THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^^^m^^t^ .'*^H.V Yy. . , •Mvi L'M- RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT H. C. THOMSON AUTHOR OF "THE CHITRAL CAMPAIGN," AND OF "THE OUTGOING TURK." " Restrain those engrossings of thf rich that are as had almost as monopolies." — Utopia. ^' Reverence for the rights and freedom of every nation is what ice should earnestly cherish if we would be true defenders of our own." — Frederick Denison Maurice. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1898 [All rightx reservedl Piiiited l)y Ballantyne, Hanson £f Co. At the Ballantyne Press T3^^ PREFACE During iny first few months in South Africa I was tossed about in a kind of mental whirlpool. Every man seemed to me to be in the right until I came to listen to the next. But gradually certain principles and ideas began to crystallise into definite shape ; and these I have tried to make clear, not merely from what I myself heard and saw, but from the declarations made from time to time by various South African politicians and writers. I have to thank most gratefully the many friends, both English and Dutch, who have helped me in my work. What there may be of value in it is due to my having made myself in great measure the mouthpiece of their strongly felt and conflicting opinions. H. C. T. t-'eptemher 1898. M M L^kJ^ -V CONTENTS PAGES Introduction 1-20 CHAPTER I Durban — Kosi Bay — Dklagoa Bay — Beira — The Mozam- bique Company's Territory — Its Natural Products — The Beira Railway 21-3? CHAPTER II Influence of the Missionaries — Massi-Kessi — Hindu Traders — Japanese Trade — Friction between the Chartered Company and the Portuguese — Jiggers — View from the Crow's Nest — The Rezende Valley 34-44 CHAPTER III The Christmas Pass — New Umtali — The Penhalonga Mines — General Mining Prospects in Rhodesia . 45-50 CHAPTER IV Melsetter • — The Labour Question — Andrada — The Umtali Sessions — Walk to Mr. Fischer's Farm . 51-62 Vlll CONTENTS CHAPTEE V PACES Mashona Superstition — Rukui — Chaganguru — Agricul- tural Difficulties and Prospects — Comparison with Australia and Canada 63-72 CHAPTER VI The Inyanga — Chirimba, the Witch-Doctor — Treatment of the Matabili and Mashona Women — Native Morality — The Flogging Q u kstion — Christianity FROM THK Native Standpoint — The Necessity of PROPER Native Locations 73-89 CHAPTEE VII Frank Xigubu — The Arms Act — Uncomfortable Walk FROM Makoni's Kraal — Police-Camp at the Devil's Pass — The Headlands Store — Difficulty with my Bagamesi Boys — Lovely Scenery — Great Variety of Forest Trees — Damage done by the Locusts — Back- ward Character of the Boer Farmers — Gradually changing under the influence of Railways and Civilisation 90-104 CHAPTER VIII The Story of Makoni 105-121 CHAPTEE IX Uneasiness of the Settlers, but possibility of another Rising very remote — Salisbury distinctively an Administrative Town — Colonisation Schemes of the Scottish Africa, Limited, and United Rhodesia — Sir George's Cathcart's Proposal in 1852 for a Military Colony in Kaffraria — Similarity of the Amatolas and the Inyanga 122-135 CONTENTS IX CHAPTER X PAGKS Composition of the Force under Sir Richard Martin and Captain De Moleyns— Attack on Seki's Kraal— The M'toko Patrol — The taking op Shaungwe— Assault on Mashanganyika's Kraal — Death of Paris . 136-146 CHAPTER XI Attack upon Chesumba's — Character of the Mashona Caves — Kakubi, the Witch-Doctor, and Nyanda, the Witch-Doctress — Termination of the Rebellion — Is the Use OF Dynamite legitimate? . . . 147-157 CHAPTER XII Splendid Work done by the Police in Mashonaland, and by the Native Contingent under Major Harding — Bravery of the Mashonas — They ark Treacherous, BUT NOT incapable OF GraTITUDE — ThE ONLY WAY TO Govern them IS BY Justice, not through Fear . 158-170 CHAPTER XIII The Beira Railway 171-178 CHAPTER XIV Horse-Sickness — Fort Usher — The Matoppos — I\Ptwani — The Fight at the Cantoor— The Maholis — The Question of Forced Labour 179-192 CHAPTER XV Faulty Tactics of the Matabili— Their Failure to In- vest Bulawayo — Arrest and Detention of Gambo — Probable inclusion of the Natal Labour Provisions IN the proposed Native Code for Rhodesia . 193-201 X CONTENTS CHAPTER XVI PACKS Close of the Matabili Rebellion — The Matabili Mounted Police — Little likelihood op anothior Rising — Charactkr of the Mashona Rebellion — Attack upon the Families of Mr. Bester and Mr. Botha at Enkledoorn — Relief of the Abercorn Mine by Mr. Duncan's Patrol — The Mashonas in reality AN Intelligent Race 202-218 CHAPTER XVII The B.S.A. Company's Police : in Mashon aland and in Matabililand — Excellent System initiated by Captain Nicholson 219-229 CHAPTER XVIII Treatment of the Natives prior to the Rebkllion — Advisability of a General Amnesty . . . 230-245 CHAPTER XIX Palachwe — Khama — The Liquor Question — Conces- sions from Native Chiefs should be strictly scruti- nised — Lobengula's Concessions — Sigcau's Case — Advisability of separation of the Offices op High Commissioner and Governor of the Cape Colony 246-263 CHAPTER XX The Jameson Raid — Sir John Willoughby's Report to THE War Office — Were the Johannesburg People TO Blame ? 264-276 CHAPTER XXI Mr. Rhode.s' Influence in South Africa . . . 277-297 CONTENTS XI CHAPTER XXII PAGES The Developments of Rhodesia . . . . . 298-308 CHAPTER XXIII Situation in the Transvaal — Does the Suzerainty still EXIST ? — Attitude of the Pretoria Government WITH REGARD TO IT — CONTINUAL AND NEEDLESS IN- VECTIVES AGAINST THE BoERS — EMBITTERED FeELING NOW EXISTING 309-323 CHAPTER XXIV Distrust of the Republics for the B.S.A. Company — Conditions on which the Charter was Granted — Have they been Complied with ? — Necessity of Con- ciliating the Boers — But they must deal fairly WITH THE UiTLANDERS — GROWING PoWER OF THE MO- DERATE Party under Mr. Rose-Innes — In Time they WILL bring about Union 324-345 Index 346-352 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Major Harding and the Mashonaland Native Contingent — Archer, Makoni's Son, to the Left ........ Frontisinece Mashonas at Andrada in Portuguese Terri- tory — Kafir Piano lying on the Ground TO the Left To face jMge 40 Carrier Boys preparing for the March, near Andrada „ 56 Chirimba, Mashona Witch - Doctor in the Middle, with Mashonas standing round HIM „ 74 Native Commissioner's Messengers. The Boy WITH A YOUNG BaBOON HANGING ON HIS ArM „ 76 Cape Cart at the Devil's Pass in Manicaland „ 93 Mashona on High-road near Headlands . „ 125 Mashona Iron-workers „ 217 Map of South Africa To face page 1 MASHONALAND , ' "'■/ " —f & MATABELELAND ■, V ■ C -A P E SOUTH AFRICA EHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT INTRODUCTION Ax impression seems to prevail both in England and in South Africa that the climate of Mashonaland is peculiarly unhealthy : I cannot say I found it so, and I put it to a sufficiently severe test. I wished to see as much of the country as I could, so instead of going by coach, I walked up last autumn from Massi-Kessi to Salisbury, straying off the road to visit various farmers and prospectors. It was at the hottest time of a year of exceptional heat and drought, but I found I could walk all through the day without difficulty, for, although Mashonaland is near the tropics, the heat is nothing like so great as it is in India. In the valleys it is sometimes oppressive, but on the crest of the hills there is nearly always a breeze. Undoubtedly a good deal of fever occurs in the rainy season, in the low-lying districts, or where the soil has been turned up for the first time — that is invariably the case with virgin soil in every new country — but the fever is not of a virulent 2 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT type, and drink, and bad, insufficient food are as a rule more responsible for sickness tban the climate. I was weak and easily fatigued when I started, as I was suffering from tlie effects of a bad attack of in- fluenza, but by the time I reached Salisbury I felt fairly strong and well. The walk was a delightful one, through scenery of a strangely beautiful and unusual type, and it enabled me to see a good deal both of the settlers and of the natives. The former I found smarting under the vehement invectives with which they had lately, been assailed — invectives which, as a community, they feel they have not deserved. One of the leading men in Salisbury said to me, " If you are gomg to describe us at all, do try and describe us as we really are. We are tired alike of undiscriminating eulogy, and of undiscriminating abuse. We have had a hard and bitter struggle, and have made many and grievous mistakes which we unfeignedly resfret. We are doinsr our best now to retrieve them, and we feel most keenly the readiness of people at home to accept whatever tells against us, and to ignore what is in our favour. All we want is fair play. It is quite true that regrettable, that indeed even terrible things have been done; but if the circumstances are stated fairly, and allowance made for the difficulties we have had to contend with, I think even our opponents will view our conduct in a different light," And if in trying to draw this true picture I have sometimes expressed myself strongly, it is not because INTRODUCTION 3 I think the settlers in Rhodesia have behaved in a harsher or more cruel way than those in any other newly-acquired country. On the contrary, taken as a whole, I think they have been less cruel. The sub- jugation of an inferior race, in whatever part of the world it has been effected, by whichever of the Euro- pean nations, has invariably been attended, in the first instance, by oppression on the one side and reprisals on the other. Look at the conquests of the two Americas, of Mexico, and more lately of the other portions of South Africa and of Australia. Moreover, in Rhodesia allowance must be made for men who have had the terrible provocation of the murder of white women under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. In all savage warfare brutalities are invariably perpetrated by both the combatants ; but the greater publicity given to them now leads to greater censure. People who have lived in Europe in perfect security all their lives, feel very differently from their great-great- grandfathers, but the feelings of those who have to guard a hostile frontier alter but little from generation to generation ; the basis of human nature remains the same — it is always violent and forceful ; if it were not so, the world would never be opened up. The Afghan graves this legend on his blade, " In the time of necessity, when no hope remains, the hand grasps the hilt of a sharp sword." At home we have been swathed in security so long that we have almost forgotten the feeling that the sword, after all, is our 4 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT ultimate and strongest argument ; but amongst those who have to make their Hves on the fringes of barbarism, it is a feehng that exists as strongly as ever. Men who live, as it were, with the sword-hilt in their fingers, must not be judged by a European standard ; they cannot reason out quietly abstract principles of right and wrong : their peril, and too often their grief, is too great and too near them for that — they do things in the heat of conflict that afterwards they bitterly regret ; but those who sit peacefully at home are unable to com- prehend the stormy passions that have swayed them. Infinite allowance must be made for men placed in circumstances of such peculiar trial. We must remember, too, that we in England are directly responsible for all that has been done. We shrank from the task of civilising these regions our- selves, and delegated the work we should have under- taken as a nation to a community not powerful enough to perform it effectually, and these excesses have been the direct result. Earl Grey, in a despatch to Sir George Cathcart dated 2nd February 1852, uses words which might well have been used by his nephew, the pre- sent Earl Grey, in defence of the Rhodesian settlers. " In like manner," he says, " there are other considera- tions affecting the native races which ought not to be lost sight of. If colonists of European descent are to be left unsupported by the power of the mother-country, to rely solely on themselves for protection from fierce barbarians, with whom they are placed in inmiediate INTRODUCTION 5 contact, they must also be left to the unchecked exercise of those severe measures of self-defence, which a position of so much danger will naturally dictate. Experience shows that, in such circumstances, measures of self-defence will degenerate into indiscriminate ven- geance, and will lead to the gradual extermination of the less civilised race." Happily, things have not been as bad as that in Rhodesia, nor are they likely to be. The Home Govern- ment has awakened to the necessity of enforcing a more direct imperial control, and the people of Rhodesia themselves seem determined that what has happened in the past shall not happen again — that the good name of the many shall no longer be besmirched by the misdeeds of the few. Mr. Duncan, the late Surveyor-General, who during the most critical part of the rebellion was acting as administrator in Matabililand, at the luncheon given in Salisbury last November to Sir Alfred Milner, made a speech which accurately represents the feelings of the responsible portion of the community. After a few words of welcome to the High Commissioner, ho con- tinued thus : " The completion of the railway to Bula- wayo, and the anticipated extension of the railway from Beira, tend to dispel the dark clouds which have hovered over us for so long, and we may feel sure, now that the day is breaking, that our countrymen in South Africa and beyond the seas, who have watched with interest, perhaps even with amazement, the extension of the 6 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT British Dominion duriiig the past twelve years from Griqualand West to the shores of Tanganyika — we may feel sure that they, Avhether they may belong to the one great political party or the other, will wish us at this season God-speed. But we must remember that these good "washes are conditional upon our respect for the obligations imposed upon us as the representatives in this land of an imperial and of a civilising race. The nineteenth century has witnessed a softening of manners, a gentler consideration for those who are opposed to us, and for those who are beneath us, and when our methods and our actions during the past six years have been criticised, can we feel that we are free from blame ? In my opinion the people who have prepared these charges against us have not sufficiently investigated the facts, but if outrages have been com- mitted they have been perpetrated by those whom you and I contemn. Moreover, personally I am of opinion — I believe — that the proportion of cases of cruelty here, even in time of war, has been in terms of the population less than in England. But of this I am sure — the people of this country condone no cruelty and sanction no crime. They wish to live at peace themselves, and to follow their occupations undisturbed. They wish to live in amity with the native tribes, and to feel that the lot of the natives, under the rule of Great Britain, is a happier one than before. This will give us prosperity. This is the prosperity we desire." No one who has been in Rhodesia, and has made him- INTRODUCTION 7 self acquainted witli the hardships, the dangers, and the privations which the people there have to undergo, but will utter from his heart the God-speed for which Mr. Duncan hoped. One thing, too, must not be lost sight of; in redressing a committed injustice it is easy to be carried to too great a length, and to be led into the com- mittal of an injustice equally great. Whatever excesses the settlers may have been guilty of — and no one who is conversant with the facts will deny that some detest- able things have been done — the fact remains that almost unaided, and at little cost to England, they have won for her what will eventually prove to be a fair and beautiful country ; a heritage of untold value for genera- tions yet to come, when the pressure of population in the mother-land shall have become almost unendurable. In any change, therefore, that may be effected in the Government of Rhodesia, a liberal measure of justice should be meted out to those who have staked their all in the country, and have lost — many of them — not only money but health, in their endeavour to develop its resources. " Qui sentit commodum debet sentire et onus," is a maxim that applies with even greater force to nations than to individuals : if England is to reap the fruit, she must first pay for the tillage. But when I say that Rhodesia will eventually prove a valuable country, 1 do not mean for a moment to assert that it will pay a dividend to its present shareholders, as to that I am not capable of judging — it requires a mining and an agricultural expert to give an opinion ; but of this I feel 8 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT sure, that with thrift and patience it will become in time a country peopled by a fairly well-to-do population. If gold should be found in payable quantities, and found speedily, it will be spared the financial difficulties and vicissitudes which have beset the upward progress of most of our other colonies ; but even if gold should not be found, it will, in course of years, become like them the home of a frugal people who will develop its re- sources to the utmost, because their lives will be bound up with it. And should emigration from England for any reason be checked, the Afrikanders, as they are called, will gradually convert it into a habitable land, as the Dutch have the Orange Free State, where the droughts are far worse, and where, in many other ways, the conditions are less favourable. But though the settlers deserve generous treatment, the Chartered Company itself, as a government, has no claim whatever to indulgence. It has caused terrible bloodshed; it has brought unrest into the whole of South Africa (for the Bechuanaland rising seems to have derived its stimulus from the rising in Rhodesia) ; it has given cause for just suspicion to the Boers, to the Portuguese, and to the neighbouring native states ; and it has cruelly wronged and oppressed those natives who have been placed under its control. It is due to our- selves as a governing nation that it should be deprived of its powers, and that we should take over charge of the territories and peoples it has misgoverned, just as we took over charge of India. INTRODUCTION 9 For whatever allowance we may feel disposed to make for the Rhodesian settlers, our duty to the native tribes is clear. No one has asserted this more plainly than Mr. Chamberlain. " But the British Empire is not confined to the self-governing colonies and the United Kingdom. It includes a much greater area, a much more numerous population in tropical climes, where no considerable European settlement is possible, and where the native population must always vastly out- number the white inhabitants ; and in these cases also the same change has come over the Imperial idea. " Here also the sense of possession has given place to a different sentiment — the sense of obligation. We feci now that our rule over these territories can only be justified if we can show that it adds to the happiness and prosperity of the people, and I maintain that our rule does, and has, brought security and peace and comparative prosperity to countries that never knew these blessings before." It may possibly bring all these things to the natives of Rhodesia in time, but up to the present, through the neglect of the British Government to look into the doings of those to whom they have delegated their imperial authority, it has brought them neither security nor peace, nor even comparative prosperity, but only intensified misery, rebellion, and death. For these things Mr. Rhodes is directly responsible. It was he who destroyed Lobengula; it was he who evolved the idea of a charter, and induced the British Government 10 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT to grant it ; and it was he who, as managing director of the Company he had created, neglected to prevent or to punish the oppression which has brought such discredit upon the Enghsh name. He has laid down the doctrine of equal rights for every white man south of the Zambesi, but he has purposely omitted all mention of the blacks. Rhodesia has shown what his rule of them is like, and a heavy responsibility will rest upon Mr. Chamberlain if he assists him back into power, as he seems inclined to do. Fine sentiments weigh nothing in the scale against committed deeds. Mr. Rhodes' record in Rhodesia has been written in blood, and cannot be obliterated by the assertion, however emphatic, of his adherents and himself that his motives have been disinterested and patriotic. I have gone with some detail into the nature of the influence exercised by Mr. Rhodes in South Africa, because the coming struggle there will be one, not, as so many people in England believe, between the English and the Dutch, but between Mr. Rhodes, as the repre- sentative of monopoly and capital, and his opponents, as representing individual effort ; between violence and legality — between company serfage and freedom. It will be a bitter struggle, and on its outcome depends the direction in which South Africa will develop. The difference in policy of the parties is clear. In Natal Mr. Escombe has been turned out of power for being too much in favour of the Dutch. "England's might throughout the world," he asserted, " could not be sus- INTRODUCTION 1 1 tained by arms alone, but is founded on trutb, and faith, and justice," There, for the moment, the Rhodes party is triumph- ing, and one of its most prominent leaders told his constituents that " it was absolutely essential to the wel- fare of South Africa that South Africa, from the Zam- besi to Cape Point, should be under British supremacy. The thing to aim at was the carrying out on broad lines of the policy of Cecil Rhodes. Whether the methods of Rhodes were right or not was beside the issue." Mr. Rhodes himself, time after time, has illustrated the same doctrine in his policy — that the end justifies the means — a doctrine that until the Jameson raid he managed to make both the English and the Dutch accept. Now there are many, and a gradually increasing number, who agree with Mr. Schreiner in the statement he made to the electors of Barkly West : " Convinced as I am of the gravity of the evils experienced and threatened, flowing from the continued influence of Mr. Rhodes upon the institutions and politics of the colony, I could not but oppose, with what power I have, his candidature, or that of any one who would support him politically in future." What I have actually seen myself I have described, but I have tried not so nmch to give my own views as to marshal the facts that have led to the formation of those views, so that the reader may judge for himself whether they are justified or not. I have only touched upon Transvaal politics so far as they are concerned 12 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT with the Jameson raid, of which I have given a brief account extracted from the notes taken by a friend who was in a position to know all its details. He has kindly allowed me to use them just as they stand, and I prefer to give his own words, as they show how cruelly the Johannesburg people — the Judasburgers as they are often called — were misunderstood in England ; how, instead of sacrificing Dr. Jameson, it was Dr. Jameson who sacrificed them ; and how, rather than prejudice him and his officers at their trial, they kept silence whilst they themselves were being tried, although by speaking out they could in great measure have justified themselves in the eyes of Europe, and have strengthened their legal position enormously. The Rev. T. Darragh, speaking on the 17th May 1896, at the funeral of Mr. Gray, one of the Reform Committee (and he expressed truly the feelings of all who knew the inner history of the Raid), said : " Out- siders have not hesitated to call us curs and cowards, not recking of that nobler heroism which consists of self-control under provocation. I tell you I am proud of this town for its self-restraint through this terrible crisis, a sclf-rostraint only equalled by the endurance of the sixty-three hostages — now alas only sixty-two — and their reticence as to the secrets of the prison-house, and the rest of this sad business." This reticence, at a moment so critical to them- selves, has been ill repaid by the sustained reticence of Dr. Jameson and his officers, when a frank statement of INTRODUCTION 13 what really took place would do them no harm ; and the insinuations of perfidy and cowardice contained in the report of Sir John Willoughby to the War Office have naturally aroused in Johannesburg an exceedingly bitter resentment. These insinuations have been in part rebutted by Mr. Lionel Phillips in the famous article in the Nineteenth Century, which led to his being exiled from the Transvaal, but an intelligible delicacy, with which one cannot but sympathise, has pre- vented him from stating fully what actually occurred. These notes supply what Mr. Phillips left unsaid, and show with what moderation he has stated the case for his associates and himself They show, too, that though the Johannesburg people had just grievances for the repeal of which they were entitled to agitate, the Raid was not undertaken to procure reforms, but for alto- gether other motives. Unfortunately President Kruger has thrown away the advantage he then gained. By allowing himself to be swayed by vindictive feelings, by a continued denial of the just demands of the Uitlanders, by his treatment of Chief Justice Kotze, and his tampering with the administration of justice, he has forfeited the sympathy of many who originally sided entirely with him, but who, whilst recognising to the full the wickedness of the raid, are quite as fully convinced of the inherent strength of the Johannesburg cause. Should he persist in tlie unwise course he has lately been pursuing, nothing can prevent a revolt of English 14 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT and Dutcli combined, for the more enlisfhtened of the Boers are becoming as restive as the Uitlanders under the misgovernment which is impoverishing a Land so teeming with natural advantages that it might be made one of the most prosperous on the face of the earth. If any one is in doubt about this let him read the open letter recently addressed to President Steyn by Advocate Papenfus, a Free State burgher who has lived several years in the Transvaal. President Kruger will listen to no advice that comes from an English source, but he would do well to hearken to the warnings uttered by those of his own blood. The Natal Afrikander, a Dutch paper pub- lished in Pieter-Maritzburg, on the first of January 1896, immediately before the raid, spoke out very plainly : " We therefore trust that the Transvaal authorities will, in the interests of the Republic in the present complica- tions, set to work most cautiously. A single wrong step may have fatal results to the State. The Transvaal Government cannot with any show of right expect that the persons who own seventy-tive per cent, of the landed property of the Republic, and contribute nine-tenths of the whole State revenue, will allow themselves to be treated like Kaffirs. They are quite right in demanding burgher rights, although such rights cannot be granted to all Uitlanders. Those who own landed property there should get them." This was written more than two years ago, and the condition and prospects of the Uitlanders are worse now than they were then. INTRODUCTION 15 What the Uitlanders have done to make the Trans- vaal prosperous is shown by the following table, which I have taken from the annual report of the Durban Chamber of Commerce : — A. — Direct imports into the Transvaal from abroad. via Cape Colony. via Natal. via Delagoa Bay. 1895 . . 