African Republic, afterward slowly formed out of the small communities which then divided the country, dates its independence; and by the same instrument it practically severed itself from the Boer emigrants who were left in the Orange River Sovereignty south of the Vaal, conduct which the republican party among these emigrants deemed a betrayal. That Sovereignty remained British, and probably would have so continued but for an unexpected incident. It was still vexed by the war with the Basutos, and when General Cathcart, who had now come out as Governor of the Cape, attacked Moshesh with a considerable force of British regulars, he was drawn into a sort of ambush in their difficult country, suffered a serious reverse, and would have been compelled to invade Basutoland afresh with a larger army had not Moshesh prudently asked for peace. Peace was concluded. But the British government was weary of these petty and apparently unending native wars, and soon after the news of the battle with Moshesh reached London, the Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Aberdeen's government, in which he was colonial secretary, resolved to abandon the Sovereignty altogether.

To those who look back on 1853 with the eyes of 1899 this seems a strange determination, for the British crown had ruled the country for eight years and recently given it a regular new constitution. Moreover, whereas the farmers beyond the Vaal were nearly all of pure Boer stock, those in the Orange River Sovereignty were mixed with English settlers, and from their proximity to the Colony were much less averse to the British connection. In fact, a large part of them—though it is not now easy to discover the exact proportion—warmly resisted the proposal of the British government to retire, and independence had to be forced on them against their will. In Cape Colony, too, and among the missionaries, there was a strong repugnance to the policy of withdrawal. The authorities of the[Pg 132] Colony and the Colonial Office at home were, however, inexorable. They saw no use in keeping territories which were costly because they had to be defended against native raids, and from which little benefit was then expected. Hardly any notice had been taken in Britain of the Sand River convention, which the Conservative ministry of that day had approved, and when, at the instance of delegates sent home by those who, in the Orange River territory, desired to remain subject to the British crown, a motion was made in the House of Commons asking the Queen to reconsider the renunciation of her sovereignty over that territory, the motion found no support and had to be withdrawn. Parliament, indeed, went so far as to vote forty-eight thousand pounds by way of compensation, in order to get rid of this large territory and a great number of attached subjects. So little did Englishmen then care for that South African dominion which they have subsequently become so eager to develop and extend.

By the convention signed at Bloemfontein on February 23, 1854, the British government "guaranteed the future independence of the country and its government," and its inhabitants were "declared, to all intents and purposes, a free and independent people." No slavery or trade in slaves was to be permitted north of the Orange River. The Orange River government was to be free to purchase ammunition in the British colonies, and liberal privileges in connection with import duties were to be granted to it.

These two conventions of 1852 and 1854 are epochs of supreme importance in South African history, for they mark the first establishment of non-British independent states, whose relations with the British colonies were thereafter to constitute the central thread in the annals of the country. As that of 1852 recognised the Transvaal State, so from that of 1854, which is a more explicit and complete declaration of independence than had been accorded to the Transvaal people two years be[Pg 133]fore, dates the beginning of the second Boer republic, the Orange Free State, which, subsequently increased by the conquest from the Basutos of a strip of fertile territory in the south, has ever since remained perfectly independent and at peace with the British colonies. Its only serious troubles have arisen from native wars, and these have long ago come to an end. In 1854 an assembly of delegates enacted for it the republican constitution under which it has ever since been quietly and peaceably governed. It had the good fortune to elect, as its president, in 1865, a lawyer from Cape Colony, of Dutch extraction, Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Brand, who guided its course with great tact and wisdom for twenty-four years, and whose favourite expression, "All shall come right," now inscribed on his tombstone at Bloemfontein, has become throughout South Africa a proverbial phrase of encouragement in moments of difficulty.[22]

Beyond the Vaal river things have gone very differently. The farmers of that region were more scattered, more rude and uneducated, and more prone to factious dissensions than those of the Free State proved to be after 1854; and while the latter were compressed within definite boundaries on three sides, the Transvaal Boers were scattered over a practically limitless area. During the next twenty-five years the Transvaal people had very little to do with the British government. But they were distracted by internal feuds, and involved in almost incessant strife with the natives. These two sources of trouble brought their government, in 1877, to a condition of virtual collapse. But that collapse and the annexation which followed it belong to a later phase of South African history, and we must now turn from them to trace the progress of events in other parts of the country between 1852 and 1877.

[Pg 134]

CHAPTER XII

THE EUROPEANS IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1854-95

Between the years 1852 and 1856 the history of Anglo-Dutch South Africa breaks up into four distinct streams. The Transvaal and South African Republic pursues its own course from 1852 onward, the Orange Free State from 1854, and Natal from 1856, in which year that district was separated from the Cape and constituted as a distinct colony. Between 1876 and 1880 the South African Republic and Natal are again brought into close relations with the march of events in Cape Colony. But before we trace the three last mentioned streams in their several courses it is well to return to the Cape, by far the largest and most populous of the four communities, and sketch in outline the chief events that mark the development of that Colony down to the memorable epoch of 1877-81.

These events group themselves into three divisions—the material progress of Cape Colony, the changes in the form of its government, and those wars with the Kafir tribes which, while they retarded its growth in population, steadily increased its area.

The departure of some eight or ten thousand Boers, the most discontented part of the population, in the years following 1835, not only removed an element which, excellent in other respects, was politically at once unrestful and old-fashioned, but left plenty of vacant[Pg 135] space to be occupied by new immigrants from Europe. New immigrants, however, came slowly, because at that time the tide of British emigration was setting mainly to America, while German emigration had hardly begun. The Kafir wars had, moreover, given South Africa a bad name, and the settlers of 1820 (see above, p. 111) had suffered several years of hardship before prosperity came to them. However, between 1845 and 1850 four or five thousand British immigrants were brought in, with the aid of the government, and a little later a number of Germans who had served England in the German Legion during the Crimean War. Again, in 1858, more than two thousand German peasants were settled on the south coast in lands which had been previously held by Kafirs. These people made good colonists, and have now become merged in the British population, which began to predominate in the eastern province as the Dutch still does in the western. As the country filled there was a steady, though slow, progress in farming and in export trade. The merino sheep had been introduced in 1812 and 1820, and its wool had now become a source of wealth; so, too, had ostrich farming, which began about 1865 and developed rapidly after the introduction of artificial incubation in 1869. The finances, which had been in disorder, were set right, roads began to be made, churches and schools were established, and though the Kafir raids caused much loss of life and of cattle on the eastern border, the cost of these native wars, being chiefly borne by the home government, did not burden the colonial revenue. In 1859 the first railway was constructed, and by 1883 more than one thousand miles of railway were open for traffic. There were, however, no industries except stock-keeping and tillage until 1869-70, when the discovery of diamonds (of which more anon) brought a sudden rush of immigrants from Europe, stimulated trade so powerfully that the revenue of the Colony doubled within five years, and began that surprising[Pg 136] development of mineral resources which has been the most striking feature of recent years.

With the growth of population, which had risen under British rule from about 26,000 Europeans in 1805 to 182,000 in 1865 and 237,000 in 1875, there came also changes in the form of government. At first the Governor was an autocrat, except so far as he was controlled by the fear that the colonists might appeal to the Colonial Office in London against him: and the administration was therefore wise or foolish, liberal or severe, according to the qualities of the individual Governor. Some serious mistakes were committed, and one Governor, Lord Charles Somerset, has left the reputation of arbitrary rule; but the officials sent out seem, on the whole, to have pursued a more judicious policy and shown more respect to local opinion than the representatives of the Dutch East India Company had (with one or two brilliant exceptions) done in the previous century. The blunders which preceded the Great Trek of 1836 were attributable rather to the home government than to its agents on the spot, and in the years that followed colonial feeling complained more often of Downing-street than it did of Government House at Cape Town. The irritation which from time to time broke out sprang chiefly from questions connected with the natives. Like all Europeans dwelling among inferior races, the mass of the colonists, English as well as Dutch, looked upon the native population as existing for their benefit, and resented the efforts which the home government made to secure for the blacks equal civil rights and adequate protection. Their wrath was specially kindled by the vehemence with which a few among the missionaries denounced any wrongs deemed to have been suffered by the natives within the Colony, and argued the case of the Kafir tribes who were from time to time in revolt. I do not attempt to apportion the blame in these disputes; but any one who has watched the relations of superior and[Pg 137] inferior races in America or India or the Pacific islands will think it probable that many harsh and unjust things were done by the colonists, as every one who knows how zeal tends to mislead the judgment of well-intentioned men will think it no less probable that there was some exaggeration on the part of the philanthropic friends of the blacks, and that some groundless charges were brought against the colonists. The missionaries, especially those of the London Society, had a certain influence with the Colonial Office, and were supposed to have much more than they had. Thus from 1820 to about 1860 there was a perpetual struggle between the colonists and the missionaries, in which struggle the Governor tended to side with the colonists, whose public opinion he felt round him, while the Colonial Office leaned to the philanthropists, who could bring political pressure to bear through the House of Commons. Unfortunate as these bickerings were, they had at least the result of tending to unite the Dutch and English elements in the population, for on native questions there was little difference of attitude between those elements.

In 1834 a Legislative Council was created, consisting, however, of officials and of members nominated by the Governor, and not, as the colonists had petitioned, chosen by election. Twenty years later, when the population had greatly increased and the demand for representative institutions could no longer be resisted, a regular two-chambered legislature was set up, consisting of a Legislative Council and a House of Assembly, both elected on a wide franchise, with no distinction of race or colour, though of course the coloured voters were comparatively few, because the tribal Kafirs living under their chiefs were excluded, while of other blacks there was only a small proportion who held property even to the limited extent required for the suffrage. This legislature met for the first time in 1854. Four years previously an event had occurred[Pg 138] which showed how desirable it was that constitutional means should be provided for the expression of the people's wishes. The home government had sent out a vessel carrying a number of convicts to be landed and kept in the Colony, where no convicts had been seen since the days of the Dutch Company. A strong and unanimous feeling arose at once against this scheme, which was regarded as likely to prove even more harmful in South Africa than it had proved in Australia, because there was at the Cape a large native population, among whom the escaped or released convict, possessing the knowledge and capacity of a white man, but unrestrained by any responsibility or sense of a character to lose, would be able to work untold mischief. The inhabitants of Cape Town and its neighbourhood held meetings of protest, sent remonstrances to England, and mutually pledged themselves to supply no food to the convict ship. This pledge they carried out, and during the five months that the convict ship lay in Simon's Bay, it was from the naval squadron there that she had to receive provisions. The Colonial Office at last yielded; and the people, while rejoiced at the success they had achieved, and at the heartiness with which Dutch and English had co-operated for a common object, were more than ever disposed to desire some control over their own affairs.

Although after 1854 the sole power of legislation was vested in the colonial Parliament, subject to the right of the British crown to disallow an act,—a right which is of course very rarely used,—the executive power still remained with the Governor and his council, who were appointed by the home government, and not responsible to the Cape legislature. It has, however, become a settled principle of British colonial policy to grant to each and every colony not only legislative power, but responsible executive government so soon as the white population of the Colony has become relatively large enough and settled enough to enable that[Pg 139] kind of constitution to be properly worked. In 1872 the whites of Cape Colony had come to exceed 200,000, and the need for a change had been emphasized shortly before by a conflict of opinion between the Governor and the legislature as to the best means of setting right the finances of the Colony. Parliament having been dissolved, the new houses declared for responsible government, and the home government wisely assented to their wish. Accordingly, the "cabinet system" of Britain was established, the Governor's executive council being turned into a ministry responsible to the legislature, and the Governor himself becoming a sort of local constitutional sovereign on the model of the British crown, that is to say a sovereign who reigns but does not govern, the executive acts done in his name being done by the advice and on the responsibility of the ministry, who hold office at the pleasure of the legislature. Thus from 1872 onward the Colony has enjoyed complete self-government, and has prospered under it despite the antagonism which has frequently shown itself between the eastern and western provinces, an antagonism due partly to economic causes, partly to the predominance of the English element in the former and of the Dutch in the latter region. The working of the cabinet system has been even smoother than in most of the other British colonies; but while setting this to the credit of the good sense and moderation of the people, it must also be noted that the most exciting crises which have arisen in South Africa have lain outside the scope of the colonial ministry and legislature, being matters which have touched the two Dutch republics or the relations of British territories to foreign Powers. These matters, being international, belong to the British crown, and to its local representative, the Governor, in his capacity of High Commissioner for South Africa; and in that capacity he is not required to consult the Cape ministry and legislature, but acts under the directions of the Colonial Office in London.[Pg 140]

The grant of cabinet government tended to stimulate political life among the Dutch farmers, hitherto the more backward part of the population, and in 1882 their wishes secured a reversal of the ordinance made sixty years before for the exclusive use of English in official documents and legal proceedings. Dutch was now placed on a level with English as an official language in Parliament and the law courts. But this assertion of Dutch sentiment was due to causes which will be better understood when we come to the events of 1880 and 1881.