5,255,406 265,192 759,029 ' 1896 . . 6,035,920 1,554,427 1,674,031 B. — Imports from Coast stocks and South African produce and manufacture. 1895 From Cape Colony. . 1,652,740 From Natal. 717,204 From Delagoa Bay. 204,102 From Orange Free State. 926,631 1896 . 1,981,309 1,446,606 451,512 944,325 C. — Imports from, and rid fhp places named. Cape Colony. 1895 . 6,908,146 1896 . 8,017,229 xda Natal. 982,396 3,001,033 Delagoa Bay. 999,131 2,125,543 Orange Free State. 926,631 944,325 Increase ] per cent. Ji" 205 113 2 These figures show that the good government of the Transvaal is vital to the whole of South Africa, and that the other South African States have a perfect right to bring combined action to bear if its present state of misgovernmont should continue. Mr. Findlay, the chairman at the annual meeting of the Durban Chamber on the 22d March 1897, made use in his speech of these words : " As regards the future pros- 16 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT pects of our trade, I must say I find it most difficult to give an opinion. Johannesburg is the centre of South African trade, and therefore Transvaal politics are the principal factor with which we are concerned. At the present moment commercial confidence is destroyed, and it is impossible for us to see unmoved the perilous position into which the Transvaal government are bringing their country. The danger now probably arises from foes within rather than from foes without. The shrinkage in trade is only now beginning to be felt, but doubtless the shrinkage will rapidly increase. I feel sure we need not fear the ultimate consequences. No government can permanently stop the development of its country's natural resources, and we know that in the Transvaal those resources are practically unlimited. Although for a time we may have to pass through some depression, the future prosperity of South Africa is beyond a doubt, and in that prosperity Natal will par- ticipate." That Mr. Rhodes' action was altogether unwarrant- able does not absolve President Kruger from his duty to the suffering people who have made the Transvaal what it is. Moreover, his refusal to remedy their griev- ances is a distinct breach of faith, for the people of Johannesburg laid down their arms on the express understanding that this should be done. So far, how- ever, from it being done, their condition lias been made immeasurably worse, and until reasonable reforms are granted the root cause of the trouble will remain ; argue INTRODUCTION IV as one inay about the rights and wrongs of the matter, there is no getting away from that. Nevertheless, the position is one of extreme diffi- culty, for any interference from outside on the part of England is sure to produce a sympathetic action amongst the Dutch all over South Africa. A Free State burgher explained their feelings to me in this way : " If my brother gets drunk, is he not still my brother ? I may put him under restraint myself, but I will not permit any one else to do so." Besides, we have put ourselves so hopelessly in the wrong by the attitude we have adopted ever since the Raid, that it is difficult to see how we can interfere until we have at any rate made some honest effort to prove to the Republics that we have no sinister design underlying our solicitude. Like President Kruger, Mr. Chamberlain has thrown away a magnificent opportunity. The prompt action he took at the time of the Raid disarmed the suspicion which was at first felt of the complicity of the Home Government, and had he afterwards employed a dif- ferent tone to that which he has unhappily thought fit to adopt, he might have obtained substantial and lasting concessions ; but the language in which his de- spatches have been couched, and still more his ostenta- tious championship of Mr, Rhodes, have led them to believe that, though he was not privy to Mr. Rhodes' designs, he has since practically condoned them ; and that it is hopeless to look to him for fair treatment. The feeling against him is as strong in the Free State B 18 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT and in Cape Colony as it is in Pretoria. Indeed lie has done as much, if not more, than Mr. Rhodes to accentuate the cleavage between the races : a truly re- grettable result, for before the Raid they were rapidly coalescing — President Steyn's wife is Scotch ; Chief- Justice de Villiers' wife is Irish ; Mrs. Merriman belongs to one of the great Dutch families of the Cape — all through South Africa a quiet and unnoticed fusion was going on which the Raid has almost stopped. The continual rumours of war, and the jibes against the Boers with which the English papers have been filled, have done the greatest possible harm. The Dutch feel that they have been cruelly and wantonly maligned, and held up to obloquy and ridicule before the eyes of the whole civilised world, by people who have reaped the benefit of the privations they have endured in making the interior of South Africa in- habitable, privations which have prevented them from attaining to the same degree of education and refine- ment as the newer emigrants from Europe. They assert — and many Englishmen will be found to agree with them — that they gave up Dr. Jameson and his ofiicers under a promise that a fair and im- partial inquiry should be held into all the circumstances of the Raid, and that so far from that promise being kept, the inquiry was converted into what was prac- tically an arraignment of the Transvaal Government, with Mr. Chamberlain as counsel for the prosecution. A distrust has thereby been aroused which it will take INTRODUCTION 1 9 years to allay. That is the impression I gathered from all the Dutchmen to whom I spoke. They were unani- mous in their opinion about the unfairness of the inquiry. It is not too late even yet to remove that distrust, but it will be no easy task, for we must prove our sincerity by deeds and not by words, however smooth and fair. It is of no avail for Sir Alfred Milner to assert that England has no hostility to the Transvaal, whilst at the same moment Mr. Chamberlain is ardently befriending Mr. Rhodes, and thereby throwing all the weight of the English Government into his favour during the coming Cape election. But if that distrust were once removed, there would be no difficulty in bringing the joint action of all the South African States to bear upon the Transvaal for the enforcement of better government, for the Cape Colony, Natal, the Free State, and the Transvaal itself, have all at different times affirmed the doctrine that South Africa as a whole is entitled to interfere if any State should be pursuing a policy inimical to the com- bined interests of the others. What Sir Michael Hicks Beach wrote in his despatch of November 20, 1879, to Sir Garnet Wolseley, states accurately the position that England has always held, and still holds towards the Transvaal; it has been re- peatedly acknowledged, and rests on a truer basis than the doubtful suzerainty about which there has been so much pedantic wrangling: "The power and authority 20 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT of England have for many years been paramount there, and neither by the Sand River Convention of 1852, nor at any other time, did Her Majesty's Govern- ment surrender the right and duty of requiring that the Transvaal should be governed with a view to the common safety of the various European communities." Nothing that has occurred since then has altered England's position in this regard, but to enable her to intervene with any pretence of right she must first repair the wrongdoing which she has permitted. She must pay, or must cause the Chartered Company to pay, a reasonable indemnity for the damage done by the Raid, and must make it clear that her motives for intervention are disinterested and not felonious ; that she does not desire to obtain the country for herself, but only to procure better government. If she can succeed in making the Dutch believe that her professions are sincere, her task will be comparatively easy, for she will have in it their support as well as that of the English colonists. CHAPTER i Durban — Kosi Bay — Delagoa Bay — Beira — The Mozambique Company's Territory — Its Natural Products — The Beira Railway. Durban is a cliarmingly pretty town, semi-tropical in appearance, but with distinctly English ways. It is a remarkable instance of what energy and courage can make out of the most unpromising material. There are men still living who can remember when it was a mere handful of houses, scattered alonof the sea-shore, when the site of the present public gardens and of the town- hall was ankle-deep in sand, and when elephants roamed over the Berea, the hill that rises immediately behind. Its progress would have been more rapid had it not been for the difficulty of making a satisfactory harbour. At the first glance it seems an ideal position for a seaport, with a deep land-locked bay or lagoon four miles in length and two in width, connected with the sea by a narrow channel, and sheltered effectually from the heavy gales which blow at certain seasons. Unfortu- nately the mouth of the channel is blocked by a shifting sand-bar, the depth of which varied originally from eight to seventeen feet. At great expense, by dredging and other methods, the accumulation of sand has been prevented, and the water over the bar has been per- 21 22 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT manently deepened, and now, except in bad weather, all but very large vessels are able to pass in and out. Mr. Escombe, the late Prime Minister, in spite of his other multifarious occupations, has devoted the greater part of his life to this indispensable and difficult work. He is a firm believer in the necessity of a cordial under- standing between the English and the Dutch. They are, he says, like oxen ui one yoke : they cannot get away from each other, and the sooner they learn to pull together the better for both. At the same time I found him an ardent imperialist in the truest and fullest sense of the word. He believes, too, in a generous though firm treat- ment of the natives, and has done much to make them the happy people that in Natal they certainly are. But in spite of all that has been done to deepen the bar, it is still a serious hindrance to the trade of Durban. I was detained for several days longer than I intended, on account of a heavy gale which had silted up the sand so much that ships were unable either to come in or to go out. Finally, I left in the Pongola, a small but comfortable boat going to Madras to bring over coolies for the Natal tea-gardens and sugar plantations. It it is only a twenty-four hours' run to Delagoa Bay, and from there to Beira I was fortunate enough to have as my cabin passenger Don Egas Moniz Coelho, the Portuguese intendente, who represents the Portuguese Government in the Mozambique Company's territories, holding a position analogous to that held by Sir Richard Martin in Rhodesia. DELAGOA BAY 23 Delagoa Bay is not a clieerful place to live in — it is hot and exceedingly unhealthy; but the fever is not worse than it was in Durban in its early days, and every year it is diminishing and growing less dangerous in character. There is no bar, but deep water right up to the town, and in time it cannot fail to become one of the most important of the South African harbours, being, as it is, the natural port for the Transvaal. Be- tween it and Durban we passed Kosi Bay in Amatonga- land, of which President Kruger is so anxious to obtain possession. The lagoon is shallow throughout, and there is not more than two feet of water on the bar. If it has been so long and so difficult a task to make a harbour of Durban with its minimum of eight feet, it would take years of labour, and an enormous outlay, to make anything at all of Kosi Bay. In all probability, when the practical difficulties came to be considered, the project of turning it into the port of Johannesburg would be abandoned in favour of Delagoa Bay, which is already connected with the Transvaal by a railroad. The Portuguese territory stretches all the way from Delagoa Bay to Beira, a distance of 488 miles. It is a run of two days, along a monotonous coast of low hills covered with scanty scrub, fringed in places with a belt of sand. Beira is not the native name, but is the name of a province in Portugal, and the hereditary title of the heir to the throne, like the Prince of Wales. The native name is Arangua, and before 1891 what is now known as Beira was a desolate, uninhabited sandspit at 24 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT the mouth of the Pungwe River, which is joined a mile or two below the town by the Busi ; the two rivers together forming an estuary three and a half miles broad. Most of it is shoal water, but there is a channel to the open sea half a mile in breadth, and seventeen miles in length, which is well marked out by buoys, and easily followed, for sailing vessels constantly come in. There are no pilots as yet, but the Portuguese Govern- ment is having a naval survey made, and a proper pilot department is being organised. When ships have once reached the port they are in absolute safety, protected as they are by the horse-shoe banks of the estuary. The disadvantage of Beira as a port is that during neap-tides lighters cannot be brought under the crane because they cannot approach sufficiently close to the wharf, and the town lies so low, that in equinoctial spring-tides the main streets are not infrequently under water ; but a French company has been granted a con- cession to fill up and drain the creek which runs behind it, and to make a proper channel from which boats can be discharged. I should mention that the Pungwe is a tidal river navigable as far as Fontesvilla, about forty miles from Beira, and that the Busi is also navigable for a short distance. As a town Beira has several advantages. It is almost separated from the mainland by a narrow creek, and is, for East Africa, exceptionally healthy. There is nearly always a cool breeze from the sea, which blows back the miasma from the swamps that lie behind. Being on BEIRA 25 sand, there is an entire absence of the irritating dust so prevalent in South Africa ; and as the sand absorbs any rain that may fall, the ground is dry again within a very short time. But this said, there is nothing else to be said in favour of Beira, and it is wonderful that so com- paratively flourishing a place should have been created in so arid and forbidding a spot. The sand on which it is built is so loose that a tidal wave would wash it away altogether, so the Mozambique Company are having a sea-wall built at great expense to prevent the possibility of such a disaster. Another serious drawback is the scarcity of water, sea- water having to be used for wash- ing purposes, but I was told that steps are being taken to construct proper water-works which will give a supply large enough for all the needs of the town. Beira, of course, owes it existence to Rhodesia, and its future development depends largely upon the future of that country, but up to the present it has been remarkable. In 1895 only 16,772 tons of merchandise came into the port, whilst in 1896 there were 30,388 tons. The same increase is observable in everything. In 1895 the imports amounted to £157,048 as against £205,006, the transit duties rising in those years from £142,959 to £192,042 ; and the number of ships entering the port from 115, carrying 2046 passengers, to 178, carrying 6593 passengers — the port dues increasing in propor- tion from £1195 to £2644. These figures are interesting, because they show what 26 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT has been done whilst the Mozambique Company's territory is still in a practically undeveloped state, and in spite of the terrible delay caused by the rinderpest. When the Beira railway has been completed to the Manica gold-fields, and from there on to Salisbury, and when the projected line has been made from Fontesvilla to Tete, Beira bids fair to become one of the most important of the East African ports ; for just as Delagoa Bay is the natural port for the Transvaal, so Beira is the natural port, not only for Mashonaland, but for the whole of Rhodesia. That it is confidently anticipated it will become so is shown by the rapid increase in the value of land, and by the fact that most of the principal steamship lines now call there regularly. I should add that the population, which in 1893 consisted of only 319 Europeans and 722 natives, in 1896 amounted to 692 Europeans and 1929 natives. The country is fertile, and will grow maize, rice, sugar-cane, fruit, spices, and tobacco in abundance. On the his^h lands in the Gorono-oza district, north of the Pungwe, coffee will probably thrive, and cotton also. Tea has been suggested, but it will be next to impossible to make it pay owing to the difficulty of obtaining skilled labour. The same difficulty is experienced in Assam, where labour has to be imported from Bengal ; here it would be almost insurmountable. On the Busi, and in Portuguese Gazaland, india-rubber is said to be plentiful, but at present it is only brought in by the natives in a crude state, and no eftbrt has been made to MOZAMBIQUE COMPANY'S TERRITORY 27 cultivate it, though it is reported to be of exceptionally good quality; it is also said to be plentiful in the Zambesi district. Nevertheless, rapid development must not be looked for; the difficulties in the way are too ffreat, the chief beins: that of labour. The native labour as yet is unreliable, and farms could only be worked profitably by coolies. They, unfor- tunately, are not obtainable, as the Government of India very properly refuses to allow them to be exported to any but the British colonies. Not long ago some con- tractors wished to import a thousand, and took steps to have them brought over, but their agent in India was met with this refusal. In Johannesburg it is constantly asserted that any amount of labour could be obtained if the Portuguese Government did not place unnecessary obstacles in the way; and from what I was able to gather, I believe that an unlimited supply might be obtained from the thickly inhabited district of Gaza- land. But the Mozambique Company's territory is sparsely populated, and does not yield sufficient labour for the Company's own requirements; they will pro- bably have to procure it either from Gazaland or from the Zambesi. The railway, and the forwarding trade to Mashona- land, must for some time to come be the backbone of Beira, but there is every reason to hope that before long the town will also derive a substantial revenue from its local trade. Both the Portuguese Government and the Mozambique Company are doing all they can to assist 28 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT the railway, and to encourage enterprise, and it is plea- sant to find Englishi and Portuguese working amicably together, as in the main they do. When its sudden rise is considered, as well as that of Delagoa Bay, which in 1882, like it, was an uninhabited lagoon, it is evident that the Portuguese have not wholly lost the colonising instinct which at one time made them the foremost maritime power in the world. They are lethargic, and crippled by poverty, but the East African seaboard is the fruit of their early enterprise, and they have the good sense to allow it to be developed for them by the introduction of foreign capital. Delagoa Bay has been retained under the direct control of the Home Government, but Beira forms part of the district granted by Royal Charter to the Mozam- bique Company, who have been given full commercial control of the territory entrusted to them. The Portu- guese Government controller — the intendente, as he is called — the judges, and indeed the whole of the legal officials, including the Attorney-General, are, however, appointed by the Government in Lisbon, and foreigners residing in the country have the right of appeal from any decision of the Company to the Court in Mozam- bique, the capital of the Portuguese possessions in East Africa. In every other respect, the entire control of the country has been left in the Company's hands. What the Company now requires to do is to form subsidiary companies for the development of the country in detail. These companies might easily be converted MOZAMBIQUE COMPANY S TERRITORY 29 into a means of defence, and would save tlie mother company the necessity of maintaining an armed force. M. Xavier Hotter, a retired officer of the French navy, who was asked to report upon the subject, suggested that the farms should be linked together by a battery of guns, worked by an artillery corps furnished by the colonists themselves, and the sug- gestion is an excellent one. It would be an easy matter to raise enough food for an increasing black population, as rice, maize, and millet all grow in abundance. But the natives would have to be carefully watched, for they are an improvident race, and care would have to be taken to compel them to cultivate for themselves each year a certain portion of the land. Most vegetables will grow well, but for a time there will be difficulty in obtaining sufficient meat on account of the rinderpest, and transport, because of the tetze-fly. The rinderpest, however, is a temporary calamity, and when it has been stamped out may not occur again for years, and the country can easily be re-stocked from Madagascar. The fly will disappear before civilisation, as it has in other parts of South Africa. In Khama's country it no longer exists, although Baines and the earlier travellers mention it as a terrible scourge. In the Zambesi district M. Hoffor told me gum- arabic is plentiful, as well as india-rubber, and he said that both in soil and in climate the Gorongoza district greatly resembles parts of Brazil, so that coffee ought also to do well. 30 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT Subsidiary companies might well be formed to work all these products, for the extent of territory is too ex- tensive for the mother company to deal with them efficiently. Gorongoza, and the Mozambique Company's portion of the Inyanga mountains, are capable of supporting a limited white population, but it would be advisable to give colonists a free passage and free grants of land, and to supply them for a time with everything they might require in the Avay of seed and agricultural implements. Without help of that kind they would be sure to fail. Mr. Hoffer does not think it advisable to attempt European colonisation in the Zambesi district, as it is too feverish for white people to live in, and from what I saw of the coast district of Manicaland I do not think it would be advisable there either. These districts will have to be opened up entirely by native or coolie labour under the direction of Europeans. I started from Beira on the 20th September by the mail train which leaves every Wednesday morning at five o'clock, sharing a carriage with three missionaries, who were on their way to found a mission station in Mashonaland, and a colonial lawyer who had heard such o-ood accounts of Umtali that he was thinking of settling there, but was going up to have a look at it before deciding. The carriage, though dirty, was comfortable enough, but I found that carriages are only put on for the weekly mail ; on other days passengers have to sit in open trucks exposed to the rain and THE BEIRA RAILWAY 31 intense lieat, and worse still, to such showers of sparks from the engine (which chiefly burns wood) that they are not only an annoyance but a positive danger. The distance to Chimoio, the terminus of the line, is only 153 miles, but the fare is heavy, and better accommo- dation might certainly be provided for the passengers by the ordinary trains. As it is, they have to travel in the same way as the natives, who are only charged 15s., and yet have to pay the same fare — £4 — as by the mail train. Between Beira and Fontesvilla, we passed through a long stretch of flat, swampy country, for the most part thickly wooded, but in places with open glades and little clusters of trees like an English park. It is said to be full of game, but the animals have become shy of the train, and all we saw was a herd of zebras and quaggas. Lions are plentiful, as they always are where big game is abundant. The young grass comes up in the lowlands before it does in the hilly country of the interior, so the buffalo come down to the lasfoons that lie between Beira and the Busi, and where there are buffalo there are sure to be lions. One was killed on the other side of the creek, quite close to the town, whilst I was there, and farther up the line they are still uncomfortably bold. Not long before one of them sprang into a kraal, seized a Kafiir who was lying asleep, dragged him out and ate him, meeting his death soon after at the hands of some of