Most of the peaceful growth which has been described would have been more rapid but for the frequent vexation of native wars. Twice under the rule of the Dutch Company and seven times under the British crown have there been sanguinary conflicts with the fierce Kafir tribes of the Kosa group, who dwell in the east of the Colony. On the north there had been only Hottentots, a weak nomad race, who soon vanished under the attacks of smallpox and the pressure of the whites. On the north-east the deserts of the Karroo lay between the colonists and the Kafirs who inhabited the plains of the Upper Orange and Vaal rivers. But on the east the country was comparatively well watered, and supported a large Kafir population full of courage and fighting spirit. Collisions between them and the whites were inevitable. The country they occupied was mostly rugged, and covered with a dense low wood, or rather scrub, traversed by narrow and winding tracks, which were of course familiar to them, and difficult for white troops. They had always the advantage in point of numbers, and though they were usually beaten and compelled to sue for peace, the obvious anxiety of the colonial government to conclude a peace emboldened them to fresh outbreaks. To civilized men, who know the enormous superiority of discipline and of firearms, it seems strange that these natives, who in the earlier wars had no firearms, should[Pg 141] have so often renewed what we can see was a hopeless struggle. But it must be remembered that the natives, who saw only small white forces brought against them, and knew that the whole number of whites in the Colony was small, have never realized, and do not realize even to-day, the enormous reserve of the white population in Europe. Their minds cannot take in large numbers, cannot look far forward, cannot grasp large issues, and are swayed by sudden gusts of feeling which overcome all calculation of results. Accordingly, the Kafirs returned over and over again to the contest, while the colonial government, not wishing to extend its frontiers, and hating the expense of this unprofitable strife, never grappled with the problem in a large way, but tried on each occasion to do just enough to restore order for the time being. It would probably have been better to have spent once for all a large sum in a thorough conquest of the Kosas, planting strong forts here and there through their country, and organizing a regular gendarmerie. But until the annexation of Natal in 1843 placed British power on the other side of these turbulent tribes, the process of conquest might well seem interminable, for it was plain that as soon as one clan had been brought to submission troubles would break out with the next that lay beyond it, and fresh wars have to be undertaken to reduce each of these in its turn. Some allowance must therefore be made for the tendency of the government to take short views and do no more than was needed for the moment, especially as nearly every new war brought upon the Governor for the time being the displeasure of the Colonial Office, and brought upon the Colonial Office the censure of economists and philanthropists at home.

The theatre of these wars was the country along the south coast between Algoa Bay and the Kei River, and an important step forward was made when, after the wars of 1846-47 and 1851-53, the province of British[Pg 142] Kaffraria, extending to the Kei River, was created, placed under imperial officials, and garrisoned by British regiments. Four years afterwards, in 1857, the Kafirs of this province, at the bidding of their chiefs, prompted by a wizard who professed to have received messages from the world of spirits, destroyed their cattle and their stores of grain, in the belief that the dead ancestors of the tribe would reappear and join them in driving out the white men, while herds of cattle would issue from the ground and crops would suddenly spring up and cover the soil. Many of the clans were already on the verge of famine when the promised day arrived, and when it had passed starvation began, and within a few months, despite the efforts of the colonial authorities to supply food, some 30,000 Kafirs perished of hunger or disease. This frightful catastrophe, which carried many thousands westward into Cape Colony in search of work, and left large tracts vacant, led to the establishment in those tracts of white settlers, and ultimately, in 1865, to the union of British Kaffraria with the Colony. It also so much weakened the Kosas that for the unprecedentedly long period of twenty years there was no Kafir war. In 1877 and 1880 some risings occurred which were suppressed with no great difficulty; and in 1894 the boundaries of the Colony, which had been advancing by a series of small annexations, were finally rounded off on the eastern side by the addition of the territory of the Pondos, which made it conterminous in that direction with the Colony of Natal.

To complete the chronicle of native wars, we ought now to turn to Natal, on whose borders there arose, in 1879, a conflict with the greatest native power—that of the Zulus—which the British had yet encountered. Before that year, however, a momentous change in British colonial policy had occurred, and I must go a little way back to describe the events which gave rise to it.

The reader will recollect that in 1852 and 1854[Pg 143] Britain had abjured all purpose of extending the boundaries of her dominion towards the interior by recognizing the independence of the two Dutch republics, which date their legal rise from the two conventions concluded in those years. She had done so quite honestly, desiring to avoid the expense and responsibility which further advances must entail, and with the wish of leaving the two new republics to work out their own salvation in their own way. For some years nothing occurred to create fresh difficulties. But in 1858 a war broke out between the Orange Free State and the Basuto chief Moshesh, who claimed land which the Free State farmers had occupied. The Free State commandos attacked him, and had penetrated Basutoland as far as the stronghold of Thaba Bosiyo, when they were obliged to return to protect their own farms from the roving bands of horsemen which Moshesh had skilfully detached to operate in their rear. Being hard pressed they appealed to the Governor of Cape Colony to mediate between them and Moshesh. Moshesh agreed, and a new frontier was settled by the Governor. However, in 1865 fresh troubles broke out, and there was again war between Moshesh and the Free State. The Governor of Cape Colony was again invoked, but his decision was not respected by the Basutos, whom Moshesh could not always control,—for they are much less submissive to their chiefs than are the Zulus,—and hostilities having recommenced after a brief interval of peace, the Free State made a supreme effort, and in 1868 was on the point of destroying the Basuto power, though it had never been able to capture Thaba Bosiyo, when Moshesh appealed to the High Commissioner to extend British protection to his people. Unwilling to see Basutoland annexed by the Free State, and fearing injury to the Colony from the dispersion of Basuto fugitives through it, the High Commissioner consented, and declared the Basutos British subjects. The Free State was suffered to[Pg 144] retain a large tract of fertile land along the north bank of the Caledon River, which it had conquered; but it was mortified by seeing British authority established to the south of it, all the way from Natal to the borders of Cape Colony, and by the final extinction of the hopes which it had cherished of extending its territories to the sea and acquiring a harbour at the mouth of the St. John's River.

These events, which befell in 1869, mark the recommencement of British advance toward the interior. Still more momentous was another occurrence which belongs to the same year. In 1869 and 1870 a sudden rush began from all parts of South Africa to a small district between the Modder and the Vaal rivers (where the town of Kimberley now stands), in which diamonds had been discovered. Within a few months thousands of diggers from Europe and America, as well as from the surrounding countries, were at work here, and the region, hitherto neglected, became a prize of inestimable value. A question at once arose as to its ownership. The Orange Free State claimed it, but it was also claimed by a Griqua (half-breed) captain, named Nicholas Waterboer, son of old Andries Waterboer, and by a native Batlapin chief, while parts were claimed by the Transvaal Republic. The claims of the last-named state were disposed of by the decision of the Governor of Natal, who had been recognized as arbitrator by the Griquas, the Batlapin, and the President of the Republic. He awarded the tract in dispute to Waterboer, including in his award the part claimed by the Free State, which had refused arbitration so far as regarded the district lying south of the Vaal, holding that district to have been indubitably part of the old Orange River sovereignty, which was in 1854 turned into the Orange Free State. As Waterboer had before the award offered his territory to the British government, the country was forthwith erected into a Crown Colony under the name of Griqualand West. This was[Pg 145] in 1871. The Free State, whose case had not been stated, much less argued, before the umpire, protested, and was after a time able to appeal to a judgment delivered by a British court, which found that Waterboer had never enjoyed any right to the territory. However, the new Colony had by this time been set up and the British flag displayed. The British government, without either admitting or denying the Free State title, declared that a district in which it was difficult to keep order amid a turbulent and shifting population ought to be under the control of a strong power, and offered the Free State a sum of ninety thousand pounds in settlement of whatever claim it might possess. The acceptance by the Free State in 1876 of this sum closed the controversy, though a sense of injustice continued to rankle in the breasts of some of the citizens of the Republic. Amicable relations have subsisted ever since between it and Cape Colony, and the control of the British government over the Basutos has secured for it peace in the quarter which was formerly most disturbed.

These two cases show how various are the causes and how mixed the motives which press a great power forward even against the wishes of its statesmen. The Basutos were declared British subjects partly out of a sympathetic wish to rescue and protect them, partly because policy required the acquisition of a country naturally strong and holding an important strategical position. Griqualand West, taken in the belief that Waterboer had a good title to it, was retained after this belief had been dispelled, partly perhaps because a population had crowded into it which consisted mainly of British subjects, and was not easily controllable by a small state, but mainly because colonial feeling refused to part with a region of such exceptional mineral wealth. And the retention of Griqualand West caused, before long, the acquisition of Bechuanaland, which in its turn naturally led to that northward[Pg 146] extension of British influence which has carried the Union Jack to the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The wish to restrict responsibility, which had been so strong twenty years before, had now died out of the British public at home, and had grown feebler even in the minds of the statesmen whose business it was to find the money needed for these increasing charges on the imperial treasury; while the philanthropic interest in the native races, stimulated by the discoveries of Livingstone, now took the form not of proposing to leave them to themselves, but of desiring to protect them against the adventurers, whether of Boer or of English blood, whom it was found impossible to prevent from pressing forward into the wilderness.

It is remarkable that the change, as yet only an incipient change, in the public opinion of the English people, who now began to feel the desire not merely to retain but to expand their colonial dominion, should have become apparent just at the time when there occurred that discovery of diamonds which showed that this hitherto least progressive of the larger Colonies possessed unsuspected stores of wealth. The discovery brought a new stream of enterprising and ambitious men into the country, and fixed the attention of the world upon it. It was a turning point in South African history.

That change in the views of the British Government on which I have been commenting found at this moment a fresh expression in another quarter. In 1869 the Portuguese Government concluded a commercial treaty with the South African Republic, under which it seemed probable that a considerable trade might spring up between the Portuguese coast of the Indian Ocean and the interior. This called attention to the port of Lourenço Marques, on the shore of Delagoa Bay, the best haven upon that coast. Great Britain claimed it under a cession which had been obtained from a native chief of the country by a British[Pg 147] naval exploring expedition in 1822. Portugal, however, resisted the claim. In 1872 it was referred to the arbitration of Marshal MacMahon, then President of the French Republic, and in 1875 he awarded the territory in dispute to Portugal. Both cases were weak, and it is not easy to say which was the weaker, for, although the Portuguese had undoubtedly been first on the ground, their occupation, often disturbed by the native tribes, had been extremely precarious. The decision was a serious blow to British hopes, and has become increasingly serious with the further development of the country. Yet it was mitigated by a provision contained in the agreement for arbitration that the Power against whom the decision might go should have thereafter from the successful Power a right of preëmption as against any other state desiring to purchase the territory.[23] This provision is momentous as giving Britain the right to prevent not only the South African Republic, but any European power, from acquiring a point of the utmost importance both commercial and strategical. Rumours have often been circulated that Britain would gladly acquire by purchase the harbour of Delagoa Bay, but the sensitive patriotism of the Portuguese people is at present so strongly opposed to any sale of territory that no Portuguese ministry is likely to propose it.[24]

At the very time when the attempt to acquire Delagoa Bay revealed the new purposes which had begun to animate Great Britain, another scheme was suggested to the Colonial Office by the success which had lately attended its efforts in Canada. In 1867 the passing of the British North America Act drew the[Pg 148] theretofore isolated provinces of the Dominion into a confederation, relieving the home government of some grave responsibilities, and giving to the whole country the advantages of common administration and legislation in matters of common concern. Lord Carnarvon, then colonial secretary, threw himself into the idea of similarly uniting the different Colonies and States of South Africa. It had been advocated by Sir George Grey, when Governor in 1858, and had even received the support of the Orange Free State, whose Volksraad passed a resolution favouring it in that year. Many considerations of practical convenience suggested this scheme, chief among them the desirability of having both a uniform policy in native affairs (the absence of which had recently caused trouble) and a common commercial policy and tariff system. Accordingly, in 1875 Lord Carnarvon addressed a despatch to the Governor of Cape Colony, recommending such a scheme as fit to be adopted by that Colony, which three years before had received responsible government, and Mr. J.A. Froude was sent out to press it upon the people. The choice did not prove a fortunate one, but even a more skilful emissary would probably have failed, for the moment was inopportune. The Cape people were not ready for so large and far-reaching a proposal. The Orange Free State was exasperated at the loss of Griqualand West. The Transvaal people, though, as we shall see presently, their republic was in sore straits, were averse to anything that could affect their independence. However, Sir Bartle Frere, the next Governor of the Cape, who went out in 1877, entered heartily into Lord Carnarvon's plan, which continued to be pressed till 1880, when it was rejected by the Cape Parliament, largely at the instance of envoys from the Transvaal Boers, who urged the Cape Dutch not to accept it until the Transvaal (which, as shall be presently set forth, had been annexed in 1877) should have regained its[Pg 149] independence. This failure of the proposals of the home government seriously damaged the prospects of future federation schemes, and is only one of several instances in South African history that show how much harm impatience may do, even when the object is itself laudable.

The next step in the forward march of British rule took place far to the south-west, on the borders of Natal. That territory had, in 1856, become a separate Colony, distinct from the Cape, and with a legislative council three-fourths of whose members were elective. It had still a relatively small white population, for many of the Boer immigrants had quitted it between 1843 and 1848, and though a body of English settlers arrived soon after the latter year, there were in 1878 only some 25,000 white residents, while the natives numbered fully 300,000. The Zulu kingdom, which adjoined it on the east, had passed (in 1872) from the sluggish Panda to his more energetic son Cetewayo (pronounced "Ketshwayo"), whose ambitious spirit had revived the military organization and traditions of his uncle Tshaka. Cetewayo had been installed as king by a British official, and had lived ever since at peace with the Colony; but the powerful army which he possessed roused disquiet among the Natalians, and alarmed the then Governor of the Cape and High Commissioner for South Africa, Sir Bartle Frere. Differences had arisen between him and Cetewayo, and when the latter refused to submit to the demands which the High Commissioner addressed to him, including a requirement that he should disband his regiments and receive a British resident, war was declared against him. This act was justified at the time on the ground that the Zulu military power constituted a standing menace to Natal and to South Africa in general, and that the vast majority of the natives living in Natal itself might join the Zulu king were he to invade the colony. Whether this risk was[Pg 150] sufficiently imminent to warrant such a step was then, and has been since, warmly debated in England. Most of those who have given impartial study to the subject, and have studied also the character and earlier career of the High Commissioner, are disposed to think that war might have been and ought to have been avoided, and that Sir Bartle Frere, in declaring it, committed a grave error; but it is right to add that there are persons in South Africa who still defend his action. The invasion of Zululand which followed began with a disaster—the surprise at Isandhlwana (January, 1879) of a British force, which was almost annihilated by a vastly superior native army. Ultimately, however, Cetewayo was defeated and made prisoner. Zululand was divided among thirteen petty chiefs under a British resident, and subsequently, in 1887, annexed to the British crown as a dependency, to be administered by the Governor of Natal. Except for some disturbances in 1888, its people have since remained peaceful, prosperous, and to all appearance contented. It has now (1897) been decided to annex Zululand to Natal.

We may now return to follow the fortunes of the emigrant Boers of the far north-eastern interior whose republic, recognized by the Imperial Government in 1852, was at length, after twenty-five years, to be brought into a closer connection than ever with the British Colonies by events which are still fresh in men's memories, and which are exerting a potent influence on the politics of our own time. The scale of these events was small, but the circumstances are full of instruction, and many years may yet elapse before their consequences have been fully worked out.

The Dutch farmers who had settled beyond the Vaal River were more rude and uneducated than those of the Free State, had no admixture of English blood, and remained unaffected by intercourse with the more civilized people of Cape Colony. Their love of independence was accompanied by a tendency to discord.[Pg 151] Their warlike spirit had produced a readiness to take up arms on slight occasions, and had degenerated into a fondness for predatory expeditions. They were, moreover, always desirous of enlarging the area of their stock farms by the annexation of fresh territory to the north and west, and thus were constantly brought into collision with the native occupants of the country. Scattered thinly over a wide area of pasture land, they were practically exempt from the control of law courts or magistrates, while at the same time the smallness of their numbers, and the family ties which linked them into jealous and mutually distrustful groups, gave rise to personal rivalries among the leaders and bitter feuds among the adherents of each faction, resembling those which used to distract a city republic in ancient Greece or medieval Italy. The absence of any effective government had attracted many adventurers from various parts of South Africa, who wandered as traders or hunters through the wilder parts of the country and along its borders, men often violent and reckless, who ill-treated the natives, and constituted not only a public scandal, but, by the provocations which they gave to the Kafir chiefs, a danger to the peace of the adjoining British territories, as well as to that of the Transvaal itself.

From their first settlement beyond the Vaal in the years immediately following the Great Trek of 1836, the farmers, though considering themselves to form one people, had been grouped in several small communities. In 1852 there were four such, those of Potchefstroom, Utrecht, Lydenburg, and Zoutpansberg, each having its Volksraad (people's council) and president or executive head, while a sort of loosely federative tie linked them together for the purposes, not of internal administration, but of defence against common foes.

In 1857 the Potchefstroom people tried to conquer the Orange Free State, then in the third year of its life, but desisted on finding that the infant Republic[Pg 152] was prepared to defend itself. A single Volksraad for all the communities beyond the Vaal had been chosen as far back as 1849; but respect for authority grew very slowly, and for a time it could not be said to represent more than a party. In 1852, however, it ratified the Sand River Convention, and in 1855 it appointed a commission to draft a complete body of law. Finally, in 1858, an instrument called the "Grondwet," or Fundamental Law, was drawn up by a body of delegates named (by a "Krygsraad," or War Council) for that purpose. This instrument was revised and adopted by the Volksraad, and presently received the adhesion of two of the semi-independent communities, those of Potchestroom and Zoutpansberg, and in 1860 also of those at Lydenburg and Utrecht, which had by that time united. It has been since several times modified, and the question whether it is to be deemed a truly rigid constitution, like that of the United States or that of the Swiss Confederation, has given rise to much controversy.[25] A civil war broke out in 1862, and the country can hardly be said to have reached one united government till 1864, when the then president, Mr. M. W. Pretorius (son of the old antagonist of the English), was recognized by all the communities and factions as their executive head.

Even in 1864 the white population of the South African Republic was very small, probably not more than 30,000 all told, giving an average of less than one person to three square miles. There were, however, hundreds of thousands of natives, a few of whom were living as servants, under a system of enforced labour which was sometimes hardly distinguishable[Pg 153] from slavery, while the vast majority were ruled by their own chiefs, some as tributaries of the Republic, some practically independent of it. With the latter wars were frequently raging—wars in which shocking cruelties were perpetrated on both sides, the Kafirs massacring the white families whom they surprised, the Boer commandos taking a savage vengeance upon the tribes when they captured a kraal or mountain stronghold. It was the sight of these wars which drove Dr. Livingstone to begin his famous explorations to the north. The farmers were too few to reduce the natives to submission, though always able to defeat them in the field, and while they relished an expedition, they had an invincible dislike to any protracted operations which cost money. Taxes they would not pay. They lived in a sort of rude plenty among their sheep and cattle, but they had hardly any coined money, conducting their transactions by barter, and they were too rude to value the benefits which government secures to a civilized people. Accordingly the treasury remained almost empty, the paper money which was issued fell till in 1870 it was worth only one-fourth of its face value, no public improvements were made, no proper administration existed, and every man did what was right in his own eyes. In 1872 Mr. M. W. Pretorius was obliged to resign the presidency, owing to the unpopularity he had incurred by accepting the arbitration mentioned above (p. 144), which declared the piece of territory where diamonds had been found not to belong to the Republic, and which the Volksraad thereupon repudiated. His successor was Mr. Burgers, a Cape Dutchman who had formerly been a clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church and afterwards an advocate at the Cape, a man of energy, integrity, and eloquence, but deficient in practical judgment, and who soon became distrusted on account of his theological opinions. It used to be jestingly said that the Boers disliked him because he[Pg 154] denied that the devil possessed that tail which is shown in the pictures that adorn the old Dutch Bibles; but his deviations from orthodoxy went much further than this, and were deemed by the people to be the cause of the misfortunes they experienced under his guidance. He formed large plans for the development of the country and the extension of Boer power over South Africa, plans which his citizens were unable to appreciate and the resources at his disposal were quite unfit to accomplish. Disorganization, aggravated by intestine faction, grew worse and worse. The State was practically bankrupt; trade had ceased, money could not be raised. In 1876, in a war which had broken out with Sikukuni, a Kafir chief who lived in the mountains of the north-east, the Boers were repulsed, and ultimately returned in confusion to their homes. On the south, Cetewayo, then in the zenith of his power, was unfriendly, and seemed likely to pour in his Zulu hordes. The weakness and disorders of the Republic had become a danger not only to the British subjects who had begun to settle in it, especially at the Lydenburg gold mines, but also to the neighbouring British territories, and especially to Natal; so a British commissioner was sent to examine into the condition of the country, with secret instructions empowering him to proclaim, if he should deem it necessary, and if he was satisfied that the majority of the inhabitants would approve, its annexation to the British crown. After three months' inquiry the commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, exercised this power upon April 12, 1877, and his act was approved by the High Commissioner at the Cape and by the Colonial Secretary in England. President Burgers had endeavoured to rouse his people by pointing out that only through reforms could they preserve their independence. They agreed to the reforms, but would not help him to carry them out, and obstinately refused to pay taxes. He was helpless, for while the[Pg 155] more rigidly Calvinistic section of the population supported Paul Kruger, his opponent in the approaching presidential election, others (especially the English who had settled in the spots where a little gold had been found) favoured annexation to Great Britain, and most of the Boers had been repelled by his unorthodox opinions. Accordingly, after entering a protest against the annexation, he returned to Cape Colony, and received a pension, his private means having been entirely spent in the service of his country.[26] The Vice-President (Mr. Kruger) and the executive council of the Republic also protested, and sent delegates to London to remonstrate. By the mass of the Boer people—for the few English, of course, approved—little displeasure was shown and no resistance made. Had a popular vote been taken it would doubtless have been adverse to annexation, for a memorial circulated shortly afterwards, praying for a reversal of Sir T. Shepstone's act, received the signatures of a large majority of the Boer citizens.[27] But while they regretted their independence, they had been so much depressed by their disasters, and were so much relieved to know that the strong arm of Britain would now repel any Kafir invasion, as to take the change more quietly than any one who remembered their earlier history would have expected.

On the English public, which knew little and cared less about South African affairs, the news that their empire had been extended by a territory nearly as large as the United Kingdom, though it came as a complete surprise, produced little impression. They were then[Pg 156] excited over the outbreak of the war between Russia and the Turks, and absorbed in the keen party struggles which Lord Beaconsfield's apparent desire to help the Turks had caused in England, so that scant attention was given to a distant colonial question. A motion condemning the annexation which was brought forward in the House of Commons received no support. Nearly all of those few persons who cared about South Africa had been alienated from the Boers by their treatment of the natives. Scarcely any one foresaw the long series of troubles, not yet ended, to which the annexation was destined to give rise. Neither did it arouse any serious opposition in Cape Colony, though the Dutch element there regarded with misgivings the withdrawal of independence from their emigrant kinsfolk.

To those who now look back at the act, in the light of the events which followed, it seems a high-handed proceeding to extinguish a Republic which had been formally recognized twenty-five years before, and to do this without giving the people an opportunity of declaring their wishes. Yet the act was not done in a spirit of rapacity. Neither the British government nor the British people had the least idea of the wealth that lay hidden beneath the barren and desolate ridges of the Witwatersrand. No one in England talked (though the notion had crossed a few ambitious minds) of pushing British dominion up to the Zambesi. The Transvaal Republic was bankrupt and helpless, distracted by internal quarrels, unable to collect any taxes, apparently unable to defend itself against its Kafir enemies, and likely to be the cause of native troubles which might probably spread till they affected all Europeans in South Africa. There was some reason to believe that the citizens, though they had not been consulted, would soon acquiesce in the change, especially when they found, as they soon did find, that the value of property rose with the prospect of security and of the carrying out of internal improvements by a strong and wealthy power.[Pg 157] Such was certainly the belief of Sir T. Shepstone and of Lord Carnarvon, and it seemed to be confirmed by the apparent tranquillity which the Boers exhibited.

So, indeed, they might have acquiesced notwithstanding their strenuous love of independence, had they been wisely dealt with. But the British government proceeded forthwith to commit three capital blunders.

The first of these, and the least excusable, was the failure to grant that local autonomy which Sir T. Shepstone had announced when he proclaimed annexation. The Volksraad which the people were promised was never convoked; the constitution under which they were to enjoy self-government was never promulgated. There was no intention to break these promises, but merely a delay, culpable, indeed, but due to ignorance of the popular Boer sentiment, and to the desire of the Colonial Office to carry out its pet scheme of South African confederation before conceding to the Transvaal such a representative assembly as would have had the power to reject, on behalf of the people, the scheme when tendered to them. Nor were matters mended when at last a legislature was granted, to consist of some officials, and of six members nominated by the Governor, for this made the people fear that a genuine freely elected Volksraad would never be conceded at all.

The second blunder was the selection of the person who was to administer the country. Sir T. Shepstone, who knew it well and was liked by the Boers, was replaced by a military officer who had shown vigour in dealing with local disturbances in Griqualand West, but was totally unfit for delicate political work. As representative government had not yet been introduced, his administration was necessarily autocratic in form, and became autocratic in spirit also. He was described to me by some who knew him as stiff in mind and arrogant in temper, incapable of making allowances for the homely manners of the Boers and of adapting himself to the social equality which[Pg 158] prevailed among them. A trifling cause aggravated their dislike. His complexion was swarthy, and they suspected that this might be due to some tinge of negro blood. He refused to listen to their complaints, levied taxes strictly, causing even the beloved ox-waggon to be seized when money was not forthcoming, and soon turned their smouldering discontent into active disaffection.

Finally, the British government removed the two native dangers which the Boers had feared. In 1879 Sir Bartle Frere's war with Cetewayo destroyed the Zulu power, the dread of which might have induced the Boers to resign themselves to British supremacy, and an expedition under Sir Garnet Wolseley reduced Sikukuni's strongholds and established peace in the north-east. It was probably necessary to deal with Sikukuni, though the British government seems to have forgotten its former doubts as to the right of the Boers to the territory of that chief; but in extinguishing the Zulu kingdom the High Commissioner overlooked the fact that he was also extinguishing the strongest motive which the republicans had for remaining British subjects. The British government were doubly unfortunate. It was the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 that had alarmed Cetewayo and helped to precipitate the war of 1879. It was now the overthrow of Cetewayo, their formidable enemy, that helped to precipitate a revolt of the Boers.

At this time, however, everybody in British South Africa, and nearly everybody in England, supposed the annexation to be irrevocable. Leading members of the parliamentary Opposition had condemned it. But when that Opposition, victorious in the general election of 1880, took office in April of that year, the officials in South Africa, whose guidance they sought, made light of Boer discontent, and declared that it would be impossible now to undo what had been done in 1877. Thus misled, the new Cabinet refused to reverse the[Pg 159] annexation, saying by the mouth of the Under Secretary for the Colonies, "Fieri non debuit, factum valet." This decision of the British government, which came as a surprise upon the recalcitrant republicans in the Transvaal, precipitated an outbreak. In December, 1880, a mass-meeting of the Boers was held at a place called Paardekraal (now Krugersdorp). It was resolved to rise in arms; and a triumvirate was elected, consisting of Messrs. M.W. Pretorius, Kruger and Joubert, which proclaimed the re-establishment of the South African Republic, and hoisted the national flag on Dingaan's day, December 16.[28] The Boers, nearly every man of whom was accustomed to fighting, now rose en masse and attacked the small detachments of British troops scattered through the country, some of which were cut off, while the rest were obliged to retire to posts which they fortified. The Governor of Natal, General Sir George Colley, raised what troops he could in that Colony, and marched northward; but before he could reach the Transvaal border a strong force of Boers, commanded by Commandant-General Joubert, crossed it and took up a position at Laing's Nek, a steep ridge close to the watershed between the upper waters of the Klip River, a tributary of the Vaal, and those of the Buffalo River, which joins the Tugela and flows into the Indian Ocean. Here the British general, on January 28, 1881, attacked the Boers, but was repulsed with heavy loss, for the ridge behind which they were posted protected them from his artillery, while their accurate rifle fire cut down his column as it mounted the slope. A second engagement, eleven days later, on the Ingogo heights, caused severe loss to the British troops. Finally, on the night of February 26, General Colley, with a small detachment, seized by night Majuba Hill, a mountain which rises about 1500 feet above Laing's Nek, and completely commands that pass.[29][Pg 160] Unfortunately he omitted to direct the main force, which he had left behind at his camp, four miles south of the Nek, to advance against the Boers and occupy their attention; so the latter, finding no movement made against them in front, and receiving no artillery fire from Majuba Hill above them, checked the first impulse to retire, which the sight of British troops on the hilltop had produced, and sent out a volunteer party to scale the hill. Protected by the steep declivities from the fire of the soldiers above them, they made their way up, shooting down those whom they saw against the sky-line, and finally routed the British force, killing General Colley, with ninety-one others, and taking fifty-nine prisoners. By this time fresh troops were beginning to arrive in Natal, and before long the British general who had succeeded to the command had at his disposal a force which the Boers could not possibly have resisted. The home government, however, had ordered an armistice to be concluded (March 5), and on March 23 terms were agreed to by which the "Transvaal State" (as it was called) was again recognized as a quasi-independent political community, to enjoy complete self-government under the suzerainty of the British crown. These terms were developed in a more formal convention, signed at Pretoria in August, 1881, which recognized the Transvaal as autonomous, subject, however, to the suzerainty of the Queen, to British control in matters of foreign policy, to the obligation to allow British troops to pass through the Republic in time of war, and to guarantees for the protection of the natives.[30] The position in which the Transvaal thus found itself placed was a peculiar one, and something between that of a self-governing Colony and an absolutely independent State. The nearest legal parallel is to be found in the position of some of the great feudatories of the British crown in India, but the[Pg 161] actual circumstances were of course too unlike those of India to make the parallel instructive.