the railway men. Captain Ewing, who was then harbour- 32 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT master, told me that at Mapandas four lions were shot from the windows of a house around which they were prowling, a feat which rivals the four lions tackled by Lord Randolph Churchill in Mashonaland. Last year some natives who were bringing a boat down from Fontesvilla came upon a lion stuck fast in the mud. It was discovered afterwards that he had been wounded by a hunter, and had taken refuge in the river, sinking so deep in the soft mud that he had been unable to extricate himself. The boys (all natives are called boys ; it does not matter how old they are) had no assegais with them, but they beat him to death with their oars. They brought the skin down to Beira, and obtained the Government reward of £2, and Colonel Machado, who was then Governor, gave them another £5 for their bravery. At Fontesvilla, a dismal, malaria-stricken railway settlement, the line crosses the Pungwe, and twenty miles farther on begins the ascent of the Manicaland mountains. The scenery is pretty, though not in any way striking, the train winding for hours up the Chiruvu hills in an open semi-tropical bush, through gaps in which we got an occasional glimpse of the blue line of hills beyond. Coming suddenly round a curve we ran full tilt into a tree which had fallen across the line, and the engine became firmly fixed in the branches — the white ants had eaten the trunk away close to the ground. Luckily we were on the up-grade, and the driver saw it in time to slow down, otherwise we might THE BEIRA KAILWAY 33 have had a nasty accident. As it was, it formed an amusmg break in the monotony of the journey. We had to get out and help to disentangle the engine, and to lift the tree off the track. The line has only a two-foot gauge, but it struck me as well maintained, for there was not nearly so much oscillation as might be expected with heavy carriages running on so narrow a gauge with steep gradients and incessant curves. There are occasional accidents, it is true, but they have not been frequent nor of any consequence. It has not been an expensive line to build, costing only — so Mr. Lawley, the contractor, told me — £2800 a mile, but the loss of life has been terrible. Fontesvilla still has an evil repute among the railway employes, and in the early days of the line the climate was deadly. Of thirteen carpenters employed on the bridge, eleven died before it was finished. Another bridge over the Revue River, not far from Massi-Kessi, although the country there is 2145 feet in height, has an even more sorrowful record ; of eighty-three white men at work upon it, eighty died or became permanently in- capacitated. Beira itself at certain times of the year is bad enough. When I passed through it in February twenty-nine men had died in four days of fever and heat-apoplexy out of a population of 780. It was the rainy season, and the moist heat was exceedingly trying ; but the people do not give themselves a fair chance, the climate induces a craving for drink and there are not many who resist it. c CHAPTER 11 Influence of the Missionaries — Massi-Kessi — Hindu Traders — Japanese Trade — Friction between the Chartered Company and the Portuguese — Jiggers — View from the Crow's Nest— The Rezende Valley At Massi-Kessi I said good-bye to my travelling-coLii- panions, the missionaries, who were going by coach to Umtah. They were all interesting men, who had taken to missionary work from conviction. They believed that the proper way to convert the natives is through the influence of conduct, and not by bringmg political pressure to bear upon them. That is to say, they did not believe in large mission stations, and native locations, or in the acquisition of political power over the chiefs. They said it is liable to be abused, and that missionaries are tempted to make use of the power so acquired to obtain concessions and other advantages for themselves, and to go into trade. None of my friends were in holy orders ; one of them was the secretary of the mission (the South Africa General Mission), another had been a minhig manager in Johannesburg, and the third was a mason. They hoped to obtain a small piece of land somewhere in the Melsetter district of Rhodesia, as far away as possible INFLUENCE OF THE MISSIONARIES 35 from the white settlers ; and the two last proposed to build a house there, and to live among the natives in the hope of converting them by example, and by an endeavour to live themselves according to the precepts of their Master. They were enthusiasts, all of them, and such ardent believers in the power of faith and of prayer, that they intended to trust to them alone, and not to quinine and other medicines against fever and dysentery, and the numberless other maladies they were going out so light-heartedly to encounter. I thought them mad, as Festus thought St. Paul, but I could not but admire their courage and respect their transparent sincerity. They told me that one of the rules of their society forbade any of them to engage in trade. It is a society that does much good work all over South Africa, and its influence is due largely, I think, to the strict enforcement of this rule. Most of the missionary societies impose a similar restriction on their members ; but it would be well if they were all to do so, for certain missionaries in Khodesia have virtually become traders, and have thereby done more harm than good. The Jesuits, I should mention, are strictly forbidden by the law of their order to do anything that has even the semblance of trading, any species coinmercii. Everywhere in Rhodesia, and in fact all over South Africa, I heard complaints against the missionaries, that they ruined the natives, and converted an originally decent folk into thieves and profligates. But when the reason of the dislike to them is probed, it will be found 36 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT to be mainly due to the ftict that they stand up for the natives, and insist that justice shall be done to them. That there have been bad missionaries, untrue to their holy calling, is undeniable. Amongst so large a number of men there are sure to be a few bad ones ; but, taken as a body, the South African missionaries have done, and are doing, a great and self-denying work. The rule prohibiting trade, and any intermeddling with politics or concessions, should, however, be rigidly enforced by all the societies. And I think that when missionaries penetrate into savage and unexplored lands, they should do so at their own risk ; that if they are murdered, no steps should be taken to avenge them. That is what the missionaries themselves desire. St. Paul, they say, had no dynamite or maxims behind him ; he went forth armed only with his staff and his scrip, and for that very reason preached mightily. Governments have been too apt to clutch at the unavoidable tragedies of missionary life as opportunities for acquisition of territory. They have used the Bible as a stalking-horse for temporal aggrand- isement — an undesirable thing, to say the least of it. The matured colonial feeling about missionar}^ work is set out very clearly in the report of the Commis- sion appointed by the Cape Government in 1881 to in- quire into native laws and customs : " While confining ourselves generally, in terms of the instructions given to us, to the consideration of the improvement of the condition of the natives by means of legislative action, we consider we would fail in our duty to the INFLUENCE OF THE MISSIONARIES 37 Government and people of the colony, if we proposed to hold that only by means of such legislative action can the natives be caused to advance, or their condition be ameliorated. There are happily other beneficent forces at work gradually remoulding their nature and character, by guiding them to superior knowledge and higher hopes, as well as training them in civilised arts and habits, and the social order of a well-regulated community. "Among the most powerful of those operating at present are the various Christian missions, which at great expense and untiring devotedness, and in spite of heavy losses and manifold discouragements, have estab- lished their agencies throughout the native territories. The influence of these agencies, in raising the natives both morally and industrially in their standing as men, can hardly be over-estimated. The printed records of the Commission contain ample evidence of the success which has attended and continues to attend such labours. A few adverse criticisms with regard to the results of their work have come to our notice, but these have not been substantiated, notwithstanding that even the best friends of missions admit and deplore the fact that what is accomplished falls far short of the objects aimed at and wished for. It is a sincere gratification, therefore, to the Commission to be able to bear its unanimous testimony to the high opinion formed, both from hearsay and from personal observation and experi- ence, of the good which is being effected, morally. o8 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT educationally, and industrially, by Christian missionaries among the native population, and we recommend that all the countenance, protection, and support which may be possible should be extended to them by the Govern- ment." On my return to Johannesburg I happened to meet Mr. Kidd, one of my missionary companions, and was grieved to hear from him that they had all been ill, and that one of them, poor Coupland the mason, had died. The Melsetter district is healthy enough, but they had to go through terrible exposure and fatigue to reach it, and Coupland must have contracted the fever on the journey. Mr. Kidd told me he was glad he had gone up to Gazaland, as it had enabled him to under- stand, in a manner he could not otherwise have done, the terrible hardships and loneliness of a prospector's life; how many of them die out on the veldt alone, without a soul at hand to cheer or to help them, and with everything to aggravate the discomforts of illness. Many allowances, he said, must be made for the short- comings of men who have to lead the rough and lonely lives of pioneers in these inhospitable regions. Massi-Kessi is a well-laid-out little town, and the scenery around it is exquisite ; but lying as it does in a valley, encircled by hills on every side, it is hot and feverish. Various attempts have been made to farm in the neighbourhood, but so far without success, and the town must depend for its prosperity entirely upon its forwarding trade to Mashonaland, and prospectively JAPANESE TRADE 39 upon the mines in the adjacent Reviie valley. Most of the local trade is in the hands of Hindu traders, called banians, who come over from Bombay and rapidly acquire great wealth. I was amused to find that gaudy parasols form one of their principal articles of sale. They are bought by the natives, not to protect their complexion from the sun, but because they like to strut about with anything brightly coloured. I bought one for two shillings, and was surprised to find marked inside it, " Made in Japan." It is a proof of the rapidity with which that country is going ahead, and how dangerous a competitor she will be to European nations in the near future, that she should have already secured a footing in the East African trade. These banians are an objectionable, insolent set of people, and a determined opposition has been made to their coming into Rhodesia. They sell spirits to the natives, and have a demoralising influence in many other ways. But if they were admitted they would do one good thing, they would rapidly bring down the price of goods, which is maintained at an umiecessarily high rate by the clique of storekeepers who at present have the control of the market. I bought a tin of biscuits at one of the banian stores, and paid half the price that I had to pay for a similar tin in Umtali, only sixteen miles away.^ I took this photograph outside a ^ Since this was written the High Commissioner has ordered the magistrate in Umtali not to refuse them trading licences, as they are British subjects, and consequently entitled to them. 40 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT store at Anclrada, of a Masliona man and woman who had come to make purchases. They chiefly buy brass wire to work into bangles, and cast-off uniforms, which they like because of their bright colours, and because they are warm. They can get a good uniform coat for four shillings which will last them for years. They say they never noticed the cold before we came, but now that we have taught them the pleasure of warmth, they feel it intensely, and buy both clothes and blankets. The wooden instrument lying at the man's feet is a Kaffir piano. It consists of pieces of wood of different lengths strung together, which are generally placed on a rude sounding-board, and tapped with another piece of wood to produce the different notes. I have one almost exactly like it, made of bamboo, which came from Burmah. The Mashonas also use a stringed instrument played with the fingers, which consists of hard wood, strung with gut, to the bottom of which a calabash, cut in half, is attached to increase the sovmd. From Massi-Kessi I walked over to the Penhalongfa valley, crossing the mountains by a Kaffir footpath which passed first through the Revue valley. On the hills on the far side I could see Pardy's mine, and the place where the fort stood which was attacked on May 11, 1891, by Captain Heyman, when he invaded the Portuguese territory. It was a Jameson raid on a small scale. That he had no justification for what he did is proved by the fact that the arbitrator, the Italian senator, Vigliani, has fixed the border several miles THE MOZAMBIQUE COMPAXY 41 farther into the intenor than the place where the fort stood. Immediately after Mashonaland was occupied, Major Forbes was asked by Mtassa, a Manicaland chief, to protect him against Baron Rezende. He thereupon came down to UmtaU, and took Baron Rezende, Colonel Andrada. Senor Paiva, and a Frenchman called Llamby, prisoners. Andrada and Llamby he took through Salis- biuy to Cape Town, where they were released. In the following year came Heyman's light at Massi-Kessi. At that time the country was directly imder the Portuguese GxiveiTiment. but in 1S9-4 a charter was granted to the Mozambique Company, which was made completely Lntemational in character, the shares being held in France, England. Gennany. and Portugal, and no group being allowed to acqiure controlling power. But accord- ing to the terms of the charter, the majority of the board must be Portuguese ; so, too. must the gOTemor and officials of the company. For some time after there was much friction between the Mozambique Company and the British South Africa Company's otiicials, who acted in an extremely arbitrary manner, and made both the Mozambique Company and the Portuguese Government justly suspicious of their intentions. They felt that the B.S.A. Company would never relax its efforts to secure possession of Beira as a port for Miishonaland. That this was not a chimera is proved by an interesting article in the Financial Reco}xi, dated Oct. 7. lS9o. which shows that even then the people of 42 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT Johannesburg fully realised the danger to South Africa of a company of imperfectly controlled merchant adven- turers. " The only trouble which the Company (the Mozambique Company) has now to encounter," says the Financial Record, "is the silent and constant pressure on its border by the B.S.A. Company in the neighbour- hood of the Sabi River. There is little doubt that Mr. Rhodes accepted with very ill grace the refusal of Lord Salisbury in 1891 to sanction the Chartered Company's steady progress towards the coast ; and the Anglo- Portuguese Convention which arrested the Company's march and reserved a fair margin of country to Portugal, together with all the sea-board, has been a source of unacknowledged irritation to it ever since. No one can wish aught else but success to the Chartered Company in its impending struggle with the Matabili, but what guarantee is there that, when it has broken up the savage hordes on its western frontier, it will not cast longing and covetous eyes on the Mozambique Company's territory? It might, indeed, prove a very useful and convenient thing for the Chartered Company, seeing that Delagoa Bay is likely to be the centre of high politics during the course of the next two or three years, to seek to embroil the Portuguese with the British in every possible way, so as to imperil the pre- sent strong maritime position as a whole. It would ill become the agents of a company professedly devoted to the exploitation and release from barbarism of the country south of the Zambesi, if it should thus seek to THE MOZAMBIQUE COMPANY 43 interfere with its peaceful and friendly neighbour, who by its able management and steady devotion to the improvement of its harbours, navigation, commerce, and mining industries, hopes to realise the objects for which it was founded. It would be a matter of little wonder if the Mozambique Company took advantage of the fact that the B.S.A. Company has its hands very full just now, and firmly demanded substantial guarantees that the present encroachments should cease." Recently things have been on a more friendly footing, and the settlers in Mashonaland cannot but feel grateful to the Portuguese authorities for permitting the English troops, in spite of all that had previously occurred, to pass freely through their country for the suppression of the Mashona rebellion. At Andrada we got some tea from a banian, who was very pleased when he found I could talk Hindustani. He said he did not care for Africa and would be glad to go back to Bombay, his birthplace, though there is plenty of money to be made in Africa. Like most others in Massi-Kessi, Europeans as well as natives, he was suffering from an insect called a jigger, which bores under the toe-nail. If not cut out at once it produces violent inflammation, which may go on for months, and sometimes becomes really serious. Half the people in Massi-Kessi were hobbling about with their feet in carpet slippers. This insect — the Pidex penetrans — is a new comer in Manicaland, and there is a theory that it 44 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT has been brought down in cotfce from Nyassaland and the Lake District. After crossing the Revue River I ascended the Pen- halonga range, reaching the highest point, the Crow's Nest, 5500 feet in height, just before sunset. The view was magnificent ; more from the marvellous colouring than from the height of the mountains. In the fading light the distant tints assumed the loveliest shades of grey and blue and purple, deepening gradually into black, whilst above them the sky glowed like a cooling furnace. I reached the mining camp about nine o'clock and received a hospitable Avelcome. It is twenty-three miles from Massi-Kessi, and a stiffish climb to the Crow's Nest, but at that elevation one does not feel the same fatigue as on the plains.^ ^ The question of licences to Hindu traders has again been brought forward. The Chartered Company still refuses to grant them ; and the Colonial Office has declined to interfere with the discretion of the local authorities. CHAPTER 111 The Christmas Pass — New Umtali — The Penhalonga Mines — General Mining Prospects in Rhodesia. The main obstacles to the development of Mashonaland are the want of transport and the want of labour. The first is being remedied by the extension of the line to Salisbury, and by the introduction of cattle from Mada- gascar to take the place of those killed off by the rin- derpest. But until the rinderpest has been thoroughly stamped out, it is not safe to introduce fresh animals ; they only keep the disease going. It was believed to have been got under last summer, but just before I left Salisbury it broke out again amongst some newly-im- ported cattle. The labour difficulty is far more serious. At present it is nearly impossible to obtain boys, those who are willing to work being engaged at once by the railway and other contractors. My own experience will show how hard it is for a private person to obtain even one boy. I was unable to get any one to take my things on from the Penhalonga valley, so I was obliged to leave them and walk on to Old Umtali to try and get a couple of boys there. I found it in a deserted condition, most of the people having shifted to the new township, 46 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT to which I had therefore to make my way. It is ten miles distant, on the other side of the Christmas Pass, which is 4450 feet in height, with a superb view ; range after range of hills of gradually decreasing height stretching away to the lowlands of Manicaland, until the eye loses itself in an empurpled haze. On the right is the rugged range of granite that intervenes between Umtali and Gazaland, and looking back over the narrow spur I had just crossed, I could see the broad valley of the Umtali River and the corrugated iron roofs of the old township gleaming white in the brilliant sunshine. It was deemed necessary to shift the site of the township to avoid the necessity of making zig-zags for the railway across the Christmas Pass, but it is a pity that it should have had to be done ; the old town, from a sanitary point of view, being excellently situated on the side of a plain sloping gently down to the Umtali River, so that a perfect system of natural drainage was secured. The surroundings of the new town are infinitely more beautiful, but it is likely to prove unhealthy, a brook running through it which even in the hot weather is not dry, and in the rains becomes a regular morass. It is being drained, but for some time to come cannot fail to be a source of ill-health. Captain Scott-Turner, the magistrate, lives on the crest of the hill looking down the valley up which the railway is to come from Massi-Kessi. His house is so close to the Portuguese frontier, that his kitchen is actually on the other side of the boundary. THE PENHALONGA MINES 47 This proximity will inevitably lead to friction, because the Hindu traders, when the town grows in import- ance, are sure to erect stores within a few yards of the border, but inside the Mozambique Company's territory, where the Rhodesia liquor law is not in force, and it will be impossible to prevent the natives from crossing over to buy drink. In new Umtali I found the labour question in the same acute form. I wasted a couple of days in trying to get boys, and was finally indebted to the kindness of a friend, who said that as it was Sunday I could take two of his. To the Penhalonga valley and back was twenty-two miles, but I saw no other chance of getting my things, and though the sun was hot I had an enjoy- able walk, the country being exceedingly beautiful, A few days later, I walked over once more to look at the mines. If gold should eventually be found in payable quantities, there are various circumstances which are greatly in their favour. The fact that the reef dips vertically from the top of the hills will obviate the necessity of haulage, and will enable the exploita- tion to be done by gravitation, and there is a waterfall 300 feet in height formed by the Umtali River which can easily be dammed for storage purposes, and will give sufficient electric power to work such of them as are in the immediate neighbourhood. But against these advantages nuist be placed the exceedingly re- fractory nature of the ore, and the difficulties of trans- port and labour. 