Few public acts of our time have been the subjects of more prolonged and acrimonious controversy than this reversal in 1881 of the annexation of 1877. The British government were at the time accused, both by the English element in the South African Colonies, and by their political opponents at home, of an ignominious surrender. They had, so it was urged, given way to rebellion. They had allowed three defeats to remain unavenged. They had weakly yielded to force what they had repeatedly and solemnly refused to peaceful petitions. They had disregarded the pledges given both to Englishmen and to natives in the Transvaal. They had done all this for a race of men who had been uniformly harsh and unjust to the Kafirs, who had brought their own Republic to bankruptcy and chaos by misgovernment, who were and would remain foes of the British empire, who were incapable of appreciating magnanimity, and would construe forbearance as cowardice. They had destroyed the prestige of British power in Africa among whites and blacks, and thereby sowed for themselves and their successors a crop of future difficulties.

To these arguments it was replied that the annexation had been made, and the earlier refusals to reverse it pronounced, under a complete misapprehension as to the facts. The representatives of the Colonial Office in South Africa had reported, partly through insufficient knowledge, partly because their views were influenced by their feelings, that there was no such passion for independence among the Boers as events had shown to exist.[31] Once the true facts were known, did it not[Pg 162] become not merely unjust to deprive the Transvaal people of the freedom they prized so highly, but also impolitic to retain by force those who would have been disaffected and troublesome subjects? A free nation which professes to be everywhere the friend of freedom is bound—so it was argued—to recognize the principles it maintains even when they work against itself; and if these considerations went to show that the retrocession of the Transvaal was a proper course, was it either wise or humane to prolong the war and crush the Boer resistance at the cost of much slaughter, merely in order to avenge defeats and vindicate a military superiority which the immensely greater forces of Britain made self-evident? A great country is strong enough to be magnanimous, and shows her greatness better by justice and lenity than by a sanguinary revenge. These moral arguments, which affect different minds differently, were reinforced by a strong ground of policy. The Boers of the Orange Free State had sympathised warmly with their kinsfolk in the Transvaal, and were with difficulty kept from crossing the border to join them. The President of the Free State, a sagacious man, anxious to secure peace, had made himself prominent as a mediator, but it was not certain that his citizens might not, even against his advice, join in the fighting. Among the Africander Dutch of Cape Colony and Natal the feeling for the Transvaal Boers was hardly less strong, and the accentuation of Dutch sentiment, caused by the events of 1880 and 1881, has ever since been a main factor in the politics of Cape Colony. The British government were advised from the Cape that the invasion of the Transvaal might probably light up a civil war through the two Colonies. The power of Great Britain would of course have prevailed, even against the whole Dutch-speaking population of South Africa; but it would have prevailed only after much bloodshed, and at the cost of an intense embitterment of feeling, which would have destroyed[Pg 163] the prospects of the peace and welfare of the two Colonies for many years to come. The loss of the Transvaal seemed a slight evil in comparison.

Whether such a race conflict would in fact have broken out all over South Africa is a question on which opinion is still divided, and about which men may dispute for ever. The British government, however, deemed the risk of it a real one, and by that view their action was mainly governed. After careful inquiries from those best qualified to judge, I am inclined to think that they were right. It must, however, be admitted that the event belied some of their hopes. They had expected that the Transvaal people would appreciate the generosity of the retrocession, as well as the humanity which was willing to forgo vengeance for the tarnished lustre of British arms. The Boers, however, saw neither generosity nor humanity in their conduct, but only fear. Jubilant over their victories, and (like the Kafirs in the South Coast wars) not realizing the overwhelming force which could have been brought against them, they fancied themselves entitled to add some measure of contempt to the dislike they already cherished to the English, and they have ever since shown themselves unpleasant neighbours. The English in South Africa, on their part, have continued to resent the concession of independence to the Transvaal, and especially the method in which it was conceded. Those who had recently settled in the Republic, relying on the declarations repeatedly made that it would for ever remain British, complained that no proper compensation was made to them, and that they had much to suffer from the Boers. Those who live in the two Colonies hold that the disgrace (as they term it) of Majuba Hill ought to have been wiped out by a march to Pretoria, and that the Boers should have been made to recognize that Britain is, and will remain, the paramount power in fact as well as in name. They feel aggrieved to this day that the terms of peace were settled at Laing's[Pg 164] Nek, within the territory of Natal, while it was still held by the Boers. Even in Cape Colony, where the feeling is perhaps less strong than it is in Natal, the average Englishman has neither forgotten nor forgiven the events of 1881.

I have dwelt fully upon these events because they are, next to the Great Trek of 1836, the most important in the internal history of South Africa, and those which have most materially affected the present political situation. The few years that followed may be more briefly dismissed. The Transvaal State emerged from its war of independence penniless and unorganized, but with a redoubled sense of Divine favour and a reinvigorated consciousness of national life. The old constitution was set to work; the Volksraad again met; Mr. Stephen John Paul Kruger, who had been the leading figure in the triumvirate, was chosen by the people to be President, and has subsequently been thrice re-elected to that office. Undismayed by the scantiness of his State resources, he formed bold and far-reaching plans of advance on the three sides which lay open to him. To the north a trek was projected, and some years later was nearly carried out, for the occupation of Mashonaland. To the south bands of Boer adventurers entered Zululand, the first of them as trekkers, the rest as auxiliaries to one of the native chiefs, who were at war with one another. These adventurers established a sort of republic in the northern districts, and would probably have seized the whole had not the British government at last interfered and confined them to a territory of nearly three thousand square miles, which was recognized in 1886 under the name of the New Republic, and which in 1888 merged itself in the Transvaal. To the west, other bands of Boer raiders entered Bechuanaland, seized land or obtained grants of land by the usual devices, required the chiefs to acknowledge their supremacy, and proceeded to establish two petty republics, one called Stellaland, round[Pg 165] the village of Vryburg, north of Kimberley, and the other, farther north, called Goshen. These violent proceedings, which were not only injurious to the natives, but were obviously part of a plan to add Bechuanaland to the Transvaal territories, and close against the English the path to those northern regions in which Britain was already interested, roused the British Government. In the end of 1884 an expedition led by Sir Charles Warren entered Bechuanaland. The freebooters of the two Republics retired before it, and the districts they had occupied were erected into a Crown Colony under the name of British Bechuanaland. In 1895 this territory was annexed to Cape Colony. In order to prevent the Boers from playing the same game in the country still farther north, where their aggressions had so far back as 1876 led Khama, chief of the Bamangwato, to ask for British protection, a British protectorate was proclaimed (March, 1885) over the whole country as far as the borders of Matabililand; and a few years later, in 1888, a treaty was concluded with Lo Bengula, the Matabili king, whereby he undertook not to cede territory to, or make a treaty with, any foreign power without the consent of the British High Commissioner. The west was thus secured against the further advance of the Boers, while on the eastern shore the hoisting of the British flag at St. Lucia Bay in 1884 (a spot already ceded by Panda in 1843), followed by the conclusion (in 1887) of a treaty with the Tonga chiefs, by which they undertook not to make any treaty with any other power, announced the resolution of the British crown to hold the coast line up to the Portuguese territories.

This policy of preventing the extension of Boer dominion over the natives was, however, accompanied by a willingness to oblige the Transvaal people in other ways. Though they had not observed the conditions of the Convention of 1881, the Boers had continued to importune the British government for an ampler[Pg 166] measure of independence. In 1884 they succeeded in inducing Lord Derby, then Colonial Secretary, to agree to a new Convention, which thereafter defined the relations between the British crown and the South African Republic, a title now at last formally conceded. By this instrument (called the Convention of London),[32] whose articles were substituted for the articles of the Convention of 1881, the control of foreign policy stipulated for in the Pretoria Convention of 1881 was cut down to a provision that the Republic should "conclude no treaty with any State or nation other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe to the eastward or westward of the Republic," without the approval of the Queen. The declarations of the two previous Conventions (of 1852 and 1881) against slavery were renewed, and there was a "most favoured nation" clause with provisions for the good treatment of strangers entering the Republic. Nothing was said as to the "suzerainty of her Majesty" mentioned in the Convention of 1881. The Boers have contended that this omission is equivalent to a renunciation, but to this it has been (among other things) replied that as that suzerainty was recognized not in the "articles" of the instrument of 1881, but in its introductory paragraph, it has not been renounced, and still subsists.[33]

A few years later, the amity which this Convention was meant to secure was endangered by the plan formed by a body of Boer farmers and adventurers to carry out an idea previously formed by Mr. Kruger, and trek northward into the country beyond the Limpopo River, a country where the natives were feeble and disunited, raided on one side by the Matabili and on the other by Gungunhana. This trek would have brought the emigrants into collision with the English[Pg 167] settlers who had shortly before entered Mashonaland. President Kruger, however, being pressed by the imperial government, undertook to check the movement, and so far succeeded that the waggons which crossed the Limpopo were but few and were easily turned back. Prevented from expanding to the north, the Boers were all the more eager to acquire Swaziland, a small but rich territory which lies to the east of their Republic, and is inhabited by a warlike Kafir race, numbering about 70,000, near of kin to the Zulus, but for many years hostile to them. Both the Boers and Cetewayo had formerly claimed supremacy over this region. The British government had never admitted the Boer claim, but when the head chief of the Swazis had, by a series of improvident concessions, granted away to adventurers, most of them Boers, nearly all the best land and minerals the country contained, it was found extremely difficult to continue the system of joint administration by the High Commissioner and the Transvaal government which had been provisionally established, and all the more difficult because by the concession to the New Republic (which had by this time become incorporated with the Transvaal) of the part of Zululand which adjoined Swaziland, direct communication between Natal and Swaziland had become difficult, especially in the malarious season. Accordingly, after long negotiations, an arrangement was concluded, in 1894, which placed the Swazi nation and territory under the control of the South African Republic, subject to full guarantees for the protection of the natives. A previous Convention (of 1890) had given the South African Republic certain rights of making a railway to the coast at Kosi Bay through the low and malarious region which lies between Swaziland and the sea, and the earlier negotiations had proceeded on the assumption that these rights were to be adjusted and renewed in the same instrument which was destined to settle[Pg 168] the Swaziland question. The Boer government, however, ultimately declined to include such an adjustment in the new Convention, and as this new Convention superseded and extinguished the former one of 1890, those provisions for access to the sea necessarily lapsed. The British government promptly availed itself of the freedom its rivals had thus tendered to it, and with the consent of the three chiefs (of Tonga race) who rule in the region referred to, proclaimed a protectorate over the strip of land which lies between Swaziland and the sea, as far north as the frontiers of Portuguese territory. Thus the door has been finally closed on the schemes which the Boers have so often sought to carry out for the acquisition of a railway communication with the coast entirely under their own control. It was an object unfavourable to the interests of the paramount power, for it would not only have disturbed the commercial relations of the interior with the British coast ports, but would also have favoured the wish of the Boer government to establish political ties with other European powers. The accomplishment of that design was no doubt subjected by the London Convention of 1884 to the veto of Britain. But in diplomacy facts as well as treaties have their force, and a Power which has a seaport, and can fly a flag on the ocean, is in a very different position from one cut off by intervening territories from those whose support it is supposed to seek. Thus the establishment of the protectorate over these petty Tonga chiefs may be justly deemed one of the most important events in recent South African history.

Down to 1884 Great Britain and Portugal had been the only European powers established in South Africa. For some time before that year there had been German mission stations in parts of the region which lies between the Orange River and the West African possessions of Portugal, and in 1883 a Bremen merchant named Lüderitz established a trading factory[Pg 169] at the bay of Angra Pequeña, which lies on the Atlantic coast about one hundred and fifty miles north of the mouth of that river, and obtained from a neighbouring chief a cession of a piece of territory there, which the German government a few months later recognized as a German Colony. Five years earlier, in 1878, Walfish Bay, which lies farther north, and is the best haven (or rather roadstead) on the coast, had been annexed to Cape Colony; but though it was generally understood both in the Colony and in England, that the whole of the west coast up to the Portuguese boundary was in some vague way subject to British influence, nothing had been done to claim any distinct right, much less to perfect that right by occupation. The Colony had always declined or omitted to vote money for the purpose, and the home government had not cared to spend any. When the colonists knew that Germany was really establishing herself as their neighbour on the north, they were much annoyed; but it was now too late to resist, and in 1884, after a long correspondence, not creditable to the foresight or promptitude of the late Lord Derby, who was then Colonial Secretary, the protectorate of Germany was formally recognized, while in 1890 the boundaries of the German and British "spheres of influence" farther north were defined by a formal agreement—the same agreement which settled the respective "spheres of influence" of the two powers in Eastern Africa, between the Zambesi and the upper Nile. Although the people of Cape Colony continue to express their regret at having a great European power conterminous with them on the north, there has been really little or no practical contact between the Germans and the colonists, for while the northern part of the Colony, lying along the lower course of the Orange River, is so arid as to be very thinly peopled, the southern part of the German territory, called Great Namaqualand, is a wilderness inhabited only by[Pg 170] wandering Hottentots (though parts of it are good pasture land), while, to the east, Namaqualand is separated from the habitable parts of British Bechuanaland by the great Kalahari Desert.