48 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT Up to the present only rough extraction of gold by amalgam has been possible. There has been no treat- ment of the tailings or concentrates. Some of the mines have been worked now for many years, and as yet have not paid, but it is quite possible that, when the conditions are more favourable, and they can be worked on a large scale, they will yet do so. If they should ultimately prove payable, the Penhalonga valley will have the further advantage over the other gold districts of Rhodesia of being a great deal nearer the coast. There is every reason to hope that they will turn out to be of value, but it will be wise to allow the existing companies to 2^'^ove that their pro- perties are payable, now that the initial difficulties have been overcome and the railway is within easy reach. There is no reason for undue despondency — the want of development so far has been due to perfectly ex- plicable causes ; but neither is there anything to Avarrant extravagant expectations. Several of the com- panies have done solid work, whatever the result may be, and have expended large sums of money, in spite of everything having been against them, in the develop- ment of their properties. A good many others have done nothing, and it is a general belief in the district that they have not developed because they know that development will lay bare the poverty of their claims. " You must remember," a man said to me significantly " that when output begins speculation ceases." While I am on the subject, I will sum up briefly, RHODESTAN GOLD 49 what I gathered of the gold prospects all over Rhodesia. The early explorers used such extravagant language that they have discredited the country altogether. Mauch said of Matabililand, "There the extent and beauty of the gold-fields are such that I stood as it were transfixed, and for a few minutes was unable to use the hammer. . . . Thousands of persons might work on these extensive gold-fields without interfering with one another," and Baines' language was almost equally enthusiastic. Still there is no reason why gold should not yet be found, and in large quantities, for Rhodesia is an enormous tract of country, and there is no telling what it may not contain. The people who assert that there is no gold there are as little to be relied upon as the enthusiasts. When the first discoveries of gold were made in South Africa they were received with the utmost incredulity. " The stories about gold," wrote Sir George Cathcart, " are, if not entirely false, monstrously exaggerated. There is gold in Scotland and Ireland ; so there may be a little in minute particles to be found in certain places in South Africa." Lord Randolph Churchill's is by far the fairest estimate both of the agricultural and of the mining prospects of the country that I have seen : so far almost everything he has said has come true. Anything like a boom would be most hurtful to its ultimate welfare, and if not maintained might be followed by a collapse as great as that of the Panama Canal. D 50 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT I have talked to a great many prospectors, and they all agreed tliat the country is full of gold-bearing quartz reefs, and that it might be made a payable field for men working on a small scale, but that as a rule the gold is too patchy, and the reefs too distant from each other to give much of a return to over-capitalised companies. Certain mines are said to give promise of turning out very rich; and if only a few do so the ultimate pros- perity of the country will be assured. I should add that there is a strong feeling in Rhodesia that the B.S.A. Company ought to make a drastic change in its gold laws, and to foster private enterprise by reducing the existing tax of fifty per cent, of the vendor's scrip on all gold flotations. But, in fact, it has never exacted more than thirty-three per cent., and I do not think that amount can really be excessive, because in the future the Mozambique Company propose to enforce a similar contribution. What is more serious, is, that the B.S.A. Company, instead of developing the terri- tory it already has, is always gambling in more. When Mashonaland proved to be a disappointment it was said that the reefs in Matabililand were of phenomenal richness. Now Mr. Rhodes assures us that the richest portions of Rhodesia are north of the Zambesi. The tribes will have first to be subdued, though they have done us no harm. Do we intend that they shall be dealt with humanely ? It is a more important ques- tion than the possible effect of fresh annexations upon the share market. CHAPTER IV Mblsetter — The Labour Question — Andrada — The Umtali Sessions — Walk to Mr. Fischer's Farm. When I returned from the Rezende valley I was told I ought to go to Melsetter, a fertile upland 4000 feet in height, about seventy miles from Umtali, which is said to contain the best farming land in Rhodesia, but I tried in vain to get boys to carry my baggage. There were very few waggons on the road, and no stores where I could sleep or obtain food, so I was reluctantly obliged to give up my visit. It is said to be well watered, and an excellent grazing ground, but the colony, numbering in all about 300 souls, chiefly Dutch, were in such straits in 1896 for want of food that the Government had to send them supplies. There is but little communication with the outside world, the rate of transport being too high. When I was in Umtah it was £4, 10s. for 100 lbs. (£45 per ton), so that up to the present there has been scarcely any market for the farmers' produce. This has dispirited them, and as, after the manner of Dutchmen, they only grew enough grain for their immediate needs, when the rinderpest came, and their crops were destroyed by the locusts, they were reduced to terrible straits. In Umtali I was told precisely the same thing; that 51 52 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT it is of no use to grow vegetables, the market being so limited that a few bags of potatoes will flood it. But the real cause of this apathy is want of energy, for vegetables of all kinds fetch high prices, and the Hindus who have market gardens on the outskirts of the town, and the few Englishmen who have taken to gardening, have all made large profits. New Umtali had only been in existence a couple of months, and was still in a chrysalis state. Mr. Creech, an enterprising American, was draining it, and had also taken a contract for the erection of the trans-continental telegraph poles as far as Tete. He said he hoped to put them up all the way to Cairo. He had no difficulty in getting boys, for he paid them well, most of them being Shangaans from Gazaland, but it was difficult for any one else to get boys at all. They are, in fact, masters of the situation, and they know it, and are very independent in consequence, and to any one accustomed to the ser- vility of the Hindu servant class, they often seem most insolent in manner. Whatever else their faults may be, there is nothing cringing in any branch of the Bantu race. However ill-used they may be, they are very rarely abject, and they have such an inexhaustible buoyancy that the least prosperity will make them objectionably uppish. The Jesuit fathers told me they are always trying to suppress what they call the horrible Kaffir pride, but find it an almost hopeless task. Put a Kaffir in however small a position of authority over his fellows, and he will fancy himself a great man at once, THE LABOUR QUESTION 53 and presume accordingly. That is why the native police have been such a failure. Above all things familiarity with a Kaffir should be avoided ; he cannot understand it, and regards it as a sign of weakness. It is a mistake Englishmen, especially when freshly out from home, frequently make, but a Dutchman never. In Umtali, in spite of the high wages, the boys are utterly spoiled as servants ; they will leave without the shghtest warning, and they will do nothing outside the strict routine of their work unless they are paid for it. I came in one afternoon about tea-time (in South African hotels afternoon tea is supplied as a matter of course), and a man whose room was next mine told his servant to fetch me a cup. He did so, and at once asked what tip he was to get. The same boy heated some water for my bath, and when I gave him sixpence looked at it superciliously as though it should have been a shilling. Most of them are poor servants ; even when trained they cannot adapt themselves to service Uke the Hindus, and the wages they are paid are so excessive that most people do with as few of them as possible, while the discomforts of life are proportionately great. A house-boy gets £2, 1 Os. a month and his food and clothing, more than many housemaids get in England. The natives in and near Umtali are certainly not badly treated. However irritating they may be — and no one can be so irritating as a Kaffir — people are too anxious to retain their services to ill-use them. No doubt the original pioneers knocked them about a good 54 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT deal, but now they are, if anything, over-pampered, and, from fear lest they should decamp, are generally allowed to have pretty much their own way. This scarcity of labour is a serious matter for private people, but it will be a vital question when the mines begin to be developed ; until there is a regular supply of cheap and abundant labour, it will be impossible to work them at a profit, unless they should prove to be of unusual richness. When the railway is completed, they will no doubt depend mainly upon Shangaans and Zambesi boys, but if, under a firm administration, the Mashonas should regain confidence, and believe that they will be fairly treated, there is no reason why they should not become proficient mmers. They have always been skilled ironworkers, and if they begin when quite young they take kindly to the work in the mines. At first they dislike the idea of going underground, but after a time they prefer it to overground work. In the Penhalonga district they are paid 30s. a month and their food, which is equivalent to another 30s., and their hours are from sunrise to sundown, with a midday break for food. I was shown a Mashona who had remained at his work for six years without a break. This boy, however, was an exception. As a rule, they will work for a year, and will then go home for three months, coming back to the same employer if they have been well treated. Rather than wait in Umtali whilst trying to arrange for boys, I preferred to walk down the coach-road ANDRADA 55 to Massi-Kessi. The first night I slept at Hawes & Taylor's store, about eight miles away. Mr. Hawes told me he had started a market garden, and had as many as 5000 cabbages: he also told me that pigs do well, and grow remarkably fat, and he thought Mashonaland might be made a great pig-producing country, as the pig is not liable to any disease peculiar to the country, as almost every other animal is. On the following day I walked on to Massi-Kessi, where I met Captain Serejo, of the Portuguese navy, to whom Don Egas had kindly given me a letter. He represents, under Don Egas, the Portuguese Government in Manicaland. He kindly asked me to stay the night with him at Andrada, where he lives, and the next day showed me some extensive ancient alluvial workings along the course of the Revue River. They may possibly be the work of the Phoenicians in olden times, but were more probably made by the Portuguese when they took possession of the country in the sixteenth century, for the records in Lisbon show that a great deal of gold was sent to Portu- gal at that time from Eastern Africa. They have been so thoroughly exploited that little gold is to be found in them now. There are similar excavations in the Penhalonga valley, and an attempt has recently been made to work them anew, but not, I believe, with a satisfactory result. Captain Serejo had been making a number of agri- cultural experiments, and had formed a high opinion of the fertility of the country; the one thing needful is 56 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT improved transport, and cheapened goods. An iron bedstead which in England cost 14s. 9d. in Umtali then cost lOos., a 4d. bottle of stout cost 6s. ; everything was in the same proportion. It is impossible that any serious attempt can be made to develop the country until the cost of living is lowered. Captain Serejo sent a boy with me to show me the road, so instead of going back to Massi-Kessi I followed a Kaffir footpath to the head of the Revue valley, and from there crossed the intervening range of hills to one of the stores on the Umtali coach-road. The scenery everywhere was exquisite, and the view from the crest of the hill, looking both ways into the Massi-Kessi and Revu4 valleys, was singularly beautiful ; what struck me most being the softness of the tints, and the delicacy of their gradations. During my walk I came upon the only snake I saw in Mashonaland. The boy, who was walking in front of me, suddenly called out " Nyoka " (snake), and jumped to one side, and I just caught sight of something wriggling through the grass, but could not tell what kind of snake it was. There are many varieties in Mashonaland, both of venomous snakes and constrictors, but they are not often seen except by prospectors and people whose work takes them constantly into the bush. They are not common as they are in India. One of them, the spit-cobra, shoots his venom to a considerable distance ; if it should strike the eye, it will produce blindness unless washed out at once. I reached the store in time for dinner, and ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 57 afterwards walked on with a man I met to Brown's Store, seven miles farther up the road. It was a moonlight night, or we should not have ventured to do it for fear of the lions. We had a number oi pagarriisa, or carrier boys with us, who kept up a monotonous chant during the whole time to frighten them away, and still more to keep off spirits, of which they have a great dread. In India the natives do exactly the same thing. I have often heard them in the Central Provinces, when walking along a solitary road at night, shouting at the top of their voices to scare away the ghosts. When I got back to Umtali I found the Sessions had begun ; Judge Vintcent being the presiding judge. He was appointed in 1894, and has done much to enforce order and respect for the law. He is always severe when oppression of the natives is proved. In Bulawayo, not long ago, he condemned a man to seven years' imprisonment for going round to the various kraals, and giving out that he was the new native commissioner, and, on the strength of it, practising various kinds of extortion. He had a case of oppres- sion by a native policeman to try during these Umtali Sessions, and gave the man a heavy sentence ; the pro- secution being instituted at the instance of a prospector, who had come in, at great inconvenience and expense, to give evidence. The days of lawlessness are happily dying out with the pioneers. In Mashonaland it is a great thing to have formed part of the original expedition that took 58 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT possession of the country, and the title of pioneer is assumed by numbers of men who have no right to it, and who advance the most preposterous claims to indul- gence and assistance. As a rule they drink heavily, but one learns to look leniently on cb-unkenness after a personal experience of the climate. It is not merely that it is trying, but there is hardly any fresh meat to be had, and tinned salmon and bully beef do not seem to nourish in the same way that fresh food does. One gets tired of the perpetual tea and condensed milk, and a craving is set up for some kind of stimulant. There is no doubt, too, that a little alcohol is a safeguard against fever ; the difficulty is not to take too much. But though there is a good deal of drunkenness, the use of the revolver, as in America, is unknown. In Chicago and the mining cities of the West, for a man to be shot in a brawl is an everyday occurrence. I saw two men kill each other, in the middle of the day, in a crowded street in Chicago, and it hardly excited attention. I don't think there has been a single instance of the kind in Rhodesia. Moreover the law prohibiting the sale of liquor to the natives is very strictly enforced, and natives are rarely seen the worse for drink, as is so frequently the case in Cape Colony and in the Transvaal. Their liquor legislation is much to the Chartered Company's credit. A Mr. Fischer, who has a farm with his brother on the high veldt between Le Sapi and the Inyanga, asked me if I would walk out there with him, and Mr. Creech ECHATNIA 59 kindly lent me two of his boys to enable me to do so. Before I started I met Mr. Rainey, one of my missionary friends, who had not been able to get away from Umtah. He told me they had had the same difficulty as myself in getting boys, and that eventually Mr. Kidd and Mr. Coupland had gone on without them. Mr. Coupland's tragic death I have already mentioned. Mr. Kidd sub- sequently made his way back to Massi-Kessi by a direct path over the hills instead of returning by Uratali. He nearly died there of fever, and was still weak and ill when I saw him in Johannesburg three months after- wards. Mr. Rainey has remained at Melsetter. The first night we stayed at Old Umtali, Mr. Caul- field, the English Church clergyman, kindly putting me up in the church-house, as there was no room in the hotel. The next day we were delayed in starting until four o'clock, so the heat was over before we began our walk. We followed the Inyanga road until six o'clock, when we reached the Odzana River, a lovely clear stream that comes down from the Inyanga and flows into the Odzi. Here we halted, and had supper, and as before long the moon would be up, Mr. Fischer suggested that we should go on to the Odzi, ten miles farther. We left the Inyanga road on our right, and crossing the Odzana, followed a Kaffir path to Echainia, a lofty cone- shaped peak beneath which was the pass by which we were to cross the range that divides the two rivers. Kaffirs always walk in single file, placing one foot before the other, so their paths are narrow and slightly 60 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT concave. A European finds them tiring at first, as his boots do not rest flat upon the ground, and until they are hardened to it, the sides of the feet become tender. I did not Hke walking behind a string of boys, as they intercepted the view, so I generally walked in front, and Mr. Fischer caused much merriment by telling them that my camera contained dynamite, and that I must go first to throw it at any lion we might meet. They quite believed what he said, and when we sat down to rest kept at a respectful distance from it. The sun had set when we reached the foot of the pass, and the moon having not yet risen, it was very dark, and every rustle in the grass made me start, though Mr. Fischer assured me that there were no lions about, as the game had all been cleared off by the rinderpest, and there was nothing to attract them ; that they kept to the main road, where they could pick up oxen and donkeys. They had become so ravenous, on account of the scarcity of game, that a day or two before one of them had actually killed a horse in the middle of the day, whilst trotting behind the cart to which it was fastened. The main road was only seven miles away, and as they had killed three donkeys and a native there that week, I did not feel very confident that we might not come across one on his way to his hunting ground. The moon rose when we were half-way up the pass, and even in the Himalayas I have seldom seen a grander sight. Towering up above us on the left was the pointed granite peak of Echainia, on the right was THE ODZI RIVER 61 a deep ravine, and below us, stretching away for miles towards Umtali, we could see the level veldt shimmer- ing under the yellow rays of the tropical moon. We halted at the top for half-an-hour, lit a fire, and had a smoke and a rest. We gave the boys (we had nine with us) a cigarette each, and they were quite happy, sitting chattering and laughing round the fire Hke children. The Odzi was four miles farther on, the road descending steeply at first, but for the last two miles going on the level through deep sand, which the boys found very trying. It was then quite a little stream, which we could wade through easily, but in the rains it overflows its banks, and becomes a deep, impas- sable torrent. We camped a little way from it, more from fear of lions than of malaria, made a roarinsf fire, and had supper before going to sleep. The boys were in great spirits. They had plenty of oofoo, the name they give to the roughly ground meal they obtain from a kind of millet called ripoko, which is the staple food of the Mashonas. It makes a dark brown viscous porridge, which to a European palate is not appetising, but the Mashonas say it is wonderfully sustaining. I daresay it is, for it seems to contain a considerable amount of oil. We also gave them what we did not finish of our tinned provisions, the jam being especially appreciated. Mr. Fischer's boys were Mashonas from a kraal near his farm, and they held themselves entirely aloof from my two boys, who were Shangaans. I noticed that if we gave a boy anything he did not keep 62 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT it to himself, but shared it with the others. Mr. Fischer told me they always do this. The boys were quite raw and untrained, and it was very amusing to watch them. I had an unused kettle with me, and one of them came in much perplexity to ask if he was really to put it on the fire ; that it would take all the brightness away. It was the hottest time of the year, but it was chilly at night, so we undid a bale of the blankets which Mr. Fischer was taking back for trading purposes, and rolled ourselves up in them with a rifle between us, in case a lion should come prowling around. At daybreak we started again through a beautiful, well-timbered valley with great stretches of open grass}^ sward ; on our east being the magnificent serrated outline of the Inyanga mountains, and on our west the low range of granite hills that separated us from the Salisbury road, weathered into every kind of strange and fantastic shape. CHAPTER V Mashona Superstition — Rukui — Chaganguru — Agricultural Difficulties and Prospects — Comparison with Australia and Canada. The Mashonas are a very superstitious people. I noticed that they would often throw a branch as they passed by on to a bundle of branches lying by the side of the road, and was told they did it for luck. When starting on a journey, an unmarried man will put a stick in the ground by the side of a path, and pile a few stones round it. If, when he returns along that path, possibly a month or two later, he should find the stick covered with branches by passers-by, it is a sign that he will have many children. After all it is not more foolish than our counting our cherry- stones. We walked for several hours through lovely wooded country, until we came to a kraal, belonging to a chief called Rukui. The men were all out at work, but there were three or four women in the kraal, one of whom went and called the chief, an old grey-headed and very feeble man. He came supporting himself on a stick, held up by his son ; but, old as he was, there was quite as much respect paid to him by his people as if he 64 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT were young and active, for so long as a Mashona chief is alive, his authority as chief continues. When the natives spoke to him, they clapped their hands softly together as a mark of deference. He gave us some Kaffir beer in a gourd calabash, but it had only just been made, and we were unable to drink it, thougrh our boys drank it greedily. I have tasted it several times since, and cannot say I like it. It is made from Kaffir corn, and has a sour, sickly taste, but it is said to be very wholesome, and men who live long in the country grow to like it exceedingly. We gave Rukui a cigarette, which he pulled at so vigorously that it nearly choked him, and he was glad to hand it to one of his indunas. He told us that they had killed an eland the day before, so they had plenty of meat. We had seen occasional tracks both of eland and of sable antelope all the morning, but, since the rinderpest, game has become scarce. One of our boys had eaten so much the night before that he was taken violently ill, and we had to leave him behind with his load, with another boy to look after him, but they managed to come up again with us before nightfall. About five o'clock we arrived at another kraal called Chaganguru's. We did not go up to it ourselves, as it was late, but sent one of the boys to barter salt for ooffoo, and the chief came down to have a smoke and a talk. He was a remarkably fine- looking man, with regular features, and a well-shaped head, quite unlike most of the Mashonas, I think he must have had Arab blood in him, for he had a finely NIA TANDI 65 shaped nose, thin lips, and smooth hair; there was hardly anything of the Kaffir type about him. For half a bar of salt, worth threepence, we got more oofFoo than I had bought in Umtali at a store for two shillings. The storekeepers, I was told, will not sell to the natives under a certain price, so that for salt for which a white man only pays sixpence, a native has to pay a shilling. In the same way there are two prices for blankets, and for the other articles which the Kaffirs principally buy. I do not know how this can be stopped, but it is an unfair system, and naturally makes the natives feel that they are unjustly treated. We encamped that night by the side of a rippling mountain stream, at a place called Nia Tandi, taking the precaution to build a sherrti or barrier of thorn bushes as a protection against the lions. A few yards away there was a camp of boys returning to their kraals from Umtali, where they had been at work, and they and our boys kept on chattering and eating till the middle of the night. Kaffirs only begin to amuse them- selves in the evening; in the daytime both the men and the women are out of the kraal, the women sfrindmir corn, fetching water, and doing other domestic work, whilst the men are harvesting, hunting, or fishing. In the evening they sit round the fire and talk and sing until far on in the night. Next morning we had a steep hill to climb, which we were anxious to get over before the sun became too powerful, so we started an hour before sunrise. It E 66 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT consisted of a long stretch of at least a mile of perfectly bare granite, inclined upwards at a steep angle. When we reached the top, we, found ourselves on a level plain, stretching as far as we could see, which is known as the high veldt. On our left was a deep valley, on the far side of which we could see Makoni's demolished kraal, and beyond it the hills that form the Devil's Pass on the Salisbury road. We reached Mr. Fischer's farm in time for breakfast, and had a Avarm welcome from his brother, who had been laid up with a bad attack of fever. The brothers had been obliged to abandon their farm when the rising broke out, and to go into laager in Umtali ; but as soon as the country seemed fairly safe, they had returned to it, though they were warned that they did so at their own risk. They had always been on good terms with the natives, and were confident that they would not be molested. To be on the safe side, they did not go back into the huts which had previously formed their homestead, but built a fort between two huge granite boulders, in which they felt they could resist any attack. They inserted a layer of clay between the thatch and the rafters, to make the roof fire-proof, so that they could not be burned out, and they slept in a little room they had built up with stones on the top of one of the boulders, the only access to it being by a ladder which they could draw up after them. Their principal difficulty, if they should ever be besieged, would be to obtain water, as the spring is half a mile away. The fort itself is strong enough to enable a AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS 67 couple of resolute men to resist any number of Mashonas, but it would be an easy matter to starve them out. When they went back to their farm the natives were still in open revolt around Salisbury, and it required no little courage to isolate themselves in a place a good fifteen miles from the nearest police-camp. It is men like these who are wanted as settlers. They are Americans, who came out three years ago, and Mr. Rhodes, who does all he can to encourage agfriculture, gave them this farm, rent-free I believe, and they have done very well with it. Last year they raised a quantity of oats which they sold as forage to the troops, and they have also grown mealies and tobacco. They gave me some tobacco to try, manufactured by themselves, which they always smoked, but though pleasant in flavour, I found it far too strong ; probably with continued cultivation it would become milder. They told me it grows luxuriantly, and so, too, do the castor-oil plant, which is indigenous, tomatoes, and grenadillas, the latter being imported from Natal. Vegetables they found difficult to raise, chiefly on account of the insects. Farmmg is attended with many difficulties, and though they had no rent to meet, they could not make it pay by itself; where they have made their profit has been in trading with the natives, in buying mealies and ooftbo to sell again in Umtali. The principal difficulties with which they had been con- fronted in the way of farming had been the temporary difficulties of the limited market, which will improve 68 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT as the country becomes more populated, locusts, which have been very bad for the last three years, and rinder- pest, as well as permanent difficulties which are more serious. To begin with, the rainy season is too short, so the ground cannot be tilled until December. This drawback could be got over by a proper system of water conservation, for which the country is admir- ably suited. The ground does not remain fertile unless manured, and at present manuring is not possible as there are no cattle. That is only a question of time and of re-stocking when the rinderpest has been effectu- ally stamped out. Moreover, cattle manure is a coarse, hot manure, and the red soil, which is the general soil in Mashonaland, has a tendency to bind, and requires bone-dust to open it. Cultivation will also clear away the insects with which the farmer is at present plagued. They abound in every new country. What is wanted is energy, even more than manure. The country is well watered, with frequent streams which give plenty of water for stock, but there is little available for irrigation, as it lies in deep hollows. This obstacle, however, could easily be got over, as it has been in other countries, by pumping it up either by windmills or by steam power and leading it over the land. In Australia, for example, the farms in many districts are dependent for water solely upon artesian wells. Again, in some places the ground is so sandy that it is difficult to lead water through it ; but in Australia AGEICULTCFRAL PROSPECTS 69 a similar difficulty has been overcome by leading it througb pipes, and m the early days through the hollowed-out trunks of trees. Another trouble caused by the sandy nature of the soil is that, after it has been ploughed, it is so loose that a heavy shower of rain will wash the seed away ; but with proper manure to bind it too"ether a loose soil can often be made exceedingly productive. Then there are any number of insects — locusts, grasshoppers, beetles, and under- ground and overground borers ; these are found in every new country and will disappear with cultivation. With regard to stock, the rinderpest is only a passing visitation and may be left out of the question. The cattle, it is true, are subject to lung sicloiess, red-water, and other diseases peculiar to South Africa, and in places the grass is coarse and sour, but taken as a whole the country is well suited for stock. This is shown by the fact that before the rinderpest broke out there were more than five hundred thousand head of cattle in Rhodesia. Almost everywhere in Mashonaland there is a sufficiency of water for them even in the driest seasons, and there is little probability of a scarcity of grass. In case of an unusually severe drought they could easily be driven from one pasturing ground to an- other. It is said that sheep will not do well ; that the grass is too rank for them, and that they become poor and die in numbers from no apparent disease. This remark applies to the whole of South Africa, for with the exception of the Karroo, no part of it is a sheep 70 rvHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT country. I was told, however, by a man upon whose opinion I could rely, that the Inyanga and Melsetter districts will probably suit them admirably. The grass is short and turfy, and water so plentiful that there would be no risk of the droughts which are so great a danger to the Australian sheep-farmer. Pigs, it is generally acknowledged, do well ; they can be turned loose to feed on roots, and rapidly grow fat. A long-legged greyhound breed is indigenous to the country, but English pigs have been tried, and have been found to thrive capitally. Curiously enough the Mashonas will not eat them, though they will eat almost any other kind of flesh. It is probably because, like vultures, they are natural scavengers. The country is not at present a white man's country, for when new soil is turned over fever is nearly sure to result. That, however, has been the case all over South Africa. It was very bad in Kimberley when the mines were first started, and is not uncommon in Pretoria even now. Men complain, too, that they soon lose their energy, and cannot do hard manual work. That is due, I think, more to bad food than to the climate, and to the presence of the natives, for a supply of black labour always spoils white labour ; white people will not exert themselves when it is possible to make black people work for them. The worst of it is that the Mashonas are unwilling to work, and the general rate of wages is so high, owing to the excessive wages paid to boys for carrying loads, that it is impossible for farmers AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS 71 to pay the wages demanded and yet work their farms at a profit. All these are very serious obstacles to any one in- tending to settle in Rhodesia at the present time, but they are all obstacles that can be overcome. The country so far has not had a fair chance. The inci- dental difficulties of the rebellion, the rinderpest, and the locusts, have been perfectly heart-breaking, and, in addition to all that, the majority of the so-called farmers have not been farmers at all. They are simply men who have taken to farming, and expect with little or no knowledge to make sufficiently large profits within a few years to enable them to come back to England. If they do not get these profits they say the country is not a farming country, Another temporary hindrance is, that the cattle being dead, there is at present no means to till the ground. Salted oxen are expensive, and horses even more so ; and the latter will not live through the rainy season — very few survive it. They die both of horse sickness, and of lung sickness, and the same diseases attack mules. Donkeys are not affected, but they cost too much, and are too slow, and the ex- pense of getting up steam-ploughs is prohibitive. The truth of the matter is that farming in Rhodesia requires capital. For a poor man, or a man with even moderate means, to emigrate there under present conditions, is simply folly. He will only lose his money, and pro- bably also his health. He will certainly have a time of terrible struggle and hardship. 72 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT Mr. Wallace Broad, in the evidence he lately gave before the Bulawayo Chamber of Mines, summed up the question very fairly. He is a geologist and mineral surveyor, and a Dufterin gold medallist of the University of New Brunswick, and as he has been in Rhodesia some time, he is well qualified to judge. "The chances of making a fortune are greater here," he stated. "You cannot get very rich in Canada in farming, but are always sure of a competence. If a man comes here with capital and intelligence, he should do much better than in Canada. A man with £20,000 here cuts a small figure ; in Canada, in one of the smaller sized towns, he would be considered a nabob. From what I have seen of the country I have great faith in it as a mineral region, and I think it will be heard of one of these days as a great gold-producer. It is difficult to make a com- parison with Canada ; we have an abundance of water there, and irrigation is seldom necessary. Generally speaking, the conditions are quite different; for instance, here it is possible with irrigation to have two crops in one year; there you can only have one; here you have native labour, there you have none ; here you have locusts and drought to contend with, there early frosts, and often bad harvest weather. Each country has its advantages and disadvantages. On the whole Rhodesia offers as many inducements to the agriculturist as Canada, but here he requires by far the larger capital." And he might have added that for some years to come the market for produce in Rhodesia must be infinitely more limited than it is in Canada. CHAPTER VI The Inyanga — Chirimba, the Witch-Doctor — Treataient op THE Matabili and Mashona Women — Native Morality — The Flogging Question — Christianity from the Native Standpoint — The Necessity of Proper Native Locations. Mr. Fischer's farm is on a well-watered plain, over 5000 feet in height, but the hard granitic soil is not particularly well suited for agriculture ; possibly it might do better for stock. The Inyanga plateau is only twenty- live miles distant, and I was assured by people who had been there, that it is admirably adapted for both ; but like most things in Rhodesia, the Inyanga is still a region of possibilities ; its capabilities have not yet been actually proved. Mr. Rhodes had recently bought several farms from a Mr. Fotheringham, an Australian, the only person who had really tried to farm there. I met him at Umtali on his way back to Australia; a lucky man, as he had been paid a good price for his land. He spoke well of the country, but nevertheless seemed glad to be leaving it ; and the conditions of life in Rhodesia are so hard that I think most men would be glad to get away if they could. I met very few who wished to settle there permanently ; almost every one was anxious to make a little money and clear out. 73 74 RFTODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT I was sorry that want of boys prevented my visiting the Inyanga, as the scenery is said to be more beautiful than in any other part of Rhodesia, the plateau itself being over 6000 feet in height, and the peaks attaining to as much as 8500 feet. It is said that traces have been found of such extensive irrigation that it must at one time have been thickly populated, but that must have been long ago, for it is now almost uninhabited. Behind the hut in which the Fischers originally lived, is a kopje in which are the ruins of a remarkable fortified kraal. The Mashonas say it was not built by them, but by the Balosi, a people who lived in Mashona- land before they came into it. It has four separate circles of defence, composed of sconces formed by massive granite boulders connected together by strongly built walls, the masonry of which is peculiar, the stones fitting closely into each other without mortar. On the top of the rock which crowns the kopje was the chief's hut ; it could only be reached by a ladder, as the rock has precipitous sides. At the foot of the kopje, a few yards outside the kraal, is a spring of excellent water, reached by a couple of strongly fortified underground passages, so that a rush could be made for it at night with comparatively Httle risk. The fortifications alto- gether betoken a high order of intelligence. A mile or two away, on the road to the Inyanga, is a kraal belonging to a famous witch-doctor called Chirimba. We went over to see him but found the kraal empty, with no one in it except an old and CHIRIMBA, THE WITCH-DOCTOR 75 marvellously wrinkled woman. I was sorry to have missed Chirimba, and was glad when he came the next morning to pay me a visit. He said he had heard there was a white man in the country with no hair on his face (to be clean-shaven is unusual in Rhodesia), so he presumed I was a white witch-doctor. I photo- graphed him, and he went away, quite convinced, I believe, of my supernatural powers. I also took this photograph of the messenger of one of the native commissioners who passed by the farm, attended by a piccanin to carry his things, on his way to convey a message to a neighbouring kraal. He was fully armed, and besides his ritle carried another emblem of authority in the shape of a sjambok or hippopotamus- hide whip. In Matabililand these men are no longer permitted to go about with arms, but as Mashonaland was only just emerging from rebellion, it was not thought safe to send them to distant kraals unarmed. That may be so, but they certainly ought not to be allowed to go alone; they should always be accom- panied by the native commissioner to whom they inay be attached. As it is they are the scourge of the country, and like the zaptiehs in Turkey, do more than any one else to make the lives of the people wretched, and to foment rebellion. They were especially bad before the recent rising, when no trouble was taken to keep any check on them, and they are not much more trustworthy now. I was told of one who had gone into a kraal, and assaulted a Mashona woman. 76 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT The husband came running back to the kraal to protect her, and the police boy seized his rifle and shot him dead. Since I have been in England there has been a telegram in the papers saying that a chief in the Marandella district had killed another police boy for the same ofl'ence. A great deal has been written about the ill-usage of the native women both in Mashonaland and in Mata- bililand, not only by these police boys but by the white men. I think, so far as white men are concerned, it has been grossly exaggerated. Of course there have been isolated cases, and there are also a certain number of white men who live with native women ; that is not peculiar to Rhodesia, it occurs in every country where a white and black race mix. It was far more common in India, and in the other parts of South Africa, in their earlier days, than it is in Rhodesia. In Mashonaland, especially, it is rare, and morality altogether is, on the whole, higher than in most parts of England, certainly than in London. The women as a rule are well treated, and are very seldom Mashona women, who, though they are exceedingly immoral, are prevented from living with the white men by a prediction of Nyanda, the witch- doctress, that if they do they will beget snakes. In Salisbury and Umtali it is scarcely known for a man to have a black mistress, it is chiefly men who are living by themselves in the outlying districts. They generally get a woman from Zumbo in Portuguese territory, paying about £5 for her, and she almost NATIVE MORALITY 77 always has a happier lot with her white owner than she would have in her own kraal. The settlers have felt most deeply the charge of wholesale immorality that has been levelled against them. As a matter of fact they are less to blame in this respect than any people I have ever come across. In Matabililand the social conditions are altogether different from those prevailmg in Mashonaland. There the Maholi women have always been lax in their con- duct, but the Matabili women have not, because un- chastity was punished with death as amongst the Zulus and the Swazis. Now that the death penalty can no longer be inflicted, there is an almost universal demorali- sation, the women offering themselves voluntarily to the white men. In most cases they are better treated than before, and no sympathy need be wasted upon them ; but the fathers and husbands have a very just grievance, which no doubt was one of the chief causes of the rebellion. The fathers lose the ukulobola, the cattle which have to be paid for a wife, and the husbands lose their wives, for they naturally turn them away. In Natal exactly the same demoralisation is taking place. The Zulu women are not by nature moral, but, until Zululand came under our rule, they were enforcedly chaste, for the penalty was death to both parties for the seduction of any woman, whether married or single. Now the whole country is becoming corrupt, not, as so many people assert, because of the evil effect of Christianity upon the native character, but because 78 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT the tribal authority, and with it the death penalty, have been done away with, and the women are no longer afraid to give free play to their passions. To check the rapidly spreading immorality a penal clause was inserted in the Natal Native Code, making the seduc- tion of any woman, married or single, punishable with six months' hard labour; and some such law ought to be enacted for Rhodesia. How necessary it is to prevent a widespread degradation may be judged by what Mr, Cross, the magistrate of the Alfred Division of Natal, says in his yearly report, dated January 9, 1897 : "I regret to say that the morals of the natives in this division are not improving (except with those coming under the influence of the missionaries), and they are bound to get worse now that the police have received orders not to prosecute men for contravening the provisions of section 277 of the Code, unless complaints are made to them by the parents of the girls who are seduced, or the husbands of the women who have committed adultery ; this laxity to enforce the provisions of their own long -established law to the native mind means that they can do as they like. If the morals of the natives are to be improved the law of seduction and adultery should be enforced, especially as fear of punishment is the only means of impressing a thing on a native mind. This fact should not be lost sight of, viz., that the natives have to be treated like children in many ways, and if they are to be raised in the scale of morality under our government, then NATIVE MORALITY 79 the law must be enforced, and not be a dead letter as it is at present." Mr. Blake's description of the outraged modesty of the Matabili women is absurd : the difficulty is to keep them away from Bulawayo. So too is his assertion that cruelty and outrage are universal in Rhodesia. Some perfectly damnable things have been done, by men in high places, and the doers of them have not been punished — that is what has been so bad : it has estab- lished a sort of precedent of immunity ; but these deeds have been the exception and not the rule, and they have not been worse, or more frequent, than similar deeds that have been committed during the reduction to submission of every savage nation. Still the Matabili men have a very poignant griev- ance, for which a remedy ought to be provided by law. The curious thing is that it should never have been thought of, for the whole question was carefully gone into in 1881 by the Commission appointed by the Cape Government to inquire into native laws and customs. The neglect of the High Commissioner, and of the Chartered Company, to enact a law similar to that which exists in the Colony or Natal, is but another instance of the necessity of having a separate official appointed by the British Government, whose especial function it shall be to look after native interests. The evidence given by Pombani before the Commission, on behalf of the Fingoes, is both instructive and interesting. It explains the whole matter in the clearest possible 80 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT way from a native point of view : " In giving our dauirliters in inarriaQ^e we do not look alone to the cattle but to the character and standing of the man to whom we give her. We don't allow a girl to choose a husband for herself, we choose for her. Now the girls are giving us trouble in this respect, and this trouble arises through a thing called love. We parents do not comprehend this at all. In regard to the treatment of the women much depends on the character of the man. Even when ukulobola is not paid the treatment may be sfood, thousfh it is sometimes not so. Ukulobola may be paid, and the treatment may be unkind, but it is worse where ukulobola has not been paid. A man can turn round on his wife and say, ' You are only a cat, I did not pay for you.' A cat is the only living animal which we natives never buy, and cats are passed among ourselves as presents. In former days we used to compel our daughters to marry the men we selected for them. Now we have learned this is not right, and the girls' wishes are consulted ; of course I cannot answer for every one, because it might create anger. But one evil which we see resulting from leaving the choice of a husband to the girl is that they are very often seduced, and that after seduction it may appear that the man is not a fit man to marry the girl, and so we have to keep the girl at our kraals. If we complain we are told what colonial law is ; that it was by mutual consent, and the girls say it was by love. No line is imposed on the man. According to our laws, when a man has seduced NATIVE MORALITY 81 a girl, she is depreciated in value and becomes an idikazi} It is not right in our opinion that this should be so, and the man who seduces a girl should be fined, because a father cannot get cattle for her, and he would have done so had she not been seduced." In consequence of this, and the other evidence that was given, both seduction and adultery were made the ground for a civil suit by the father or husband, the measure of the damages being the custom amongst the natives in the Transkei to punish seduction by a fine of from three to five head of cattle, or more if the girl be the daughter of a chief. If the Natal law of im- prisonment be considered too stringent, there could surely be no objection to making seduction a ground for damages, as in the Transkei. A law of the kind is absolutely necessary. In India, to prevent the natives taking punishment into their own hands, adultery has been made a criminal offence, punishable with five years' penal servitude. In connection with this subject, I must add that the Dutch, as a race, are singularly free from reproach ; partly from the contempt for the natives derived from the unforgotten traditions of slavery, partly also from the austere character of their religion. There are, of course, a certain number of Dutch half- castes, but the majority of the Dutch, especially of the upper classes, are of unmixed blood. Around French Hoek, and in the Ceres district, where the Huguenots originally settled, it is curious to note how the purity of ' Idikazi — i.e. dowerless. 82 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT the race has been maintained through all these genera- tions. Not only have most of the people French names, but I noticed in many of them the dark eyes and hair, the small well-shaped ears, and the delicately chiselled features which they brought with them from their native Languedoc. Another urgent question is that of corjjoral punish- ment. I asked Mr. Taberer, the chief native com- missioner for Mashonaland, under what authority the native commissioners are empowered to flog. He re- plied that they are strictly prohibited from doing so, that it is illegal, and that they can be punished for it. I said that I had heard from prospectors and transport riders all the way up the road that they do flog, how- ever illegal it may be. I was told that if a boy will not work, or tries to run away, the usual thing is to take him to the native commissioner, and have him given twenty-five, and I found that the word " twenty- five" said in English to any of the boys was sufficient to make them grin in a sickly way — they quite under- stood what it meant. I asked a man who was ex- patiating one day on the excellence of the system for what offence it was inflicted, and he replied, for break- ing a contract. He put it in this way : " A boy engages to serve me for a certain time, and I give him food, and so if he bolts before his time is up, naturally I can have him flogged." " But," I suggested, " if you have given him food for so many days, he has also given you labour, so if he goes off without his pay THE FLOGGING QUESTION 83 you are about quits." " Well, I can't argue about it," he replied ; " all I know is, that is what is done." After a flogging, he said, a boy would do his work all right and give no further trouble, and he assured me it is the only Avay to treat natives. Most men I met told me the same thing, but Sir Theophilus Shepstone, whose knowledge of the native character was unrivalled, gave the following evidence before the Commission to which I have already re- ferred. He was asked by Sir J. D. Barry, " What would you consider to be the best penalty for disobedience on the part of a servant to a master ? Would you fine and imprison him, or would you enforce corporal punishment ? " He answered, " Fine or iviprisonmcnt would he the most suitable punishrtient for such an offence." "Would you give the magistrate the right to flog ? " "I think that in many cases of theft the magistrate should have that power." " Do the natives attach any disgrace to it ? " " Yes." There is a criminal breach of contract act both in the Colony and in Natal, but there must be a regular trial before a magistrate, and formal evidence must be given in proof of the contract ; moreover, flogging cannot be inflicted, only imprisonment, whilst in India a breach of contract is not a criminal offence at all. It is not right that half-educated men of no social position, many of them mere boys, whose only quali- fication for the work is that they know the native languages, should be entrusted with such arbitrary 84 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT powers, or rather that the illegal exercise of these powers should bo winked at by the authorities, for it is idle to suppose that they are not aware of what is going on. Is it a matter for wonder that labour is so difficult to obtain for the mines, or for any other purpose ? Mr. Rhodes told some interviewers lately that the original supply of labour had been stopped owing to Sir Richard Martin's report and to the efforts of Exeter Hall faddists. That is certainly not a true statement of the case. It was stopped by the rebellion long before Sir Richard Martin's report appeared, and the rebellion was directly caused by the oppressive treatment of the natives. I will go more into detail later on, when I come to sum up the general results of the Company's rule. Mr. Rhodes also stated that when the railway is extended to the coal-fields of the Zambesi, there will be no difficulty in obtaining boys from there. When that occurs, it is to be hoped that the High Commissioner will take measures to insure that the same treatment is not meted out to them as has been meted out to the unhappy Matabili and Mashonas. It is not pleasant to notice the way in which the latter avoid coming into contact with the settlers, and to recollect that when we first went up to