The new impulse for colonial expansion which had prompted the Germans to occupy Damaraland and the Cameroons on the western, and the Zanzibar coasts on the eastern, side of Africa was now telling on other European powers, and made them all join in the scramble for Africa, a continent which a few years before had been deemed worthless. Italy and France entered the field in the north-east, France in the north-west; and Britain, which had in earlier days moved with such slow and wavering steps in the far south, was roused by the competition to a swifter advance. Within nine years from the assumption of the protectorate over British Bechuanaland, which the action of the Boers had brought about in 1885, the whole unappropriated country up to the Zambesi came under British control.

In 1888 a treaty made with Lo Bengula extended the range of British influence and claim not only over Matabililand proper, but over Mashonaland and an undefined territory to the eastward, whereof Lo Bengula claimed to be suzerain. Next came, in 1889, the grant of a royal charter to a company, known as the British South Africa Company, which had been formed to develop this eastern side of Lo Bengula's dominion, and to work the gold mines believed to exist there, an undertaking chiefly due to the bold and forceful spirit of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who perceived that if Britain did not speedily establish some right to the country, the Transvaal Boers would trek in and acquire it. In 1890 the pioneer British settlers moved up through Bechuanaland into Mashonaland, and the Company, which, like the East India Company of the eighteenth century, was to be a ruling and administering power as well as a trading association, established itself along the[Pg 171] eastern part of the great plateau and began to build forts. Here it came into collision with the Portuguese, who, stimulated by the activity of other nations, had been re-asserting their dormant claims to the interior and sending up expeditions to occupy the country. A skirmish which occurred near Massikessi, in Manicaland, ended in the repulse of the Portuguese, and the capture of their commanders, who were, however, soon after released by Dr. Jameson, the newly appointed administrator of the Company; and another conflict in May, 1891, in which the Portuguese again suffered severely, hastened the conclusion of a treaty (June, 1891) between Great Britain and Portugal, by which the boundary between the Portuguese territories and those included in the British "sphere of influence" was fixed. By this treaty a vast region in the interior which lies along the Upper Zambesi west of Portuguese territory and south of the Congo Free State was recognized by Portugal as within the British sphere. An agreement of the preceding year between Germany and Great Britain (July 1, 1890) had defined the limits of German and British influence on the east side of the continent; and as Germany, Portugal, and the Congo State were the only civilized powers conterminous with Great Britain in this part of the world, these treaties, together with the instrument—to which Great Britain had been a party—that determined the limits of the Congo State, settled finally all these questions of the interior, and gave to Great Britain a legal title to her share of it.

That title, however, like the other titles by which the European powers held their new African possessions, was a paper title, and valid only as against other neighbouring European powers. It had nothing whatever to do with the Kafir tribes who dwelt in the country. What are called the rights of a civilized Power as against the natives rests in some cases upon treaties made with the chiefs, treaties of whose effect[Pg 172] the chiefs are often ignorant, and in others on the mere will of the European power which proclaims to the world that it claims the country; and it is held that the Power which makes the claim must, at least in the latter class of cases, perfect its claim by actual occupation. In the case of these new British territories treaties were made with a certain number of chiefs. One already existed with Lo Bengula, king of the Matabili; but it merely bound him not to league himself with any other power, and did not make him a British vassal. It was clear, however, that with so restless and warlike a race as the Matabili this state of things could not last long. Lo Bengula had been annoyed at the march of the pioneers into Mashonaland, and tried to stop them, but was foiled by the swiftness of their movements. Once they were established there he seems to have desired to keep the peace; but his young warriors would not suffer him to do so. They had been accustomed to go raiding among the feeble and disunited Mashonas, whom they slaughtered and plundered to their hearts' content. When they found that the Company resented these attacks, collisions occurred, and the reluctance to fight which Lo Bengula probably felt counted for little. What he could do he did: he protected with scrupulous care not only the missionaries, but other Europeans at his kraal, and, after the war had broken out, he sent envoys to treat, two of whom, by a deplorable error, were killed by the advancing column of Bechuanaland imperial police, for as the Company's officers were not at the moment prepared, either in money or in men, for a conflict, the imperial government sent a force northward from Bechuanaland to co-operate with that which the Company had in Mashonaland. A raid by Matabili warriors on the Mashonas living near Fort Victoria, whom they called their slaves, precipitated hostilities (July to October, 1893). The Matabili, whose vain confidence in their own prowess led them[Pg 173] to attack in the open when they ought to have resorted to bush fighting, were defeated in two battles by the Company's men. Lo Bengula fled towards the Zambesi and died there (January, 1894) of fever and despair, as Shere Ali Khan had died when chased out of Kabul by the British in 1878; while his indunas and the bulk of the Matabili people submitted with little further resistance. Matabililand was now occupied by the Company, which shortly afterwards took possession of the northern part of its sphere of operations by running a telegraph wire across the Zambesi and by placing officers on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. In March, 1896, the Matabili and some of the Mashona chiefs revolted, but after five months' fighting, in which many lives were lost, peace was restored, and the subsequent construction of two railways into the heart of the country of these tribes has given a great, if not complete, security against a renewal of like troubles.[34]

By the establishment of the British South Africa Company to the north of the Transvaal that State had now become inclosed in British territory on every side except the east; nor could it advance to Delagoa Bay, because Portugal was bound by the Arbitration Treaty of 1872 to allow Great Britain a right of pre-emption over her territory there. Meantime new forces had begun to work within the Republic. Between 1867 and 1872 gold had been found in several places on the eastern side of the country, but in quantities so small that no one attached much importance to the discovery. After 1882, however, it began to be pretty largely worked. In 1885 the conglomerate or banket beds of the Witwatersrand were discovered,[35] and the influx of strangers, which had been considerable from 1882 onward, increased immensely, till in 1895 the number of recent immigrants, most of whom were adult males, had risen[Pg 174] to a number (roughly estimated at 100,000) largely exceeding that of the whole Boer population. Although the first result of the working of the gold mines and the growth of the towns had been to swell the revenues of the previously impecunious Republic, President Kruger and the Boers generally were alarmed at seeing a tide of aliens from the British colonies and Europe and the United States, most of them British subjects, and nearly all speaking English, rise up around and threaten to submerge them. They proceeded to defend themselves by restricting the electoral franchise, which had theretofore been easily acquirable by immigrants. Laws were passed which, by excluding the newcomers, kept the native Boer element in a safe majority; and even when in 1890 a concession was made by the creation of a second Legislative Chamber, based on a more extended franchise, its powers were carefully restricted, and the election not only of the First Raad (the principal Chamber), but also of the President and Executive Council, remained confined to those who had full citizenship under the previous statutes. Discontent spread among the new-comers, who complained both of their exclusion from political rights and of various grievances which they and the mining industry suffered at the hands of the government. A reform association was formed in 1892. In 1894 the visit of the British High Commissioner, who had come from the Cape to negotiate with the President on Swaziland and other pending questions, led to a vehement pro-British and anti-Boer demonstration at Pretoria, and thenceforward feeling ran high at Johannesburg, the new centre of the Rand mining district and of the immigrant population. Finally, in December, 1895, a rising took place at Johannesburg, the circumstances attending which must be set forth in the briefest way, for the uncontroverted facts are fresh in every one's recollection, while an attempt to discuss the controverted ones[Pg 175] would lead me from the field of history into that of contemporary politics.[36] It is enough to say while a large section of the Uitlanders (as the new alien immigrants are called) in Johannesburg were preparing to press their claims for reforms upon the government, and to provide themselves with arms for that purpose, an outbreak was precipitated by the entry into Transvaal territory from Pitsani in Bechuanaland of a force of about five hundred men, mostly in the service of the British South Africa Company as police, and led by the Company's Administrator, with whom (and with Mr. Rhodes, the managing director of the Company) a prior arrangement had been made by the reform leaders, that in case of trouble at Johannesburg he should, if summoned, come to the aid of the Uitlander movement. A question as to the flag under which the movement was to be made caused a postponement of the day previously fixed for making it. The leaders of the force at Pitsani, however, became impatient, thinking that the Boer government was beginning to suspect their intentions; and thus, though requested to remain quiet, the force started on the evening of December 29. Had they been able, as they expected, to get through without fighting, they might probably have reached Johannesburg in three or four days' march, for the distance is only 170 miles. But while the High Commissioner issued a proclamation disavowing their action and ordering them to retire, they found themselves opposed by the now rapidly gathering Boer levies, were repulsed at Krugersdorp, and ultimately forced to surrender on the forenoon of January 1, 1896, at a place called Doornkop. The Johannesburg Uitlanders, who, though unprepared[Pg 176] for any such sudden movement, had risen in sympathy at the news of the inroad, laid down their arms a few days later.[37]

I have given the bare outline of these latest events in South African history for the sake of bringing the narrative down to the date when I began to write. But as I was at Pretoria and Johannesburg immediately before the rising of December 1895 took place, and had good opportunities of seeing what forces were at work, and in what direction the currents of opinion were setting, I propose to give in a subsequent chapter (Chapter XXV) a somewhat fuller description of the state of things in the Transvaal at the end of 1895, and to reserve for a still later chapter some general reflections on the course of South African history.

PART III

A JOURNEY THROUGH SOUTH AFRICA

[Pg 179]

CHAPTER XIII

TRAVELLING AND COMMUNICATIONS

There is nothing one more desires to know about a country, and especially a new country, than how one can travel through it. There was nothing about which, when contemplating a journey to South Africa, I found it more difficult to get proper information in England; so I hope that a few facts and hints will be useful to those who mean to make the tour, while to others they may serve to give a notion of the conditions which help or obstruct internal communication.

First, as to coast travel. There is no line of railway running along the coast, partly because the towns are small, as well as few and far between, partly because the physical difficulties of constructing a railway across the ridges which run down to the sea are considerable, but chiefly, no doubt, because the coasting steamers are able to do what is needed. The large vessels of the Castle Line and the Union Line run once a week between Cape Town and Durban (the port of Natal), calling at Port Elizabeth and East London, sometimes also at Mossel Bay. Thus one can find two opportunities every week of getting east or west in powerful ocean steamers, besides such chances as smaller vessels, designed for freight rather than for passengers, supply. From Durban there is one weekly boat as far as Delagoa Bay, a voyage of about twenty-four hours. From Delagoa Bay northward to[Pg 180] Beira and Mozambique the traveller must rely either on the steamers of the German East Africa Line, which run from Hamburg through the Red Sea all the way to Durban making the entire voyage in about seven weeks, or on Messrs. Rennie's line, which ply from Durban to Delagoa Bay, Beira and Chinde. The drawback to these coast voyages is that the sea is apt to be rough between Cape Town and Durban, less frequently so between Durban and Beira, and that there is no sheltered Port between Cape Town and Delagoa Bay. At Port Elizabeth and at East London the large steamers lie out in the ocean, and passengers reach the land by a small tender, into which they are let down in a sort of basket, if there is a sea running, and are occasionally, if the sea be very high, obliged to wait for a day or more until the tender can take them off. Similar conditions have prevailed at Durban, where a bar has hitherto prevented the big liners, except under very favourable conditions of tide and weather, from entering the otherwise excellent port. Much, however, has recently been done to remove the Durban bar, and it is expected that the largest steamers will soon be able to cross it at high tide. At Delagoa Bay the harbour is spacious and sheltered, though the approach requires care and is not well buoyed and lighted. At Beira the haven is still better, and can be entered at all states of the tide. There is now a brisk goods trade, both along the coast between the ports I have mentioned, and from Europe to each of them.

Secondly, as to the railways. The railway system is a simple one. A great trunk-line runs north-eastward from Cape Town to a place called De Aar Junction, in the eastern part of the Colony. Here it bifurcates. One branch runs first east and then north-north-east through the Orange Free State and the Transvaal to Pretoria; the other runs north by east to Kimberley and Mafeking, and thence through Bechuanaland to[Pg 181] Bulawayo.[38] The distance from Cape Town to Pretoria is ten hundred and forty miles, and the journey takes (by the fastest train) fifty-two hours. From Cape Town to Mafeking it is eight hundred and seventy-five miles, the journey taking about fifty hours; and from Mafeking to Bulawayo it is a little over five hundred more. From this trunk-line two important branches run southward to the coast, one to Port Elizabeth, the other to East London; and by these branches the goods landed at those ports, and destined for Kimberley or Johannesburg, are sent up. The passenger traffic on the branches is small, as people who want to go from the Eastern towns to Cape Town usually take the less fatiguing as well as cheaper sea voyage.

Three other lines of railway remain. One, opened in the end of 1895, connects Durban with Pretoria and Johannesburg; another, opened in 1894, runs from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria; a third, opened part of it in 1894 and the last part in 1899, connects Beira with Fort Salisbury, in the territory of the British South Africa Company.[39]

Of these railways the trunk-line with its branches was constructed by and is (except the parts which traverse the Orange Free State and the Transvaal) owned by the government of Cape Colony. It has latterly paid very well. The line from Durban to the Transvaal border at Charlestown belongs to the Natal government, and is also a considerable source of revenue. The rest of this line, from Charlestown northward through the Transvaal, is the property of a Dutch company, which also owns the line from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria and from Pretoria to the frontier of the Free State. The Beira railway belongs to a company[Pg 182] controlled by the British South Africa Company, and is virtually a part of that great undertaking.

All these railways, except the Beira line, have the same gauge, one of three feet six inches. The Beira line has a two-foot gauge, but is now (1899) being enlarged to the standard gauge. Throughout South Africa the lines of railway are laid on steeper gradients than is usual in Europe: one in forty is not uncommon, and on the Natal line it is sometimes one in thirty, though this is being gradually reduced. Although the accommodation at the minor stations is extremely simple, and sometimes even primitive, the railways are well managed, and the cars are arranged with a view to sleep on the night journeys; so that one can manage even the long transit from Cape Town to Pretoria with no great fatigue. Considering how very thinly peopled the country is, so that there is practically no local passenger and very little local goods traffic, the railway service is much better than could have been expected, and does great credit to the enterprise of the people.