Mashonaland they welcomed us gladly. Colonel Wood, who travelled there in 1887, says: "We were pleased to notice that the Mashonas seemed an honest people, as articles I lost from the waggon were found and restored by them. Their conduct was in PREVIOUS CONDITION OF THE MASHONAS 85 contrast with that of the Matabih " ; and again, " This part of the country (near the Umfiih River) is peopled by industrious, happy people who reap good harvests. There is no missionary of any sort," he continues, " among these poor people, and they are so fond of the white men that one would exercise a good influence." When one looks back over the history of South Africa, it is sickeninQ to observe how the same farce has been re-enacted time after time. First the missionary goes up, and if he is a good man, his influence becomes so great with the tribe that he seems to it almost like a god. An entrance having been thus obtained into the country, and white men received with cordiality and friendship, the chief is wheedled into giving a conces- sion, by which, before long, the ruin of the tribe is effected ; it may not be deliberately intended, but it is nevertheless effected. The missionaries have, as a rule, acted in accordance with their tenets, and so long as they have not been followed up by other white men, their influence has been almost always for good. Look at the result of their labours in Khama's country. But they open the door to other white men, and the net result in most cases has been subjugation and drink and national degradation: and in some instances rebel- lion and partial extermination. Of a truth the Africian missionary may say, " I come not to bring peace but a sword." However much one may admire the character of the individual missionary — and I for one do admire it in all 86 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT sincerity — it is liard to see in what way civilisation as yet has been of benefit to the Kaffirs. A man who knew them intnnately said to me in Cape Town, " Why should we intrude our religion upon a people like the Zulus, who until we unsettled them in their religious beliefs were really a very virtuous people." It is a knotty question — that of the heavenward way — but in South Africa we generally succeed in keeping the feet of the natives off it, and not upon it. The Zulus are an essentially logical people. " You say it is a wicked thing to drink and lead immoral lives," a Zulu said to one of my friends, " and that if we do we shall go to hell. Well, hell can't be a very bad place, for you white people don't seem to be afraid of going there. We see that you do all these things." We argue about the natives, and lay down rules for their improvement, but Ave seldom try to see through their eyes, or to understand how they feel about all that is being done for, and to them. Yet it is interesting sometimes to glance into a native's mind, as the follow- ing little essay enables us to do. It was written by a Zulu school-girl : " We often wonder if the English and the Dutch did right to take the country away from us. I don't know whether they did right to come here or not. It was right to help us to be better, and it was not right to take our land from us, and give us nothing but English government and taxes. I think they did right a little, but much more wrong. They have also brought many things that trouble us. They make us NATIVE LOCATIONS 87 pay taxes for our own houses. They do not make our houses for us either ; they give us a httle piece of land and we stay on it, and never go on to what they call theirs, and yet they make us pay taxes. Before the English came, the natives' wants were few and easily supplied, and they were not troubled about what they should do with their money, for they had none. Their children would play in the sunshine and dirt until they were satisfied, with no one to tell them not to soil their clothes, or to trouble them by calling them into school. In this way the Abantu lived." The question of locations to which this little Kaffir girl called attention, has been the cause of most of the rebellions that have taken place. A tribe when con- quered is placed on a location, often of poor ground and insufficient for its needs. This has been the case in Matabililand, where the Chartered Company were com- pelled by the Matabililand Order in Council of 1894 to set aside land for this purpose. That order did not, how- ever, apply to Mashonaland, and I believe that there an apportionment of locations has not yet been made, but that the whole of the land has been pegged out for farms, the Mashonas being allowed to remain in their kraals upon them at the sufferance only of the new owners, one of whom told me that he had endeavoured to obtain labour from a certain Mashona chief by repre- senting to him that as he and his tribe were living upon his. farm, he ought to supply him with boys. I was told, too, that Makoni, the greatest of the Mashona 8B KHubESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT chiefs, whose capture and execution I will shortly describe, felt it as one of the greatest of his grievances that his land should have been given away to strangers up to his very kraal. It must be remembered that the natives are not systematic cultivators ; that they have neither the knowledge nor the means for bringing poor land under cultivation. They only sow in patches where the con- ditions are favourable, and they require large tracts for their cattle to wander over. To restrict them unnecessarily in their migrations is the most serious injury that can be inflicted upon them. If there is to be permanent peace in Mashonaland, an amount of land sufficient for their needs must be set aside for them without delay. Sir Andreas Stockenstrom, Lieutenant-Governor of the Eastern Province, in the evidence he gave in 1852 to the Committee of the House of Commons appointed to report on Kaffir affairs, laid great stress on the neglect of this elementary act of justice as having conduced to the recent Kaffir revolt. "You must leave them the land ; no tribe can do without land ; barbarians less than civilised nations. The Kaffirs are not manufac- turers nor sailors ; if they have no corn and pasture- land they must rob or starve." In any arrangement, moreover, that is made to set aside land in Rhodesia for the natives, watch will have to be kept by the High Commissioner, to prevent it being taken from them again upon some frivolous pre- NATIVE LOCATIONS 89 text. That has been the cause of almost all the native troubles in South Africa. The Financial Record at the end of the Matabili war foreshadowed clearly what has since happened. On the 7th April 1894 it remarked: "Renter reported from London on Thursday that Sir Henry Loch has arranged with Lord Ripon a settlement of the Matabili question that will be conducive to the prosperity of the natives, and that the text of the settlement has been wired to the administrator of the Cape. South Africa generally will read this with much interest, and will be curious to see in what respect the settlement will benefit the natives. If this means that the Mata- bili are to be deprived or filched of their farms, that is of all those that are worth anything, and driven into locations within the boundaries of which they will find it difiicult to subsist, we may take it for granted that the native trouble in the Northern Transvaal will have its replica in Matabililand." It is exactly what was done, and the predicted result has followed. Mr. Car- negie lays especial stress upon this matter. " Two districts," he says, " were also reserved for native loca- tions, but these being on the whole unhealthy, have up to the present not been occupied by the natives, who dread the fever from past experience." Whether other loca- tions have vet been assimed to them I was not able to ascertain. It is not a (question that can safely be left in abeyance. CHAPTER VII Frank Xigubu — The Arms Act — Uncomfortable Walk from Makoni's Kkaal — Police-Camp at the Devil's Pass — The Headlands Store — Difficulty with my Bagamesi Boys — Lovely Scenery — Great Variety of Forest Trees — Damage done by the Locusts — Backward Character op the Boer Farmers — Gradually changing under the influence of Eailways and Civilisation. The labour difficulty had followed me even to this remote farm, and Mr. Fischer was unable either to pro- cure me boys, or to get them for himself for a trading trip he was anxious to make to the M'toko country. I had therefore to leave my luggage behind, and to walk down to the Le Sapi store, twelve miles away, to see if I could obtain boys there. The storekeeper kindly lent me one of his own, and told me to call at the farm of Frank Xigubu, the Zulu mission boy who was brought up to Mashonaland by Bishop Kjiight Bruce, and ask him if he could help me. I did so, and got a boy from him also. I found him reading to a mixed class of Mashona men and women, who seemed to be listening with an absorbed interest. I noticed many little things whilst I was in Mashonaland which showed that the natives would eagerly grasp at any means of improvement if it were presented to them, 90 THE ARMS ACT 91 For instance, two men in Salisbury told me they had overheard their boys teaching themselves the English alphabet. Every one spoke of Frank as an honest reliable man who is doinsr his best, but the means at his disposal are small. He is, I believe, no longer in the service of the mission, but is farming on his own account. From there I walked on towards Makoni's kraal, accompanied part of the time by a man I had chanced to meet. On our way we met a native carry- ing a rifle, and asked him how he came to have it when it is strictly forbidden. He explained that he had been given permission by the native commissioner, because one of Makoni's sons was reported to be in the neigh- bourhood, and anxious to avenge his father's death, and it was not deemed safe for friendly natives, who had sided with us, to go about unarmed. This ex- planation seemed sufficient, so we let him go, but several men to whom I related the incident said that it was lucky it was not they who had met him, as they would certainly have shot him on sight ; and one man, who, although a mere boy, had been an assistant native commissioner, assured me that it was an unwritten but perfectly understood law that any one coming across an armed native was justified in shooting him. When I reached Bulawayo I asked Captain Lawley, the deputy-administrator, if this was really the case, and he gave me a copy of the Arms Act of 1897, by which it is provided that a native or Asiatic found with arms or ammunition shall be liable to a fine not exceeding £50, 92 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT or be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for a a period not exceeding two years. This is not nearly so severe as the Arms Act in force on the Indian frontier. The Act, moreover, lays down that not ever}^ one, only a justice of the peace, field-cornet, or member of a duly constituted police or defensive force, may apprehend any one found in possession of such arms or ammuni- tion, and convey him before the nearest magistrate. When I left my companion it was still early in the afternoon, and, as I had the two boys with me, 1 felt sure I could not miss my way. But the view from the kraal was a glorious one, and I remained looking at it so long that it was dark hours before we reached the Fischers' farm. The boys had not been there before, and only vaguely knew its whereabouts. They lost their way completely, and we wandered on and on in the darkness until I began to think we should have to camp out— not a particularly cheerful prospect with lions about. About nine o'clock we came to a kraal high up on the side of a hill ; the dogs barked and the women shrieked, and we could see torches being carried hither and thither. The rebellion had only just been put down, and I was afraid to go up and ask the way, so I motioned to the boys to keep straight on. Luckily the kraal had put them right in their bearings, and they knew from it where they were, and in another half-hour piloted me safe through to my destination. It was not a pleasant walk, for I had no firearms of any kind with me, not even a revolver — only my camera THE devil's pass 93 — and I felt nervous about snakes, and still more about lions; but when it was over I felt glad to have gone through it, and to have experienced the intense, silent loneliness of the open veldt. The natives were burning the long grass before the rains, and the hurr}dng, crackling columns of flame, leaping along the mountain side in the moonless night, had a sublimity that I shall never forget. On the following day I bade good-bye to my kind friends, the Fischers, and started with my boys for Le Sapi. There I took advantage of a Cape cart, on its way down to Umtali, to return to the Devil's Pass, which I was anxious not to miss. On the way we passed by Mount Zonga, an odd sugar-loaf hill, which the Mashonas assert was transported bodily from Gazaland, and deposited where it now stands. The Devil's Pass I thought disappointing, and the view from it not nearly so grand as that from the Christmas Pass, but it has as bad a reputation for lions as that pass had in the pioneer days of Umtali. The night before my arrival they had killed a mule thirty yards behind the store. The mules for the coach are kept at the top of the pass, and the storekeeper, hearing a great noise in the stables, got up to see what it was, and was standing at the door of his tent when they broke loose, and stampeded wildly past. The lions must have been amongst them at the time, for on the following morning he found the spoor of two, and the remains of a mule they had killed and eaten immediately behmd the hut. In addition to the 94 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT store there is a police camp on the pass, in which the men were discontented and wretched, badly housed and utterly iincared for. The same state of things ex- isted in the police-camp at Old Umtali, where things might surely be better managed. The food served out was insufficient, and there were no arrangements for having it properly cooked ; and the men had no proper kit. They were sleeping on the ground instead of on stretchers, which might easily be made at a very small cost ; or the men might be employed to make rough stretchers for themselves ; they would be a great pre- ventive of fever. In Umtali they have the advantage of a doctor and a hospital, but in the isolated police- camps there is neither, and I heard many sad stories of untended illness and death. What is particularly hard is that recruits from England have to undergo a medical examination at Salisbury before they are finally taken into the force, and if they fall sick on the way up from Beira, before they reach Salisbury, they have to pay for their medical and hospital expenses out of their own pockets, and if they are finally rejected, they have to find their way back without pay through a country in which travelling is phenomenally expensive. The hardships experienced in the pioneer days were intelligible ; there were no means of communi- cation ; but the men understood before they enlisted that they would have to rough it, and bore their privations cheerfulty. Now they are led to believe that they are going out to a settled country, with a HEADLANDS 95 proper administration ; and if a little trouble were taken, there would really be no necessity for the way in which they are treated, Other people in Mashona- land do not have to suffer as the police are made to suffer. It is entirely a matter of faulty administration, for in Matabililand the police are in a very different state. The result of their treatment in Mashonaland is that almost the whole of the force is in a state of dangerous discontent, and I think if men in England knew the kind of life they would have to lead that very few would enlist. The principal defect of early Rhodesian administra- tion was want of system, but now, in the reaction from the original rough and ready methods, there is a great deal of useless red tape in all the departments of the Civil Service ; it needs thorough overhauling from be- ginning to end. From the Devil's Pass I returned to Le Sapi, and from there walked on to Headlands, with a couple of boys kindly obtained for me by Mr. Ross, the native commissioner. I sent them on by the main road and walked myself across the veldt with a Mashona guide, through the exquisite mountain scenery of which Professor Bryce has given so vivid a description. At Headlands, which is 5200 feet in height, I found a Mr. Pretorius and his brother combining farming and store-keeping. They have built for themselves one of the few brick houses between Umtali and Salisbury, and have a comfortable homestead with a fair amount 96 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT of stock, upon which they have chiefly relied for a hvelihood. They have not done much in the way of cultivation, but the soil around them is rich, and they mean to make a beginning this year. Their farm is situated in an extensive valley, the greater part of which is composed of rich black loam which they say is exceedingly fertile. They have already made a little garden to which they have led water from a distance of over half a mile, and have grown with success peaches and apricots and most kind of vegetables. There used to be a kraal on the hill at the back of the store, but the natives attacked the store during the rising, and the kraal was demolished by the volun- teers. The Mashonas in consequence have moved farther away, making labour difficult to procure. Mr. Pretorius was not able to get me boys, but I managed to arrange with a transport driver to take my luggage up on one of his waggons. Owing, however, to a misunderstanding with the boys who had come with me from Le Sapi I was obliged first to return there. I had reached Headlands late in the evening, and they did not turn up till the following morning, having stayed at a kraal on the way for the night, for Kaffirs will never walk at night if they can possibly help it, for fear of the wild beasts. They arrived just as I was going to breakfast, and patted their stomachs in token that they wanted food. Mr. Pretorius gave them some ooftbo and told them to go to the boys' quarters to cook it. He also told NATIVE LABOUR 9? them that I should probably require them to go on to Macheki, another twelve miles. He said they did not seem very willing, but thought we might be able to induce them to go after they had had their food. When I came to an arrangement with the transport rider, I sent for them to give them their pay, but found that after eating their breakfast they had gone off without saying a word to any one. They were to have been paid two shillings each, a very fair wage for a day's work; it was the price I had been told to pay by Mr. Ross, and is the ordinary rate of wage in that part of Mashonaland. The natives certainly have no ground of complaint with regard to the prices paid them for their work. They are much better paid than labourers in England. The difficulty is that they have no desire to work for any wage, however great, and have practi- cally to be forced into doing it. I was a good deal vexed when I found they had gone, for they were Mr. Ross's own boys, and I did not like him to think I had swindled them out of their pay ; I was curious, too, to discover the reason which had prompted them to go away unpaid after a hard day's work, and I knew I could catch up the waggon in a day or two, if I went back first to Le Sapi to see him, and explain the matter. Mr. Pretorius was going part of the way to get a plough and some other things from a farm belonging to a Mr. Williams, which lies a little off the main road, and I was glad to accompany him. I think I have never seen a more beautiful stretch of country, and in G 98 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT places it seemed very fertile. It was here that the first settlement of Dutchmen and Afrikanders was made in 18131, Fate has been adverse and there are none of them left: they have all died or gone elsewhere. Before the rising Mr. Williams' farm was the model farm of Mashonaland. He had a considerable area under cultivation, and was really doing well ; but during the rebellion everything went to rack and ruin. The house, a well-built brick house, was still standing, thousfh with broken windows and smashed-in doors, and with weeds choking up the little garden. It was a sad picture of the harm wrought to the country by the rising. We saw a few buck on the way, and found afterwards that we had just missed a herd of sable antelope, two of the men from the police-camp getting several of them. On the way Mr. Pretorius showed me a Mashona game-trap, a deep pit, filled at the bottom with sharp-pointed stakes on which the animal is impaled, and covered over by a deceptive network of earth and boughs. I reached Le Sapi at midday, to find that Mr. Ross had shifted his quarters to the police-camp six miles away, on the new road along which the railway is to * come, and when the heat of the day was over I set off by the Kaffir footpath, which [ was told would lead me to it. I found it difficult not to lose my way, for in places there was a regular network of intersecting paths, but I knew the direction and the telegraph poles helped to keep me right. I mention each day's wanderings NATIVE LABOUR 99 because I was told in Beira, and even in Unitali, that it would not be safe to go off the high-road, and that between Headlands and Salisbury even the high-road was insecure. Certainly, so far as Headlands, the people seemed perfectly submissive ; for, a stranger to the country as I was, and absolutely ignorant of the language, I never met with the least unpleasantness. And there are really very few natives. One may travel for miles without meeting one. Mr. Ross was surprised to see me, as his boys had not said a word about not having been paid. They had told him I wanted to take them on to Macheki, but that as that would bring them into the territory of another chief, they had declined to go. They never like going out of their own district, Mr. Ross said, and that was in itself a sufficient reason for them to forego their pay. I found afterwards there was probably one which was even more powerful. In not a few instances men have taken boys on and on beyond the place to which they originally agreed to carry, and have then not paid them, and these boys not unnaturally said to themselves, " When this man gets to Macheki, he will probably want us to go on to Marandellas, and perhaps even to Salisbury, and he may not pay us at the end of it. We have worked a day without pay, but it's better to work a day for nothing than to work a week." They had gone back to their kraal, so all I could do was to give Mr. Ross the money, and he kindly arranijed to send it out to them. 100 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVEHNMKNT The weather was lovely, not too hot, for there had been an occasional thunderstorm, and the forest was so beautiful that I would gladly have wandered about in it for several days longer ; but it was uncomfortable being separated from my things, so I went straight back to Headlands ; this time by the new road. It was the Mashona spring, and the trees were in full foliage. I noticed one covered all over with a delicious-scented mauve flower, but no one was able to tell me its name, or if it has any use. Many of the trees in Mashonaland seem to be unknown both in the Transvaal and in the Colony. Fig-trees were numerous, the figs growing oddly enough not on the branches, but clustered thickly upon the roots and trunk. Kaflar oranges, too. were very common. They are a species of strychnine with a vivid green fruit, about the size of an orange, which turns when ripe into a brilliant yellow. The pulp is refreshingly acid, but it is not safe for a European to eat many of them. They do not seem to hurt the Kaffirs, for their hard shells may be seen lying about wherever the natives have been camping : I often used the broken pieces as a drinking-cup. I did not see many flowers, though I was told that the veldt would be covered with them as soon as the rains had fairly set in : but I came across a good deal of the pretty but dangerous little blue tulip, which works such devastation among the cattle and sheep. The Dutch call it " snakehead," from the resemblance of the flower to the erected head of a snake. Almost all the waggons in the road had been LOCUSTS 101 delayed by it, and some had lost a number of their oxen. It seems to contain an irritant poison, which makes the animal swell up, and causes great pain. Sheep are affected as well as cattle, and care must be taken to keep them from grazing on land where it is likely to be found. Sunflowers grow to a great size, and when people besfin to turn their attention to something else than gold, they might be cultivated profitably for the sake of their oil, as they are in Russia and Sclavonia. The country was looking its worst, although it was spring, for the locusts had destroyed every green thing. There are several kinds, but all equally destructive. They seemed to me a little smaller than the Indian variety. The agricultural department in Salisbury have tried to destroy them with a fungus, with which a few are inoculated and turned loose amongst the others, but I believe without much success. At night they settle on the trees, and become torpid with the cold, and in the early morning, before the sun has awakened them, they rest on the branches with folded wings, turning the whole forest into a rich brown, like the russet tints of autuTnn. The natives eat them greedily, and so do most animals ; pigs, dogs, and fowls especially, are all ravenously fond of them. After all they are only essence of vegetables, but white people have an aversion to them, much like that of the Scotch to shrimps : they do not seem quite canny. The principal forest-tree is the M'sassa ; the wood is good for nothing but firewood, for 102 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT it is subject to the attacks of a boring insect, which renders it unfit for timber, but the bark is stringy and exceedingly tenacious, and the natives make an excellent cord from it. There is another tree called by the natives " Gonte," from the bark of which they also make game-nets, and neatly woven bags, so close in texture as to be almost waterproof. Mr, Lingard, of the agricultural department, told me that experiments are being made to test its commercial value. There is also a curious tree with a hard, woody pod, which bursts with a spiral twist, and shoots out the seeds with a sharp crack. The first time I heard them bursting I fancied some animal near me was treading on loose branches, the noise is so loud. There are a great number of other trees, acacias, mimosas, and euphorbias, and a large variety of the sugar-bush, a species of protea. The castor-oil plant grows luxuriantly everywhere, and the natives use the oil for smearing their bodies and hair ; it makes them smell most vilely. I bought a Mashona pillow to which the smell of the oil still clings tenaci- ously. It is a curiously carved piece of wood, about nine inches in height, with a slightly hollowed out cavity for the neck to rest upon. Mr. Pretorius also gave me a Mashona battle-axe and a beautifully carved tinder- box, made out of the end of a pumpkin, and filled with an inflammable pith. This is held in one hand w^ith a piece of flint, which is struck sharply with the other with a circular bit of iron. They carry it, as they do their snuff-boxes, in a hole pierced in the lobe of the THE BOER FARMERS 103 ear. I succeeded in getting a pretty little snuff-box made of horn, but tlie Masbonas have now taken to making them of empty cartridge cases, and snuff-boxes of their own make are becoming uncommon. Wild cotton is abundant, and is of good quahty. Mr. Lingard showed me some in Salisbury that had fairly good staple. In Cape Colony oaks are an important industry, and there is no reason why they shoukl not do well in Mashonaland. In Ceres the forty-year-old oaks are magnificent, and the oak avenues in Stellenbosch are known all over Africa. The Dutch plant them in the Ceres district, for the sake of the acorns, upon which they feed the pigs. They will only grow trees which yield a crop. What timber they require they obtain as a rule from the poplar, and firewood chiefly from a species of protea; but they only use fires for cooking, and not to sit by as we do. When it is cold they go to bed with their clothes on, and cover them- selves over with skins and blankets. They say it is not healthy to sit by a fire in a room, and as they hermetically seal their rooms, which have no chimney, I daresay it is not. When a fire is made in a room, it is made on the hearth, and the smoke finds its way through the rafters. They cook in an annexe on an open hearth. I am now talking of course of the Boer farmers, who live in out-of-the-way districts, and come little into contact with civilisation. The great drawback to South Africa is the backward- ness of the Dutch, and the restless, floating character of 104 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT the English. The only remedy is the gradual education of the former, which will result, and is every day result- ing, from the opening up of the country by railways, and by the consequent increased intercourse of the rural population with that of the towns.