Railways have made an enormous difference, not to travel only, but to trade and to politics; for before the construction of the great trunk-line (which was not opened to Pretoria till 1892) the only means of conveyance was the ox-waggon. The ox-waggon needs a few words of description, for it is the most characteristic feature of South African travel. It is a long low structure, drawn by seven, eight, nine, or even ten yoke of oxen, and is surmounted (when intended to carry travellers) by a convex wooden frame and canvas roof. The animals are harnessed by a strong and heavy chain attached to the yoke which holds each pair together. The oxen usually accomplish about twelve miles a day, but can be made to do sixteen, or with pressure a little more. They walk very slowly, and they are allowed to rest and feed more hours than those during which they travel. The rest-time is usually the forenoon and till[Pg 183] about four P.M. with another rest for part of the night. It was in these waggons that the Boers carried with them their wives and children and household goods in the great exodus of 1836. It was in such waggons that nearly all the explorations of South Africa have been made, such as those by the missionaries, and particularly by Robert Moffat and by Livingstone (in his earlier journeys), and such as those of the hunting pioneers, men like Anderson, Gordon-Cumming, and Selous. And to this day it is on the waggon that whoever traverses any unfrequented region must rely. Horses, and even mules, soon break down; and as the traveller must carry his food and other necessaries of camp life with him, he always needs the waggon as a basis of operations, even if he has a seasoned horse which he can use for two or three days when speed is required. Waggons have, moreover, another value for a large party; they can be readily formed into a laager, or camp, by being drawn into a circle, with the oxen placed inside and so kept safe from the attacks of wild beasts. And where there are hostile Kafirs to be feared, such a laager is an efficient fortress, from within which a few determined marksmen have often successfully resisted the onslaught of hordes of natives. An immense trade has been carried on by means of ox-waggons between the points where the railways end and the new settlements in Matabililand and Mashonaland. When I passed from Mafeking to Bulawayo in October, 1895, thousands of oxen were drawing hundreds of waggons along the track between those towns. When, a month later, I travelled from Fort Salisbury to Chimoyo, then the terminus of the Beira line, I passed countless waggons standing idle along the track, because owing to the locusts and the drought which had destroyed most of the grass, the oxen had either died or grown too lean and feeble to be able to drag the loads. Hence the cattle-plague which in 1896 carried off the larger part of the transport-oxen was a terrible[Pg 184] misfortune, not only to the natives who owned these animals, but also to the whole northern region, which largely depends upon cattle transport for its food, its comforts, its building materials, and its mine machinery.

It is the character of the country that has permitted the waggon to become so important a factor in South African exploration, politics, and commerce. The interior, though high, is not generally rugged. Much of it—indeed, all the eastern and northern parts—is a vast rolling plain, across which wheeled vehicles can pass with no greater difficulty than the beds of the streams, sometimes deeply cut through soft ground, present. The ranges of hills which occur here and there are generally traversed by passes, which, though stony, are not steep enough to be impracticable. Over most of the southern half of the plateau there is no wood, and where forests occur the trees seldom grow thick together, and the brushwood is so dry and small that it can soon be cut away to make a passage. Had South Africa been thickly wooded, like the eastern parts of North America or some parts of Australia, waggon-travelling would have been difficult or impossible; but most of it is, like the country between the Missouri River and the Great Salt Lake, a dry open country, where the waggon can be made a true ship of the desert. This explains the fact, so surprising to most European readers of African travel and adventure, that wherever man can walk or ride he can take his moving home with him.

For rapid transit, however, the traveller who has passed beyond the railway is now not wholly dependent on the ox. Coaches, drawn sometimes by mules, sometimes by horses, run from some points on the railways to outlying settlements; they are, however, always uncomfortable and not always safe. They travel night and day, usually accomplishing from six to eight miles an hour on good ground, but much[Pg 185] less where the surface is sandy or rugged. In the north and north-east of Cape Colony and in the Transvaal, as well as in Matabililand, horses are very little used either for riding or for driving, owing to the prevalence of a disease called horse-sickness, which attacks nearly every animal, and from which only about a quarter recover. This is one reason why so little exploration has been done on horseback; and it is a point to be noted by those who desire to travel in the country, and who naturally think of the mode by which people used to make journeys in Europe, and by which they make journeys still in large parts of South and of North America, as well as in Western Asia.

I have spoken of the "tracks" used by waggons and coaches; the reader must not suppose that these tracks are roads. There are few made roads in South Africa, except in the neighbourhood of Cape Town, Durban, Maritzburg, Graham's Town, and one or two other towns. Those in Natal are among the best. Neither are there (except as aforesaid) any bridges, save here and there rude ones of logs thrown across a stream bed. Elsewhere the track is merely a line across the veldt (prairie), marked and sometimes cut deep by the wheels of many waggons, where all that man has done has been to remove the trees or bushes. Here and there the edges of the steep stream banks have been cut down so as to allow a vehicle to descend more easily to the bottom, where during the rains the stream flows, and where during the rest of the year the ground is sandy or muddy. After heavy rain a stream is sometimes impassable for days together, and the waggons have to wait on the bank till the torrent subsides. At all times these water channels are troublesome, for the oxen or mules are apt to jib or get out of hand in descending the steep slope, and it is no easy matter to get them urged up the steep slope on the other side. Accidents often occur, and altogether it may be said that the dongas—this is the name given to[Pg 186] these hollow stream channels—form the most exciting feature of South African travel (in places where wild beasts and natives are no longer dangerous) and afford the greatest scope for the skill of the South African driver.

Skilful he must be, for he never drives less than six span of oxen, and seldom less than three pairs of horses or mules (the Bulawayo coach had, in 1895, five pairs). It takes two men to drive. One wields an immensely long whip, while the other holds the reins. Both incessantly apostrophise the animals. It is chiefly with the whip that the team is driven; but if the team is one of mules, one of the two drivers is for a large part of the time on his feet, running alongside the beasts, beating them with a short whip and shouting to them by their names, with such adjectives, expletives, and other objurgations as he can command. Many Dutchmen do drive wonderfully well.

I have said nothing of internal water travel by river or lake, because none exists. There are no lakes, and there is not a river with water enough to float the smallest steamboat, except some reaches of the Limpopo River in the wet season. The only steamer that plies anywhere on a river is that which ascends the Pungwe River from Beira to Fontesvilla; it goes only as far as the tide goes, and on most of its trips spends fully half its time sticking on the sand-banks with which the Pungwe abounds. So far as I know, no one has ever proposed to make a canal in any part of the country.

From what has been said it will be gathered that there is no country where railways are and will be more needed than South Africa. They are the chief need of the newly settled districts, and the best means, next to a wise and conciliatory administration, of preventing fresh native outbreaks. Unfortunately, they will for a great while have no local traffic, because most of the country they pass through has not one white inhabitant to the square mile. Their function[Pg 187] is to connect the coast with the distant mining centres, in which population has begun to grow. To lay them is, however, comparatively cheap work. Except in the immediate neighbourhood of a town, nothing has to be paid for the land. The gradients all through the interior plateau are comparatively easy, and the engineers have in Africa cared less for making their ascents gentle than we do in older countries. Even in the hilly parts of the Transvaal and Matabililand the ranges are not high or steep, and one can turn a kopje instead of cutting or tunnelling through it. Few bridges are needed, because there are few rivers.

A word as to another point on which any one planning a tour to South Africa may be curious—the accommodation obtainable. Most travellers have given the inns a bad name. My own experience is scanty, for we were so often the recipient of private hospitality as to have occasion to sleep in an inn (apart from the "stores" of Bechuanaland and Mashonaland, of which more hereafter) in four places only, Mafeking, Ladybrand, Durban, and Bloemfontein. But it seemed to us that, considering the newness of the country and the difficulty in many places of furnishing a house well and of securing provisions, the entertainment was quite tolerable, sometimes much better than one had expected. In the two Colonies, and the chief places of the two Republics, clean beds and enough to eat can always be had; in the largest places there is nothing to complain of, though the prices are sometimes high. Luxuries are unprocurable, but no sensible man will go to a new country expecting luxuries.

[Pg 188]

CHAPTER XIV

FROM CAPE TOWN TO BULAWAYO

In this and the four following chapters I propose to give some account of the country through which the traveller passes on his way from the coast to the points which are the natural goals of a South African journey, Kimberley and Johannesburg, Bulawayo and Fort Salisbury, hoping thereby to convey a more lively impression of the aspects of the land and its inhabitants than general descriptions can give, and incidentally to find opportunities for touching upon some of the questions on which the future of the country will turn.

First, a few words about the voyage. You can go to South Africa either by one of the great British lines across the Atlantic to the ports of Cape Colony and Natal, or by the German line through the Red Sea and along the East African coast to Beira or Delagoa Bay. The steamers of the German line take thirty days from Port Said to Beira, and two days more to Delagoa Bay. They are good boats, though much smaller than those of the two chief English lines to the Cape (the Castle and the Union), and the voyage from Port Said has the advantage of being, at most times of the year, a smooth one pretty nearly the whole way. They touch at Aden, Zanzibar, Dar-es-Salaam, and Quilimane, and give an opportunity of seeing those places. But all along the[Pg 189] East African coast the heat is excessive—a damp, depressing heat. And the whole time required to reach Beira from England, even if one travels by rail from Calais to Marseilles, Brindisi, or Naples, and takes a British steamer thence to Port Said, joining the German boat at the latter port, is more than five weeks. Nearly everybody, therefore, chooses the Atlantic route from Southampton or London to the Cape. The Atlantic voyage, which lasts from sixteen to twenty days, is, on the whole, a pleasant and healthful one. The steamers, both those of the Castle Line and those of the Union Line—and the same may be said for the New Zealand Line and the Aberdeen Line which plies to Australia, both of these touching at the Cape—are comfortable and well appointed, and I cannot imagine any navigation more scrupulously careful than that which I saw on board the Hawarden Castle, by which I went out and returned. During the winter and spring months there is often pretty rough weather from England as far as Madeira. But from that island onward, or at any rate from the Canaries onward, one has usually a fairly smooth sea with moderate breezes till within two or three days of Cape Town, when head winds are frequently encountered. Nor is the heat excessive. Except during the two days between Cape Verde and the equator, it is never more than what one can enjoy during the day and tolerate during the night. One sees land only at Madeira, where the steamer coals for a few hours; at the picturesque Canary Islands, between which she passes, gaining, if the weather be clear, a superb view of the magnificent Peak of Teneriffe; and at Cape Verde, where she runs (in the daytime) within a few miles of the African coast. Those who enjoy the colours of the sea and of the sea skies, and to whom the absence of letters, telegrams, and newspapers is welcome, will find few more agreeable ways of passing a fortnight. After Cape Finisterre very few vessels are seen. After Madeira every night[Pg 190] reveals new stars rising from the ocean as our own begin to vanish.

as Ulysses says, in Dante's poem, of his voyage to the southern hemisphere. The pleasure of watching unfamiliar constellations rise from the east and sweep across the sky, is a keen one, which often kept us late from sleep.

For a few hours only before reaching Cape Town does one discern on the eastern horizon the stern grey mountains that rise along the barren coast. A nobler site for a city and a naval stronghold than that of the capital of South Africa can hardly be imagined. It rivals Gibraltar and Constantinople, Bombay and San Francisco. Immediately behind the town, which lies along the sea, the majestic mass of Table Mountain rises to a height of 3600 feet, a steep and partly wooded slope capped by a long line of sheer sandstone precipices more than 1000 feet high, and flanked to right and left by bold, isolated peaks. The beautiful sweep of the bay in front, the towering crags behind, and the romantic pinnacles which rise on either side, make a landscape that no one who has seen it can forget. The town itself is disappointing. It has preserved very little of its old Dutch character. The miniature canals which once traversed it are gone. The streets, except two, are rather narrow, and bordered by low houses; nor is there much to admire in the buildings, except the handsome Parliament House, the new post office, and the offices of the Standard Bank. The immediate suburbs, inhabited chiefly by Malays and other coloured people, are mean. But the neighbourhood is extremely attractive. To the north-west[Pg 191] Table Mountain and its spurs descend steeply to the sea, and the road which runs along the beach past the village of Sea Point offers a long series of striking views of shore and crag. It is on the east, however, that the most beautiful spots lie. Five miles from Cape Town and connected with it by railway, the village of Rondebosch nestles under the angle of Table Mountain, and a mile farther along the line is the little town of Wynberg. Round these places, or between them and Cape Town, nearly all the richer, and a great many even of the poorer, white people of Cape Town live. The roads are bordered by pretty villas, whose grounds, concealed by no walls, are filled with magnolias and other flowering trees and shrubs. Avenues of tall pines or of superb oaks, planted by the Dutch in the last century, run here and there along the by-roads. Immediately above, the grey precipices of Table Mountain tower into the air, while in the opposite direction a break in the woods shows in the far distance the sharp summits, snow-tipped during the winter months, of the lofty range of the Hottentots Holland Mountains. It would be hard to find anywhere, even in Italy or the Pyrenees, more exquisite combinations of soft and cultivated landscape with grand mountain forms than this part of the Cape peninsula presents. Perhaps the most charming nook of all is where the quaint old Dutch farmhouse of Groot Constantia[41] stands among its vineyards, about ten miles from Cape Town. Behind it is the range which connects the hills of Simon's Bay with Table Mountain; its declivities are at this point covered with the graceful silver-tree, whose glistening foliage shines brighter than that of the European olive. Beneath the farmhouse are the vineyards which produce the famous sweet wine that bears the name of Constantia, sloping gently towards the waters of False Bay, whose farther side is guarded[Pg 192] by a wall of frowning peaks, while the deep blue misty ocean opens in the distance. It is a landscape unlike anything one can see in Europe, and though the light in sea and sky is brilliant, the brilliance is on this coast soft and mellow, unlike the clear sharp radiance of the arid interior.

No one who cares for natural scenery quits Cape Town without ascending Table Mountain, whose summit affords not only a very beautiful and extensive prospect over the surrounding country, but a striking ocean view. Looking down the narrow gullies that descend from the top, one sees the intensely blue sea closing them below, framed between their jutting crags, while on the other side the busy streets and wharves of Cape Town lie directly under the eye, and one can discover the vehicles in the streets and the trees in the Governor's garden. The heaths and other flowers and shrubs that grow profusely over the wide top, which is not flat, as he who looks at it from the sea fancies, but cut up by glens, with here and there lake reservoirs in the hollows, are very lovely, and give a novel and peculiar charm to this ascent.[42] Nor is the excursion to Cape Point, the real Cape of Storms of Bartholomew Diaz, and the Cape of Good Hope of Vasco da Gama, less beautiful. An hour in the railway brings one to Simon's Bay, the station of the British naval squadron, a small but fairly well sheltered inlet under high hills. From this one drives for four hours over a very rough track through a lonely and silent country, sometimes sandy, sometimes thick with brushwood, but everywhere decked with brilliant flowers, to the Cape, a magnificent headland rising almost vertically from the ocean to a height of 800 feet. Long,[Pg 193] heavy surges are always foaming on the rocks below and nowhere, even on this troubled coast, where the hot Mozambique current meets a stream of cold Antarctic water, do gales more often howl and shriek than round these rocky pinnacles. One can well understand the terror with which the Portuguese sailors five centuries ago used to see the grim headland loom up through the clouds driven by the strong south-easters, that kept them struggling for days or weeks to round the cape that marked their way to India. But Sir Francis Drake, who passed it coming home westward from his ever-famous voyage round the world, had a more auspicious experience: "We ran hard aboard the Cape, finding the report of the Portuguese to be most false, who affirm that it is the most dangerous cape of the world, never without intolerable storms and present danger to travellers who come near the same. This cape is a most stately thing, and the finest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth."

A third excursion, which well repays the traveller, is to the quaint little town of Stellenbosch, founded by Adrian van der Stel (Governor of the Colony) in 1680, and called after himself and his wife, whose name was Bosch. It is built in genuine Dutch style, with straight streets of two-storied white houses, the windows nearly flush with the walls as in Holland, the wood-work and the green shutters those of Holland, and long lines of dark-green oaks shading the foot-walks on each side the street. Soft, rich pastures all round—for there is plenty of water brought down from the hills—complete the resemblance to a Hobbema landscape; and it is only when one looks up and sees rocky mountains soaring behind into the sky that the illusion is broken. It is here, and in the town of Swellendam, farther east, and in some of the villages that lie northward of Stellenbosch in the western province, that the Dutch element has re[Pg 194]mained strongest and has best retained its ancient ways and customs.

We have, however, delayed long enough round the capital, and it is time to plunge into the interior by the railway. Sixty miles to the north of Cape Town, the trunk-line, which has threaded its way through the valleys of an outlying range of mountains, reaches the foot of the great inner table-land at a place called Hex River, and in an hour climbs by zigzags up an incline which is in some places as steep as one in thirty-five, mounting 1600 feet into a desert land. Rugged brown mountains, sometimes craggy, sometimes covered with masses of loose stone, rise above the lower ground, now a valley, now an open plain, through which the railway takes its eastward way. The bushes, which had been tall and covered with blossoms on the ascent, are now stunted, bearing small and usually withered flowers. Hardly an herb, and not a blade of grass, is to be seen on the ground, which is sometimes of clay, baked hard by the sun, sometimes of sand, without a drop of water anywhere. Yet water flows when, now and then in the summer, a storm breaks, or a few showers come; and then nature revives, and for a week or two flowers spring from the soil and a fresher green comes upon the bushes. In a landscape so arid one hears with surprise that the land is worth ten shillings an acre for one or two of the smallest shrubs give feed for sheep, and there are wells scattered about sufficient for the flocks. The farms are large, usually of at least six thousand acres, so one seldom sees a farmhouse. The farmers are all of Boer stock. They lead a lonely life in a silent and melancholy nature, but their habitual gravity has not made them unsocial, for they are fond of riding or driving in their waggons to visit one another on all occasions of festivity or mourning. Every ten or fifteen miles there is a station, and here the British element in the population appears, chiefly occupied in store-keeping. At Matjesfontein one finds an hotel[Pg 195] and a number of small villas built to serve as a health resort. Wells surrounded by Australian gums planted for shade, make a little oasis in the desert. Farther east the village of Beaufort West, the only place along the line that aspires to be called a town, boasts a church with a spire, and has one or two streets, though most of its houses are stuck down irregularly over a surface covered with broken bottles and empty sardine and preserved meat tins. Here, too, there is a large, shallow pond of water, and here people with weak lungs come to breathe the keen, dry, invigorating air. Of its efficacy there is no doubt, but one would think that the want of society and of variety would be almost as depressing as the air is stimulating. The prospects have a certain beauty, for beyond the wide, bare, greyish-brown plain to the south sharp mountains stand up, which take at sunrise and sunset delightful tints of blue and purple, and the sense of a vast expanse on earth beneath and in heaven above has something strange and solemn. But the monotony of perpetual sunlight upon a landscape which has no foregrounds and never changes, save in colour, must be trying to those who have no occupation except that of getting well.

This Karroo scenery continues, with little variation, for hundreds of miles. To the north of the railway, which runs mostly from west to east, the aspect of the country is much the same, dry, stony, and forbidding, for full three hundred miles to the Orange River, and beyond that into Namaqualand. Except for the few houses at some of the stations, it seems a wilderness; yet here and there stand tiny villages, connected by lines of coach with the railway, whither the neighbouring farmers come to supply their household needs. But as the train moves farther and farther eastward the features of nature grow less austere. The mountains by degrees recede or sink; the country becomes more of an open plain, though with isolated hills visible[Pg 196] here and there over its expanse. It is also slightly greener, and after the rains some little grass springs up, besides the low, succulent shrub which the sheep eat. At De Aar Junction, five hundred miles from Cape Town, the line to Bloemfontein and the Transvaal branches off to the right. We follow the western branch over a vast slightly undulating plain to the Orange River, here a perennial stream, and at six hundred and forty-six miles from Cape Town find ourselves once more in the haunts of men at Kimberley.

Kimberley, the city of diamonds, has had a curious history. In 1869-70 the precious crystals, first found in 1867 near the Orange River, were discovered here in considerable quantity. A sudden rush of adventurers from all parts of South Africa, as well as from Europe, gave it in three or four years a population of many thousands. The mining claims were then and for some years afterwards in the hands of a large number of persons and companies who had opened them or purchased them. The competition of these independent miner-workers was bringing down the price of the stones, and the waste or leakage arising from the theft of stones by the native work-people, who sold them to European I.D.B. (illicit diamond-buyers), seriously reduced the profits of mining. It was soon seen that the consolidation of the various concerns would effect enormous savings and form the only means of keeping up the price of diamonds. The process of amalgamating the claims and interests and merging them in one huge corporation was completed in 1885, chiefly by the skill and boldness of Mr. Cecil J. Rhodes, who had gone to Natal for his health shortly before 1870, and came up to Kimberley in the first months of the rush. Since the amalgamation, the great corporation called the De Beers Consolidated Mining Company (which now owns nearly all the mines), has reduced the output of diamonds to just such an annual amount as experience has proved that Europe and America—the United[Pg 197] States is the chief market—are able to take at a price high enough to leave a large profit. By this means the price has been well maintained. This policy, however, has incidentally reduced the population of Kimberley. One powerful corporation, with its comparatively small staff of employees, has taken the place of the crowd of independent adventurers of the old days, and some of the mines have been closed because the rest are sufficient to produce as many diamonds as it is deemed prudent to put upon the market. Thus there are now only about 10,000 people in the town, and some of the poorer quarters are almost deserted, the stores and taverns, as well as the shanty dwellings, empty and falling to pieces. In the better quarters, however, the old roughness has been replaced by order and comfort. Many of the best villas are embowered in groves of tall Australian gum-trees, while the streets and roads are bordered either by gum-trees or by hedges of prickly-pear or agave. The streets are wide, and most of the houses are detached and of one story, built like Indian bungalows; so the town covers an area quite disproportionate to its population, and gives the impression of an extensive city. For the residence of the Europeans employed in the two great mines which the Company works, a suburb called Kenilworth has been built by Mr. Rhodes, where neat houses of four, five, or six rooms each stand in handsome avenues planted with Australian trees, the so-called "beefwood" and the red gum. They are not beautiful trees, but they have the merit of growing very fast, and any shade is welcome.

The diamonds are found in beds of clay, of which there are two: a yellow and softish clay, lying on or near the surface, and a hard blue clay, lying deeper. These clays, which are usually covered by a thin layer of calcareous rock, are supposed to be the remains of mud-pits due to volcanic action, such as the so-called mud-volcanoes of Iceland, near Námaskard, on the[Pg 198] banks of Lake Myvatn, or such as the similar boiling mud-pits of the Yellowstone Park country, called from their brilliant colours the "Paint-pots." It is, at any rate, from circular clay basins, inclosed within a harder rock (basalt, black shale, and quartzite) that the stones are obtained. Some of the mines are worked even to a depth of 1200 feet by shafts and subterranean galleries. Some are open, and these, particularly that called the Wesselton Mine, are an interesting sight. This deep hollow, one-third of a mile in circumference and 100 feet deep, inclosed by a strong fence of barbed wire, is filled by a swarm of active Kafir workmen, cleaving the "hard blue" with pickaxes, piling it up on barrows, and carrying it off to the wide fields; where it is left exposed to the sun, and, during three months, to the rain. Having been thus subjected to a natural decomposition, it is the more readily brought by the pickaxe into smaller fragments before being sent to the mills, where it is crushed, pulverized, and finally washed to get at the stones. Nowhere in the world does the hidden wealth of the soil and the element of chance in its discovery strike one so forcibly as here, where you are shown a piece of ground a few acres in extent, and are told, "Out of this pit diamonds of the value of £12,000,000 have been taken." Twenty-six years ago the ground might have been bought for £50.

The most striking sight at Kimberley, and one unique in the world, is furnished by the two so-called "compounds" in which the natives who work in the mines are housed and confined. They are huge inclosures, unroofed, but covered with a wire netting to prevent anything from being thrown out of them over the walls, and with a subterranean entrance to the adjoining mine. The mine is worked on the system of three eight-hour shifts, so that the workman is never more than eight hours together underground. Round the interior of the wall there are built sheds or huts, in which the natives live and sleep when not working. A[Pg 199] hospital is also provided within the inclosure, as well as a school where the work-people can spend their leisure in learning to read and write. No spirits are sold—an example of removing temptation from the native which it is to be wished that the legislature of Cape Colony would follow. Every entrance is strictly guarded, and no visitors, white or native, are permitted, all supplies being obtained from the store within, kept by the Company. The De Beers mine compound contained at the time of my visit 2600 natives, belonging to a great variety of tribes, so that here one could see specimens of the different native types, from Natal and Pondoland on the south, to the shores of Lake Tanganyika in the far north. They come from every quarter, attracted by the high wages, usually eighteen to thirty shillings a week, and remain for three months or more and occasionally even for long periods, knowing, of course, that they have to submit to the precautions which are absolutely needed to prevent them from appropriating the diamonds they may happen to find in the course of their work. To encourage honesty, ten per cent, of the value of any stone which a workman may find is given to him if he brings it himself to the overseer, and the value of the stones on which this ten per cent, is paid is estimated at £400,000 in each year. Nevertheless, a certain number of thefts occur. I heard from a missionary an anecdote of a Basuto who, after his return from Kimberley, was describing how, on one occasion, his eye fell on a valuable diamond in the clay he was breaking into fragments. While he was endeavouring to pick it up he perceived the overseer approaching, and, having it by this time in his hand, was for a moment terribly frightened, the punishment for theft being very severe. The overseer, however, passed on. "And then," said the Basuto, "I knew that there was indeed a God, for He had preserved me."

When the native has earned the sum he wants—and his earnings accumulate quickly, since he can live upon[Pg 200] very little—he takes his wages in English sovereigns, a coin now current through all Africa as far as Tanganyika, goes home to his own tribe, perhaps a month's or six weeks' journey distant, buys two oxen, buys with them a wife, and lives happily, or at least lazily, ever after. Here in the vast oblong compound one sees Zulus from Natal, Fingos, Pondos, Tembus, Basutos, Bechuanas, Gungunhana's subjects from the Portuguese territories, some few Matabili and Makalaka, and plenty of Zambesi boys from the tribes on both sides of that great river—a living ethnological collection such as can be examined nowhere else in South Africa. Even Bushmen, or at least natives with some Bushman blood in them, are not wanting. They live peaceably together, and amuse themselves in their several ways during their leisure hours. Besides games of chance we saw a game resembling "fox and geese," played with pebbles on a board; and music was being discoursed on two rude native instruments, the so-called "Kafir piano," made of pieces of iron of unequal length fastened side by side in a frame, and a still ruder contrivance of hard bits of wood, also of unequal size, which when struck by a stick emit different notes, the first beginnings of a tune. A very few were reading or writing letters, the rest busy with their cooking or talking to one another. Some tribes are incessant talkers, and in this strange mixing-pot of black men one may hear a dozen languages spoken as one passes from group to group.

The climate of Kimberley is healthy, and even bracing, though not pleasant when a north-west wind from the Kalahari Desert fills the air with sand and dust. Its dryness recommends it as a resort for consumptive patients, while the existence of a cultivated, though small, society, makes it a less doleful place of residence than are the sanatoria of the Karroo. The country round is, however, far from attractive. Save on the east, where there rises a line of hills just high enough to catch the lovely lights of evening and give[Pg 201] colour and variety to the landscape, the prospect is monotonous in every direction. Like the ocean, this vast plain is so flat that you cannot see how vast it is. Except in the environs of the town, it is unbroken by tree or house, and in a part of those environs the masses of bluish-grey mine refuse that strew the ground give a dismal and even squalid air to the foreground of the view. One is reminded of the deserted coal-pits that surround Wigan, or the burnt-out and waste parts of the Black Country in South Staffordshire, though at Kimberley there is, happily, no coal-smoke or sulphurous fumes in the air, no cinder on the surface, no coal-dust to thicken the mud and blacken the roads. Some squalor one must have with that disturbance of nature which mining involves, but here the enlightened activity of the Company and the settlers has done its best to mitigate these evils by the planting of trees and orchards, by the taste which many of the private houses show, and by the provision here and there of open spaces for games.