^ ^ It may be asked what proof there is, beyond floating gossip, that even in the early days the Mashonas were treated harshly or with injustice. In a letter dated 26th April 1892, addressed by the High Commissioner, Sir Henry Loch, to the Secretary of the British South Africa Company, with regard to the shooting of N'Gomo, Sir Graham Bower used the following words : " I am to add also that the punish- ment inflicted in this case, involving tlie loss of some twenty-three lives, appears utterly disproportionate to the original offencf^, which was the theft of some goods from a Mr. Bennett;" and Mr. Fairfield on .Slst May 1892, wrote on behalf of Lord Knutsford, " The full report would, in Lord Knutsford's opinion, have justified much stronger terms of remonstrance than were used by the High Commissioner." CHAPTER VIII The Story of Makoni I HAVE mentioned that I spent some time at Makoni's kraal. He was the principal chief in the district that lies between Manicaland and Mashonaland, between which the Odzi River forms the border. Originally M'tasa claimed to be his overlord, but Makoni for a long time past had succeeded in making himself in- dependent. Neither he nor M'tasa had ever paid tribute either to Lobengula or to Gungunhana. These powerful monarchs had attacked both of them many times, but had always been obliged to retire discomfited. When Mashonaland was taken possession of in 1890, M'tasa coquetted for a while with the Portuguese, with a syndicate of Natal merchants, and with the Chartered Company. Ultimately he accepted a pay- ment of £100 a year from the Chartered Company, and placed himself under its protection. This the Chartered Company construed to give them authority over Makoni also. Makoni always chafed under the seizure of his country, and in 1894 he killed a native policeman who had been misconducting himself, and in various other ways showed a restive spirit. He seems throughout to have been on bad terms with the autlio- 105 100 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT rities, but to have imiformly treated individual settlers with kindness and consideration. What annoyed him most Avas the pegging-out of the whole of his terri- tory for farms or gold claims. This made him justly indignant. Such was the position of affairs in June 1896, when the Mashonas around Salisbury broke into revolt, and murdered Mr. and Mrs. Norton and their child, the governess, and an American who was staying with them. Mr. Norton had gone to a neighbouring kraal, and was shot on his way back by order of the witch- doctor. At the same time another party of natives attacked the house and killed all the inmates by volleys from the outside. It is believed that they defended themselves heroically to the last, and killed a great number of their assailants, Mrs. Norton shoot- ing several with her revolver. The bodies were not touched, and were buried by a patrol sent out hastily from Salisbury. Mr. Norton's body was only found in November, when Major Harding rode out and buried it by the side of his wife. These murders were the first intimation the people in Mashonaland had of the serious character of the revolt. Other murders followed in rapid succession, and all around and to the north and east of Salisbury there was a general feeling of alarm, which gradually spread into Manicaland. But even before that there had been symptoms of disaffection, and on the 3rd April the settlers had been ordered to come into Umtali, because fires had been seen at THE STORY OF MAKONI 107 night near M'tasa's kraal. It was generally believed that he was going to rise, but one of the settlers with great gallantry rode out alone and had a conference with him, and was assured that the fires were only bush-fires. His coolness probably saved M'tasa from meeting the same fate that befell Makoni. The people went back to their farms and mining camps until they were electrified with the news of the murder of the Nortons at the end of June. On the 25th of that month they were all warned to come into laager again, but those who were nearer Headlands than Umtali were directed to form a laager there. Next day all the people in the laager moved down to Umtali without being attacked on the way, though there were many positions on the road which they would have found it difticult to get through had they been defended. For a whole month the district was deserted, and the abandoned stores and farm- houses were naturally looted by the Mashonas, but they were not destroyed ; three traders, however, Metcalfe, Richards, and Hitchman, were murdered at a kraal not far from Headlands, by one of Makoni's sons, and by the son of another chief called Tandi. But Makoni's son had been on bad terms with his father for some time past, and there was no evidence to connect Makoni with the murders ; indeed, there was no time for him to have given any orders in connection with them, for the men had gone unexpectedly to the kraals to get food, and their murder was sudden and unpremeditated. Up 108 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT to the moment, too, of his death, Makoni disclaimed all responsibihty for them ; and as a rule when a native is face to face with death, if he has done the thin^ of which he is accused, he will confess to it. On July 2Sth, Colonel Alderson, Avho had arrived from England with imperial troops, attacked his kraal with 350 men. Major Haynes of the Royal Engineers and two men were killed, and, as Makoni had retreated into the caves below the kraal, and could not be ofot at, the troops retired after burning the kraal and driving away the cattle. Makoni's loss is said to have been heavy. Colonel Alderson then marched up the Salisbury road, leaving fifty men of the West Riding regiment and some volunteers at Le Sapi, about eight miles from Makoni's. This garrison remained there inactive for nearly a month, and not only did Makoni take no hostile action, but on the 13th of Auo'ust he sent in two of his indunas with an offer of surrender if his life were spared, but the High Commissioner wired that he would be tried, and would have to show that he had no complicity in any of the murders. On the 20th of August Major Watts arrived from Matabililand with sixty volunteers and fifteen waggons. It is said that on the 26 th Makoni again sent his head induna to sue for peace, and that shortly before the second attack he made a last despairing effort to save himself by sending in yet another induna with half-a- crown, as a token that he was ready to pay his hut tax. The money was refused, and again no attempt was THE STORY OF MAKONI 109 made by those in authority to confer with him in person. On the 30th, Major Watts made a night march, and attacked his kraal at daybreak with one seven- pounder, 130 of tlie UmtaU vohmteers, and fifty men of the West Ridino- resfiment. Makoni retired at once into his caves without firing a shot, nor did he at- tempt to make any resistance until the caves were assaulted. For four days they were surrounded, and every effort was made with dynamite to force him to surrender, and he Avas told repeatedly through Tom the Cape boy, who acted as interpreter, that if he came out his life would be spared. On the ord September Tom again urged him to give himself up, and he decided to do so; but as he was coming out of the cave, one of the volunteer officers caught hold of him by the arm, and dragged him out, asserting that he had taken him prisoner. His people then gave in, and came straggling out of the caves. The effect produced by the dynamite had been terrible, and the stench from the dead bodies was overpowering. Makoni was put in a hut by himself, and the indunas had a separate guard placed over them, the remainder of the natives being surrounded by a ring of sentries. Durine: the nisrht several of the indunas succeeded in effecting their escape, and it was feared that if Makoni should escape also, the whole district would be in a blaze, and that the safety of Umtali itself might be endangered. A court-martial was therefore convened to try him, one of the native commissioners being 110 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT appointed to act as interpreter, and as liis defender, lu spite of his assertion that he was innocent, he was found guilty of being a rebel, and of having caused the murder of the three traders : he was therefore sentenced to be shot, and the sentence was carried out at once. He was placed with his back to a corn-bin, on the edge of the precipice on which his kraal stood, and died with a courage and dignity that extorted an unwilling admira- tion from all who were present. One of the best known men in Salisbury, when talking to me about it, said, " I know of nothing grander than Makoni's death, than the quiet way in which he spoke to his people, and told them to abstain from further resistance ; for himself he only begged that he might be buried decently. ' And now,' he said, ' you shall see how a Makoni can die.' " He fell dead at once, and was buried under a tobacco- tree close by where he was shot. He complained bitterly at his trial that he had not been given a fair chance; that no one had ever attempted to confer with him, or to accept his overtures for peace. I believe he does not lie where he was buried, for I was told by a man who knows the tribe well, that his body has been removed secretly, and lies with his fathers in the place where the Makonis have been buried for generations. Major Watts, without doubt, acted honestly for what he deemed the best to insure the safety of a number of helpless people. What he did was much like the THE STORY OF MAKONI 111 shooting of the princes at Delhi, an act concerning which the judgment of India is still divided. He was put under arrest by order of the High Commissioner, was tried by court-martial and was acquitted, but was not finall}' released until the High Commissioner had gone through the papers, and had satisfied himself that his acquittal was justifiable. The evidence brought before the court Avhich tried him has not been pub- lished, but presumably it shows that he acted in good faith, and that he and the officers who constituted the court believed that Makoni did not give himself up to the Cape boy, Tom, but that he was taken prisoner by the officer who brought him out. It is true that Makoni was a rebel, but the High Commissioner's proclamation, dated 13th October 189G, declaring that from that time continuing in armed resistance would be punishable with death, had not been issued, and apparently the only law in force was the Matabililand Order in Council, dated 10th September 1894, clause 25 of which enacts that " In case of a revolt against the Company or other misconduct committed by a native chief or tribe, the Administrator and Council may impose a reasonable fine upon the offender. The Administrator shall forthwith report every such case to the High Commissioner, who may remit the fine in whole or part; the Administrator shall give effect to any such remission." The punishment seems curiously inadequate, but it was evidently anticipated, when this Order in Council 112 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMKNT was framed, that the natives might possibly not always submit quietly to the foreign yoke which had been imposed upon them, though not that they would rise to the extent they did ; and it was apparently intended that, after they had been reduced to subjection, they should be treated with leniency and consideration. The words are explicit, " in case of a revolt against the Company, or other misconduct, committed by a native chief or tribe." When Makoni had been taken prisoner, the only penalty, therefore, to which he would seem to have been legally liable, was that imposed by this clause ; and it must be remembered that before the attack he offered to surrender if his life were spared. Subsequently a proclamation was issued by the High Commissioner, dated 22d October 1896, by which any officer or any other person who had committed any act during the rising, which might have been illegal, is exonerated and protected from any consequences to which he might have made himself liable by such act, provided that it was done bond fide. This was only right and fair, for at that time the attitude of the imperial authorities towards the natives was one of extreme severity, and officers cannot well be blamed for having acted harshly. The proclamation does not, how- ever, make the treatment of Makoni any the more legal, if it were not so originally, or lessen the harshness of his execution. It only shifts the onus of it directly upon the High Commissioner and the British Government. THE STORY OF MAKONI 113 Mr. Rhodes has been ruthless in his deahngs with the various native chiefs — I mean in the way in which he obtained his concessions, and then broke down their power — but during the rebelHon he has always pleaded earnestly for clemency. I have been assured by those in a position to know that the severity that has attended its suppression is directly referable to the punitive measures adopted by the imperial authorities in oppo- sition to his advice; that from the first he has urged the expediency as well as the justice of mercy — that bygones should be bygones, and that a general amnesty should be granted. His advice has not been followed, and the consequences have been disastrous, as 1 will show when I come to deal with the treatment of those accused of murder during the rebellion. However one may try to palliate what was done to Makoni, it is impossible to blind oneself to its in- justice, or to the effect likely to be produced upon the other chiefs. Natm-ally they were afraid to give up their arms, or to surrender when attacked ; they pre- ferred to take the chance of escape, or to be dynamited in their caves. They have lost all faith that we Avill keep our plighted word, for, in common with many of the white people, they believe Makoni was coming out under the impression that he had been promised his life, and it will be a difficult matter to regain their confidence. Sir George Cathcart laid down in 1852 the only true method of dealing with natives. " It is evident," he wrote, "the main secret of governing these native H 114 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT tribes is inviolable good faith, an innate sense of justice and truth being jjerhaps the only virtue they can appreciate, and for which they have among themselves, as well as in their intercourse with others, a natural respect. This opinion is perhaps contrary to colonial prejudices. It is nevertheless true, and should be re- spected, not only on motives of justice, but of policy." Of course equally harsh things were done in the Indian mutiny ; and had it not been for Lord Canning's vigorous action in putting a stop to them — Clemency Canning, as he was called in India — they would have gone on being done for some time after the mutiny had been quelled. I was always being told this in Rhodesia, but I do not think one wrong excuses another. The revenge we took in India was terrible. It always is when there is a conflict between races of different colours. It is the outcome of the amazed anger of the dominant race, that the subject race should dare to oppose them. But in India there was far more excuse for this anger than there has been in Rhodesia. There the rebels were soldiers who had sworn allegiance to us, had eaten our salt, and had been in our pay for years. In Rhodesia they were a people struggling bravely to regain possession of a land of which they had been forcibly dispossessed, and who had many grievous wrongs to avenge. I can quite understand that the settlers in Rhodesia, when they heard of the murder of white women, and came upon their mutilated Ipodies, should have seen red, as the phrase goes, but it THE STORY OF MAKONI 115 is only fair to the natives to remember that they also had been seeing red for some years past, and that they naturally avenged themselves when their turn came. It is a vicious circle, that will go on until the country is placed under a firm and responsible government. A man said to me once, a man, moreover, holding a good position : " I look upon the natives as merely superior baboons, and the sooner they are exterminated the better. If you had seen the bodies of murdered white women — women whom you had known — you would feel just the same." I have not the least doubt that I should, but when one judges the matter dispassionately, one cannot but perceive that the murder of these poor white women lies not at the door of these ignorant savages, but at the door of those who believe that the natives are merely superior baboons, and who, unhappily, have too often treated them in accordance with that belief. When I think of Makoni's dynamited kraal, of all the tragic horror of his death, of the silent valley once the habitation of an inoffensive and happy people, where now not a sign of any human habitation is to be seen, Pringle's indignant words, written more than sixty years ago, but as true, alas, as they were then, come into my mind : — " From Keisi's mead, from Chumi's lioary woods, Bleak Tarka's dens, and Stormbei'g's ragged fells, To where Gareep pours down his sounding iioods, Through regions where the hunted bushman dwells, That bitter cry wide o'er the desert swells, 116 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT And, like a spirit's voice, demands the song That of tliese savage haunts the story tells, A tale of foul oppression, fraud and wrong. By Afric's sons endured from Christian Europe long." Time after time, after each successive Kaffir war, whether waged by imperial troops or by the colonists themselves, similar deeds have been pointed out, but again and again they are repeated, until one despairs that a stop will ever be put to them. What strikes most any one used to Indian methods of dealing with natives, is the lack in South Africa of any effort by Government to insure for them impartial justice. The colonists look mainly to their own in- terests, and the natives have no one to represent them, or to fight their battle. Men like Mr. Rose-Innes, Mr. Solomon, Mr. Merriman, Mr. Sauer, Mr. Beard, Major Tamplin, and Mr. Hay in Cape Town, and Mr. Escombe and a host of others in Natal, as individuals, do all they can to stem the tide of injustice, but there is no recognised official to represent them, standing altogether aside from party politics and the promptings of self- interest; and until the office of High Commissioner is separated from that of the Governor of Cape Colony, and the interests of the natives are placed under his especial control, so long will rebellions and native wars continue. In India the civilians have a tradition jealously handed down by each successive generation, that the welfare of the natives has been committed to them as a trust, and they scan in the keenest TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES 117 possible way any proposals that may prove prejudicial to them. In Africa no such tradition exists ; on the contrary, the tradition is not of protection but of spoliation, and disgraceful episodes, like Langabilele's and Galishwe's rebellions, are the result. The natives of South Africa vastly outnumber the white people; they are as much the Queen's subjects as the natives of India, and deserving of the same just and equitable treatment. They have never received it, but it is not yet too late to give it to them. " Under the rule of the colonists," says Mr. Froude, " the natives would be doomed to inevitable degradation. Under such a rule as that which we maintain in India, they will have a chance of rising if it be in them to rise." Ask the natives themselves, and they will tell you that they always prefer to be under imperial control. Look at the supreme effort made by Khama, when he visited England, to prevent his being placed in sub- jection to the Chartered Company. Look at the fate that has befallen the Bechuanas directly they Avere handed over to the Cape. Look at the Basuto war, and at the prosperity that has prevailed in Basuto- land since it was again placed under the imperial authorities. Tengu Jabavu, the Kaffir editor of the Iinvo, a news- paper printed in the Kaffir language in King Williams- town, said to me, " Pray God that Basutoland never passes from out of the hand of the Queen." It is the prayer of every native who has studied the treatment ol 118 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT his race during tlie last fifty years. It Avas Lobengula's desire to deal directly with the Queen, and to place himself under her protection. It was Gungunhana's desire also. Had their wish been complied with they would not have met the fate they did. In 1889 the former sent two of his indunas to England under the charge of Mr. Maund, and he sent with them this letter : " Lobengula desires to know that there is a Queen. Some of the people who come into this land tell him there is a Queen, some of them tell him there is not. Lobengula can only find out the truth by sending eyes to find out whether there is a Queen. The indunas are his eyes. Lobengula desires, if there is a Queen, to ask her to advise and help him, as he is much troubled by white men who come into his country, and ask to dig for gold. There is no one with him upon whom he can trust, and he asks that the Queen will send some one from herself." The Queen sent a gracious reply, but the Chartered Company, before four years were over, had forced him into war, and obtained possession of his land. Lobengula was brutally cruel both to his own people and to the Mashonas, but nothing can justify the way in which he was treated by the Company. If any one doubts this, lot him read the blue-books, and read also what has been said about it by Mr. Mackenzie, who, more than any one else, was in a position to know the truth. Is it to be wondered at that the natives all over Africa are beginning to lose the faith they once had in EXTENSION OF OUR EMPIRE 119 English honour, and in English fair-dealing, and to believe that their interests count for nothing in the commercial scale ? It is not a question of little Eng- landism ; every one who has studied the matter is agreed that in the interests of the natives themselves Africa must be opened up, and that we are the people best qualified to do it. We have permitted some dread- ful things to be done, but nevertheless we have never treated the natives with anything like the cruelty or the injustice with which they have been treated in those parts of Africa which have come under the control of the other European nations. There is no reason why we should shrink from the work before us ; we have put our hands to the plough, and we must keep them there until we plough a straight furrow : it is a great and a noble work — only let us do it in a cleanly way. We are perpetually being told that we shall produce a dangerous irritation amongst the colonists if we inter- fere with or criticise their native policy, but in these new territories that we have taken over it is we, and not they, who have made ourselves directly responsible. " Wo should maintain firmly and resolutely," said Mr. Chamberlain, " our hold over the territories that we have already acquired, and we should offer freely our protectorate to those friendly chiefs and people who are stretching out their hands towards us and seeking our protection and our interference." By all means let us extend our empire, but let us insist that the people whom wo incorporate shall be 120 RHODESIA A-^B ITS GOVERNMENT treated justly, and that their condition shall on the whole be bettered. It is a bastard imperialism that thinks of the interests of the few rather than of the interests of the many : it is a truer, broader feeling which embraces our black fellow-subjects as well as our white. Unfortunately in the absence of any special person to watch over their interests, and to represent their case in England (for the High Commissioner as Governor of the Cape Colony insensibly becomes iden- tified with the Cape colonists, and adopts their views), the natives can seldom obtain the fair hearing to which they are entitled. For that reason it is desirable that the two offices should be separated, and without delay. The proposal was, I believe, seriously considered some years ago, but was negatived on the ground of the expense to the English ratepayer. If we look upon our imperial obligations in so mercantile a way, we ought to be more chary about the acquisition of fresh territories, for if we permit them to be acquked we clearly become responsible for the welfare of the people whom Ave find in occupation. The native question, and not the antagonism of English and Dutch, will before lons^ become the most vital of South African questions. Upon the way in which both the colonists and ourselves deal with it depends the country's happiness and progress. The colonists must answer for the treatment of the natives in those territories over which we have given them control, but it lies upon us to see that in those that are IMPORTANCE OF THE NATIVE QUESTION 121 still subject to us our rule is upright and just ; that, to use Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson's words at Bulawayo, their administration is entrusted to "men trained in and imbued with the great traditions of British liberty ; men who will be just and straightforward in all their dealings; men who will not be turned from the right path by sudden and temporary gusts of popular passion ; men who will not be afraid, in spite of adverse criticism, to condemn that which they know to be wrong, and to cleave to that which is right." But to bring this about we must not content ourselves with barren criticism. We must give our criticism practical effect. Rhodesia is passing through a terrible financial crisis. There is very little money in the country, and it seems likely that for some years to come very little money will be got out of it. If we are sincere in our Imperialism we must take over the administration, and we must pay for it. To govern a country well there must be a high class of officials, and to obtain a high class of officials there must be good status and high pay. That is what India taught us long ago.