From Kimberley the newly-opened railway runs one hundred and fifty miles farther north to Vryburg, till lately the capital of the Crown Colony of British Bechuanaland, annexed in 1895 to Cape Colony, and thence to Mafeking. After a few miles the line crosses the Vaal River, here a respectable stream for South Africa, since it has, even in the dry season, more water than the Cam at Cambridge, or the Cherwell at Oxford—perhaps as much as the Arno at Florence. It flows in a wide, rocky bed, about thirty feet below the level of the adjoining country. The country becomes more undulating as the line approaches the frontiers, first of the Orange Free State, and then of the Transvaal Republic, which bounds that State on the north. Bushes are seen, and presently trees, nearly all prickly mimosas, small and unattractive, but a pleasant relief from the bare flats of Kimberley, whence all the wood that formerly grew there has been taken for mine props[Pg 202] and for fuel. There is more grass, too, and presently patches of cultivated land appear, where Kafirs grow maize, called in South Africa "mealies." Near the village of Taungs[43] a large native reservation is passed, where part of the Batlapin tribe is settled, and here a good deal of ground is tilled, though in September, when no crop is visible, one scarcely notices the fields, since they are entirely unenclosed, mere strips on the veldt, a little browner than the rest, and with fewer shrublets on them. But the landscape remains equally featureless and monotonous, redeemed only, as evening falls, by the tints of purple and violet which glow upon the low ridges or swells of ground that rise in the distance. Vryburg is a cheerful little place of brick walls and corrugated-iron roofs; Mafeking another such, still smaller and, being newer, with a still larger proportion of shanties to houses. At Mafeking the railway ended in 1895. It has since been opened all the way to Bulawayo. Here ends also the territory of Cape Colony, the rest of Bechuanaland to the north and west forming the so-called Bechuanaland Protectorate, which in October, 1895, was handed over by the Colonial Office, subject to certain restrictions and provisions for the benefit of the natives, to the British South Africa Company, within the sphere of whose operations it had, by the charter of 1890, been included. After the invasion of the Transvaal Republic by the expedition led by Dr. Jameson, which started from Pitsani, a few miles north of Mafeking, in December, 1895, this transfer was recalled, and Bechuanaland is now again under the direct control of the High Commissioner for South Africa as representing the British Crown. It is administered by magistrates, who have a force of police at their command, and by native chiefs, the most powerful and famous of whom is Khama.[Pg 203]

Close to Mafeking itself there was living a chieftain whose long career is interwoven with many of the wars and raids that went on between the Boers and the natives from 1840 to 1885—Montsioa (pronounced "Montsiwa"), the head of a tribe of Barolongs. We were taken to see him, and found him sitting on a low chair under a tree in the midst of his huge native village, dressed in a red flannel shirt, a pair of corduroy trousers, and a broad grey felt hat with a jackal's tail stuck in it for ornament. His short woolly hair was white, and his chocolate-coloured skin, hard and tough like that of a rhinoceros, was covered with a fretwork of tiny wrinkles, such as one seldom sees on a European face. He was proud of his great age (eighty-five), and recalled the names of several British governors and generals during the last seventy years. But his chief interest was in inquiries (through his interpreter) regarding the Queen and events in England, and he amused his visitors by the diplomatic shrewdness with which, on being told that there had been a change of government in England, and a majority in favour of the new government, he observed "They have made a mistake; they could not have had a better government than the old one." He was a wealthy man, owning an immense number of the oxen which then carried on (for the cattle plague soon after destroyed most of them) the transport service between Mafeking and Bulawayo; and, from all I could learn, he ruled his people well, following the counsels of the British government, which in 1885 delivered him out of the hands of the Boers. He died in the middle of 1896.

At Mafeking we bade farewell to the railway, and prepared to plunge into the wilderness. We travelled in a light American waggon, having a Cape Dutchman as driver and a coloured "Cape boy" to help him, but no other attendants. The waggon had a small iron tank, which we filled with water that had been boiled[Pg 204] to kill noxious germs, and with this we made our soup and tea. For provisions we carried biscuits, a little tinned soup and meat, and a few bottles of soda-water. These last proved to be the most useful part of our stores, for we found the stream-or well-water along the route undrinkable, and our mouths were often so parched that it was only by the help of sips of soda-water that we could manage to swallow the dry food. At the European stores which occur along the road, usually at intervals of thirty or forty miles, though sometimes there is none for sixty miles or more, we could often procure eggs and sometimes a lean chicken; so there was enough to support life, though seldom did we get what is called in America "a square meal."

Northward from Mafeking the country grows pretty. At first there are trees scattered picturesquely over the undulating pastures and sometimes forming woods—dry and open woods, yet welcome after the bareness which one has left behind. Here we passed the tiny group of houses called Pitsani, little dreaming that three months later it would become famous as the place where the Matabililand police were marshalled, and from which they started on their ill-starred march into the Transvaal, whose bare and forbidding hills we saw a few miles away to the east. Presently the ground becomes rougher, and the track winds among and under a succession of abrupt kopjes (pronounced "koppies"), mostly of granitic or gneissose rock. One is surprised that a heavy coach, and still heavier waggons, can so easily traverse such a country, for the road is only a track, for which art has done nothing save in cutting a way through the trees. It is one of the curious features of South Africa that the rocky hills have an unusual faculty for standing detached enough from one another to allow wheeled vehicles to pass between them, and the country is so dry that morasses, the obstacle which a driver chiefly fears in most countries,[Pg 205] are here, for three-fourths of the year, not feared at all. This region of bold, craggy hills, sparsely wooded, usually rising only some few hundred feet out of the plateau itself, which is about 4000 feet above the sea, continues for about thirty miles. To it there succeeds a long stretch of flat land along the banks of the sluggish Notwani, the only perennial river of these parts; for the stream which on the map bears the name of Molopo, and runs away west into the desert to lose nearly all of its water in the sands, is in September dry, and one crosses its channel without noticing it. This Notwani, whose course is marked by a line of trees taller and greener than the rest, is at this season no better than a feeble brook, flowing slowly, with more mud than water. But it contains not only good-sized fish, the catching of which is the chief holiday diversion of these parts, but also crocodiles, which, generally dormant during the season of low water, are apt to obtrude themselves when they are least expected, and would make bathing dangerous, were there any temptation to bathe in such a thick green fluid. That men as well as cattle should drink it seems surprising, yet they do,—Europeans as well as natives,—and apparently with no bad effects. Below Palla, one hundred and ninety-five miles north of Mafeking, the Notwani joins the Limpopo, or Crocodile River, a much larger stream, which has come down from the Transvaal hills, and winds for nearly a thousand miles to the north and east before it falls into the Indian Ocean. It is here nearly as wide as the Thames at Henley, fordable in some places, and flowing very gently. The country all along this part of the road is perfectly flat, and just after the wet season very feverish, but it may be traversed with impunity from the end of May till December. It is a dull region—everywhere the same thin wood, through which one can see for about a quarter of a mile in every direction, consisting of two or three kinds of mimosa, all thorny, and all so spare[Pg 206] and starved in their leafage that one gets little shade beneath them when at the midday halt shelter has to be sought from the formidable sun. On the parched ground there is an undergrowth of prickly shrubs, among which it is necessary to move with as much care as is needed in climbing a barbed-wire fence. When at night, camping out on the veldt, one gathers brushwood to light the cooking-fire, both the clothes and the hands of the novice come badly off. Huge ant-hills begin to appear, sometimes fifteen to twenty feet high and as many yards in circumference; but these large ones are all dead and may be of considerable age. In some places they are so high and steep, and stand so close together, that by joining them with an earthen rampart a strong fort might be made. When people begin to till the ground more largely than the natives now do, the soil heaped up in these great mounds will be found most serviceable. It consists of good mould, very friable, and when spread out over the service ought to prove fertile. In pulverizing the soil, the ants render here much the same kind of service which the earthworms do in Europe. There are no flowers at this season (end of September), and very little grass; yet men say that there is no better ranching country in all South Africa, and the oxen which one meets all the way, feeding round the spots where the transport-waggons have halted, evidently manage to pick up enough herbage to support them. The number of ox-waggons is surprising in so lonely a country, till one remembers that most of the food and drink, as well as of the furniture, agricultural and mining tools, and wood for building,—indeed, most of the necessaries and all the luxuries of life needed in Matabililand,—have to be sent up along this road, which is more used than the alternative route through the Transvaal from Pretoria via Pietersburg. No wonder all sorts of articles are costly in Bulawayo, when it has taken eight or ten weeks to bring them from the nearest railway ter[Pg 207]minus. The waggons do most of their journeying by night, allowing the oxen to rest during the heat of the day. One of the minor troubles of travel is the delay which ensues when one's vehicle meets a string of waggons, sometimes nearly a quarter of a mile long, for each has eight, nine, or even ten, span of oxen. They move very slowly, and at night, when the track happens to be a narrow one among trees, it is not easy to get past. Except for these waggons the road is lonely. One sees few natives, though the narrow footpaths crossing the wheel-track show that the country is inhabited. Here and there one passes a large native village, such as Ramoutsie and Machudi, but small hamlets are rare, and solitary huts still rarer. The country is of course very thinly peopled in proportion to its resources, for, what with the good pasture nearly everywhere and the fertile land in many places, it could support eight or ten times the number of Barolongs, Bamangwato, and other Bechuanas who now live scattered over its vast area. It is not the beasts of prey that are to blame for this, for, with the disappearance of game, lions have become extremely scarce, and leopards and lynxes are no longer common. Few quadrupeds are seen, and not many kinds of birds. Vultures, hawks, and a species something like a magpie, with four pretty white patches upon the wings and a long tail, are the commonest, together with bluish-grey guinea-fowl, pigeons and sometimes a small partridge. In some parts there are plenty of bustards, prized as dainties, but we saw very few. Away from the track some buck of the commoner kinds may still be found, and farther to the west there is still plenty of big game in the Kalahari Desert. But the region which we traversed is almost as unattractive to the sportsman as it is to the lover of beauty. It is, indeed, one of the dullest parts of South Africa.

The next stage in the journey is marked by Palapshwye, Khama's capital. This is the largest native[Pg 208] town south of the Zambesi, for it has a population estimated at over 20,000. It came into being only a few years ago, when Khama, having returned from the exile to which his father had consigned him on account of his steadfast adherence to Christianity, and having succeeded to the chieftainship of the Bamangwato, moved the tribe from its previous dwelling-place at Shoshong, some seventy miles to the south-west, and fixed it here. Such migrations and foundations of new towns are not uncommon in South Africa, as they were not uncommon in India in the days of the Pathan and Mogul sovereigns, when each new occupant of the throne generally chose a new residence to fortify or adorn. Why this particular site was chosen I do not know. It stands high, and is free from malaria, and there are springs of water in the craggy hill behind; but the country all round is poor, rocky in some places, sandy in others, and less attractive than some other parts of Bechuanaland. We entered the town late at night, delayed by the deep sand on the track, and wandered about in the dark for a long while before, after knocking at one hut after another, we could persuade any native to come out and show us the way to the little cluster of European dwellings. The Kafirs are terribly afraid of the night, and fear the ghosts, which are to them the powers of darkness, more than they care for offers of money.

Khama was absent in England, pressing upon the Colonial Office his objections to the demand made by the British South Africa Company that his kingdom should be brought within the scope of their administration and a railway constructed through it from Mafeking to Bulawayo. Besides the natural wish of a monarch to retain his authority undiminished, he was moved by the desire to keep his subjects from the use of intoxicating spirits, a practice which the establishment of white men among them would make it difficult, if not impossible, to prevent. The main object of[Pg 209] Khama's life and rule has been to keep his people from intoxicants. His feelings were expressed in a letter to a British Commissioner, in which he said: "I fear Lo Bengula less than I fear brandy. I fought against Lo Bengula and drove him back. He never gives me a sleepless night. But to fight against drink is to fight against demons and not men. I fear the white man's drink more than the assagais of the Matabili, which kill men's bodies. Drink puts devils into men and destroys their souls and bodies." Though a Christian himself, and giving the missionaries in his dominions every facility for their work, he has never attempted to make converts by force. A prohibition of the use of alcohol, however, has seemed to him to lie "within the sphere of governmental action," and he has, indeed, imperilled his throne by efforts to prevent the Bamangwato from making and drinking the stronger kind of Kafir beer, to which, like all natives, they were much addicted.[44] This beer is made from the so-called "Kafir-corn" (a grain resembling millet, commonly cultivated by the natives), and, though less strong than European-made spirits, is more intoxicating than German or even English ale. Khama's prohibition of it had, shortly before my visit, led to a revolt and threatened secession of a part of the tribe under his younger brother, Radiclani, and the royal reformer, (himself a strict total abstainer), had been compelled to give way, lamenting, in a pathetic speech, that his subjects would not suffer him to do what was best for them. Just about the same time, in England, the proposal of a measure to check the use of intoxicating liquors led to the overthrow of a great party and clouded the prospects of any temperance legislation. Alike in Britain and in Bechuanaland it is no light matter to interfere with a people's favourite indulgences. European spirits are, however, so much more[Pg 210] deleterious than Kafir beer that Khama still fought hard against their introduction. The British South Africa Company forbids the sale of intoxicants to natives in its territory, but Khama naturally felt that when at railway stations and stores spirits were being freely consumed by whites, the difficulty of keeping them from natives would be largely increased. The Colonial Office gave leave for the construction of the railway, and brought Khama into closer relations with the Company, while securing to him a large reserve and establishing certain provisions for his benefit and that of his people. However, a few months later (in