^ ^ Sir Charles Warren wrote in 1884 with regard to the taking over of Bechuanaland : " (a) It can be done in a manner actually beneficial to the native ; (b) It can be done by violence and by the destruction of the native races. The carrying out, however, of such a policy as that under (a) is a matter of the very greatest delicacy. It can only be carried out by Imperial officers, who must have no stake whatever in the commercial interests and speculations of the country." CHAPTER IX Uneasiness of the Settlers, but possibility of another Rising very remote— Salisbury distinctively an Admini- strative Town — Colonisation Schemes of the Scottish Africa, Limited, and United Rhodesia — Sir George Cathcart's Proposal in 1852 for a Military Colony in Kaffraria — Similarity of the Amatolas and the Inyanga. From Headlands to the Maclieki River is a stretch of twelve miles of flat, marshy country, which looks as though it might prove very fertile under cultivation. I had joined a prospector who was bicycling up to Salisbury, and as we started late, it was night before we reached the store. Here and there the roads are too sandy to cycle over, but as a rule they are not at all bad. Bicycles, however, are not common; they cost so much. I met a man who told me he had exchanged his for two cows, which, at that time, were worth £35 each. Now that the railway has reached Buluwayo they will become cheaper, and on account of the scarcity of horses will be a veritable godsend. My companion was evidently nervous, for he declared that a bush-fire we saw in the distance was in reality a beacon -fire, like those which were lighted at the beginning of the rising. He told me he had been out prospecting a fortnight before on the Odzi River, and UNEASINESS OF THE SETTLERS 123 had come back because of the threatening attitude of the natives : that a number of them armed with assegais had collected round him as he was sitting down to smoke, and had told him, in a very insolent manner, that several of the chiefs had not yet been knocked out. All the way up the road I found the same uneasiness prevailing. At Marandellas a man told me he had been fired at from a kopje only the morning before, and he strongly advised me not to walk on alone to Graham and White's, the next store, twenty miles away, as I should not reach it before dark, but to stay the night with the waggons on which my baggage was. I knew they were about half-way between the stores, and, on consideration, I thought it safer to do so. The transport riders had heard the same reports, and sat up half the night with their rifles, to be ready in case the natives should attempt to steal the cattle. When I reached Salisbury the police officers all laughed at these fears. They said they were utterly groundless, as the natives had quite given in, but I found that the prospectors did not feel at all confident that they had. I met two who had just returned from the Mazoe district who said that the natives there were most hostile in their demeanour, asserting quite openly that they would not pay hut-tax. There was a good deal of feeling among the prospectors that the country should have been reported to be safe when it was really not so at all. Many men had been thereby induced to come out from England, thinking they could get to work, whereas they 124 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT had been obliged to stay for months in SaUsbury, where everything is exceedingly costly, doing nothing, and using up what small capital they had. They said that Mr. Rhodes ought never to have announced, as he did, that the rebellion was over when Colonel Alderson left the countr}^ in December, eight months before; that, in fact, the Mashonas at that time had not been subdued at all. Not far from Marandellas is the kraal of a chief called Chewara, where Lieutenant Morris, of the Uintali volunteers, was killed whilst gallantly rescuing Lieu- tenant Leigh Lye, who had been shot in the leg just in front of a cave. Morris and Lieutenant Hampton jumped down to pick him up, and managed to get him away in safety, but in doing so Morris was killed. His brother is a native commissioner in the Marandellas district, and is liked and respected both by the English and by the Mashonas. In spite of his brother's death he seems to have acted throughout with the most admirable humanity and self-restraint. The majority of the native commis- sioners have not been fitted for their work; but some, like Mr. Morris, have, as Lord Grey says, done their duty under circumstances of great difficulty. In the little graveyard near the store is the grave of Major Evans, of the Sherwood Foresters, who was killed during the attack on Gadzi's kraal. Marandellas lies very high, considerably over 5000 feet, and is the highest point between Umtali and Salis- bury. Beyond it the scenery alters in character, losing MATIANDELLAS 125 the variety and beauty of Manicaland, and becoming flat and monotonous. Marandellds is, in fact, tbe extreme end of the vast plain that stretches from Buhiwayo to SaUsbury. How Httle this plain varies in height may be judged by a comparison of the heights of the prin- cipal places — Bulawayo, 4900 feet, Charter, 4750, Salis- bury, 4960, Graham and Wliite's, 5130, and Marandellas, 5600. The rise from Umtali, which is only 3705 feet in height, is very gradual, and the railway will have an easy gradient. It should be an easy line to construct, for the country offers few natural difficulties. There is plenty of water, and no necessity for tunnelling. I found it slow work staying with the waggon, so I walked on ahead, carrying the few things I required with me. As far as Marandellas there was plenty of water along the road, but from Marandellas to Salisbury scarcely any. It was a year of exceptional drought, I believe, for even the Makabusi was stagnant, and in places quite dry — a very rare occurrence. All the way the road was strewn with skeletons of dead mules and oxen, and the streams were full of the whitened bones of the animals that had just had strength enough to crawl into them to die. At first I felt some repugnance to drinking out of these streams, but I soon got over any squeamishness of that kind. Still, the less one drinks of the water in Mashonaland the better, how- ever thirsty one may be : it is sure in time to produce fever, and for the same reason also it is dangerous to bathe in the rivers, especially in the daytime when the 126 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT sun is on the water. It almost invariably brings on an attack. Salisbury is a pleasant little town, very different in tone from the restless youthfulness of Umtali; it has all the sedateness of a seat of government. There is a charming, though rather a limited society, and a good deal of social intermingling. I stayed there nearly a month, and enjoyed my visit immensely. I can quite understand the strong feeling of attachment to the place which all Salisburians have. The climate was delightful, for the rains were just beginning. An occasional thunderstorm kept down the heat, and there was generally a strong breeze, which, with the clear atmosphere and bright sunshine, made life a pleasure, and not a burden, as it is in so many tropical countries. Towards the end of my stay Sir Alfred Milner passed through on his way to Beira, and was entertained at a luncheon in the town-hall. It was an interesting function, more so in many ways than the railway festivities at Buluwayo. There the people were in all the elation of a long-hoped-for boom, whereas in Salis- bury they saw no chance of relief coming to them for many months. But there was a resolute hopefulness in the speeches, that made one feel what grit there is in the country, and brought with it a conviction that in spite of all its difficulties it will go ahead and prosper whether gold is found in it or not. Exclusive of the police, Salisbury has a population SALISBURY 127 of not more than seven hundred people, but it is not in the least like a pioneer town. There is very little drink- ing, except occasionally when a prospector comes in for a fling. It has quite a character of its own, being neither commercial nor provincial, but purely official. As soon as the railway reaches it, and the cost of living is lessened, it ought to become a charming little place. Mr. Milton was acting as deputy-administrator. He has had a long experience of South Africa, and in his capacity of Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister's department in the Cape he drafted the Glen-Grey Act (the measure on which Mr. Rhodes' reputation as a legis- lator chiefly rests), for the enforcement of compulsory native labour. The Chartered Company are to be con- gratulated on having induced him to transfer his services to themselves — though what is their gain is the Cape's loss — for no man is more likely to deal fairly with the black population as well as with the white. He has a herculean task before him, but the general feeling was that he would prove equal to it. I was glad also to meet Mr. Orpen, the surveyor-general, who all through his life has been an indefatigable worker in the cause of the natives. I found him an ardent imperialist, holding that England, although she has made many mistakes, has used her influence in the main for the true interests of South Africa, and more particularly of the natives. His son, who had just come up from Melsetter, where he has a farm, spoke in the most hopeful way of the future of that district - an opinion, 128 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT I may add, endorsed by various transport riders whom I had met along the road. They all agreed that in time Mashonaland would be a fine agricultural country. Half the people who decry it are wastrels who would do no good anywhere. I am indebted, too, for much infor- mation to Mr, Fairbridge, the editor of the Rhodesia Herald, and the first mayor of Salisbury. In spite of all that has occurred, he has a buoyant and contagious belief in the ultimate prosperity of Mashonaland. Whilst I was in Salisbury I went out to the Jesuit mission station at Chisha-washa, about twelve miles away. It is a charming little place, and the fathers have endeared themselves to every one by their kind- ness and hospitalit}^ They are doing wonderfully good work too ; the same kind of industrial work that the Trappists are doing in Natal. The general system of Jesuit teaching is by having day-schools if possible, so that the home influence may be maintained ; but in Rhodesia, where the kraals are at great distances from the mission stations, and are comparatively small, it is necessary to take the children in as boarders, which is the Trappist system. This will be gradually changed into a day-school system as soon as the home influences are improved by means of the converted children, who will gradually marry, and introduce a better condition of things into their kraals. The married converts are the basis of every Jesuit mission, and as yet there has been no time for them in Mashonaland. At present they trust chiefly in incessant work. They say if the COLONISATION 129 children are not at work they are in mischief, so they are taught to read, to sing, to carpenter, and to garden. In spite of all the drawbacks of insects, and a hitherto unbroken soil, they have done great things in the way of cultivation, and are full of hope of the agricultural future of Mashonaland. Before I left for Bulawayo I had also several long talks with Mr, Duncan, the late Surveyor-General, who is now managing the affairs of the Scottish Africa, Limited, and with Colonel Raleigh Grey, who had just arrived from England to look after the interests of the United Rhodesia Company, These companies are determined to devote their energies to agriculture as well as to mining, and both Mr. Duncan and Colonel Grey were deliberating about advising the adoption of some scheme of colonisation by which a desirable class of settlers could be attracted into the country. Some such scheme was contemplated as that which is frequently adopted in America ; by giving alternate blocks to settlers on condition that they will bring them under cultivation in a certain stated time. The terms offered will have to be very liberal, for life in Mashonaland is too uncomfortable for any Englishman to care to settle there, unless he sees a chance of making a competence within a reasonable time, which will enable him to return to England. In America the way railways have often been made is by promoters selecting a tract of country which, in their opinion, will yield a handsome return under cultiva- 130 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT tion. A grant is then obtained from the Government of alternate sections of land, on condition that the rail- way shall be constructed within a certain time. A portion of the company's capital is thereupon set aside for the purpose of assisting desirable emigrants, and a plough, cows, seeds, and such-like things are advanced to them upon credit, together with a small plot of land, which becomes absolutely their own after a certain number of years of occupation ; the money expended for these purposes being recovered by the company by graduated payments. The ground is allotted in alternate plots, one on each side of the line. The railway is thus begun, and by the time it is completed there is a demand for carriage of the grain already grown by the settlers, which at once brings in an income ; and the settlers having proved the capabilities of the land, the intermediate plots can be sold for an enhanced value. In this way whole districts are populated with great rapidity. A somewhat similar method will have to be adopted by the Rhodesian land companies, if they wish Rhodesia to become rapidly developed. Here, however, they would be met with the deter- mined opposition of the Chartered Company, which, for some reason, will not permit any one to build rail- ways except itself But it has given away the land wholesale, so that there is none available for any whole- some scheme of government immigration, and coloni- sation can consequently only be worked through the COLONISATION 131 agency of the various companies to whom the land has been alienated. One of the worst features in the de- velopment of a new country by a chartered company is the concentration of interests in the hands of a few powerful companies or persons. It mortgages its capa- bilities from the outset, and disheartens and cripples healthy individual effort. This is particularly notice- able in Rhodesia. The Austrians had much the same problem before them in Bosnia when they occupied it in 1878. The land there in olden times was renowned for its fertility, but the Turks had allowed it to 2^0 out of cultivation, and it had become swampy and malarious, and the market, as in Mashonaland, was extremely limited. It did not seem an encouraging field for emigration, but Austria established thrifty colonies of Poles, Bohemians, and Germans, giving them the land on easy terms, and liberal assistance for the first three or four years. Now they are doing well, and the whole country has increased in value, their example giving a wholesome stimulus to the original inhabitants. Settlements of the same nature, and of the same kind of people, might possibly succeed in Rhodesia. Sir George Cathcart pondered over a similar diffi- culty after the Kafhr war of 1852, and the conclusion he came to is in many ways applicable to Rhodesia generally, and especially to the Inyanga and Melsetter districts : " Outside of this hilly region, and to the east- ward, but bounded on the north side by a ridge of hills, 132 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT a spur from the Amatolas called the Kabousie Range, there is an extent of some fifteen miles by ten of pasture- land, where the river Kabousie, an important tributary to the Kei, receives its sources. This is plain open grass-land, only slightly undulated, and to the south- ward some equally good pasture-land brings the verge of this territory, heretofore belonging to the tribe of Sandilli, within a few miles of this place. I am thus particular in describing the locality, as it is that in which I should propose the experiment of locating a military population of Swiss emigrants, formed in the first instance of two regiments of 700 or 800 men each, with a view to ultimate colonisation, according to the scheme which is already under your lordship's (Earl Grey) consideration, and based on a system some- what analogous to that of the enrolled pensioners in New Zealand. British military pensioners in this colony have not been found to thrive, possibly owing to their unsteadiness and want of combination, whereas a national colony of people, who proverbially cling together, and are thrifty as well as expert marksmen, and accustomed to mountain districts, when organised in villages would, I firmly believe, be able with due assistance and support at starting to keep their own afterwards and thrive. Their almost immediate contact with the place, and easy communication from thence with the port of East London, would open to them a market, and insure supplies ; and such people, uncon- nected with politics and prejudices, which distract the COLONISATION 133 mixed community within the colony, would, as the loyal garrison of a great central citadel, control and secure the whole of British Kaffraria, and supply the place of several regiments which must be otherwise required for its occupation." And in a despatch to Sir John Paking- ton he says: "British military pensioners have been tried in this country, and have proved a failure, and in two out of three villages which were established close to the border, nearly all the male inhabitants were murdered at the opening of the war. Although I am inclined to think the precaution of establishing some rallying-post in the midst of each of these villages might have effectually prevented that calamity, the intemperate and idle habits of too many of the class of British military pensioners, and a natural carelessness and contempt of danger, would render them unfit to be placed with safety in an alpine district, the nature of which renders constant vigilance peculiarly essential to security. " From what I have seen, the country is so analogous to Switzerland, and so capable of feeding sheep as well as cattle on the most luxuriant pastures, and abounding with the finest water, I am convinced - that such a colony, if it could be formed, would not only flourish and maintain itself, but prove the means of rendering this territory ultimately remunerative, instead of a burden to the British nation, and serve at little expense as a secure barrier for the protection of this portion of the extensive frontier of her Majesty's South African 134 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT dominions " (Correspondence of Sir George Cathcart, pp. 46 and (30). From all I have heard of the Inyanga and Melsetter districts, Sir George Cathcart's description of this valley in the Amatolas might very well apply to them. It will be seen that his scheme is much the same as that of the armed agricultural settlements suggested by M. Hoffer to the Mozambique Company. The Scottish Africa. Ltd., were deliberating about getting settlers up from Natal and the Colony, but I doubt if they would succeed as well as a colony of thrifty Poles, or of Bohemians or Swiss. English settlers are out of the question ; they would never submit to the hard conditions of life that must prevail in Rhodesia for many years yet. They would not have the necessary patience. If Rhodesia is to be colonised, it must be either by colonials or by Boers who are willing to put up with the rough lives of pioneers. But the colonials have in great measure adopted the customs of the Dutch, who are essentially a pastoral and not an agri- cultural people. Like them they covet enormous tracts of land where their stock can graze unrestrained, and they will not cultivate the land acre by acre as the continental nations do. That is why the German colony near Grahamstown has been one of the few successful experiments of the kind in South Africa. The Inyanga may of course prove valuable for huge sheep-runs, worked with large capital, in which case it will remain in the hands of the companies who have COLONISATION 135 monopolised it, and men with moderate capital will be unable to compete with them. But South Africa as a whole, except perhaps the Karroo, cannot be said to be a promising field for sheep, as compared with Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, or the Falkland Islands, and it is more likely that these districts would succeed, not as sheep-farms, but as the home of a frugal agricultural population — working, not to make a fortune, but to make a living; not for a foreign market, but for the wants of their own community. It is only in that way that a really prosperous country can be built up out of Rhodesia ; it is too far from the seaboard to compete with India in wheat, or with Australia, or New Zealand, or Canada, either in wheat or in stock, and its products are excluded from the Transvaal, by far the most lucrative and the most constant of the South African markets, by the prohibitive import duties. But in spite of all these drawbacks an Afrikander population, aided by a few thrifty Germans or Poles, with no rapid ambitions to distract them, will make Rhodesia prosperous just as they have made the Free State prosperous, and their task will be one of less difficulty. That state was abandoned by England in 1852 because it was believed that it could never be made of any value, and, yet, though it will never be a rich state like the Transvaal, it is now one of the most quietly well-to-do, contented, and well-governed of the South African States. CHAPTER X Composition of the Force under Sir Richard Martin and Captain De Moleyns — Attack on Seki's Kraal — The M'toko Patrol— The taking of Shaungwe — Assault on Mashanganyika's Kraal — Death of Paris. When I left Umtali at tlie beginning of October the Mashona rebellion was hardly over, the last of the important chiefs only surrendering about the 15th of September. Colonel Alderson had effectually secured the safety of the towns, but though he had driven the chiefs into their fastnesses, he had not broken their spirit. His instructions had been to restore communi- cation between the towns, and then to evacuate the country, leaving the police to deal separately with the various chiefs, kraal by kraal. It would have been too expensive for the Chartered Company to retain the troops longer than was absolutely necessary. When therefore Captain de Moleyns, of the 4th Hussars, took over charge under Sir Richard Martin, in December 1896, of all the troops and police then in Mashonaland, it was found that it was not only impossible for pro- spectors to go out alone to the mining districts of the Mazoe and Lomagundi, but that it was even unsafe for them to venture more than a few miles out of Salisbury 136 THE MASHONALAND POLICE 137 itself without an armed escort. It was evident that this state of affairs could not be allowed to continue, and that, whatever the causes might be which had led to the rebellion, and whatever sympathy might logically be felt for the Mashonas, it was absolutely imperative for the future well-being of the country that they should once and for all be effectually subdued. Natives always attribute forbearance to weakness, and if Ma- shonaland were to be retained in white occupation — of which there could be no question — it was necessary to deal sternly with the chiefs so long as they re- mained in opposition, and to defer treating them with indulgence until they had been reduced to absolute submission. Captain de Moleyns was not, I should mention, under the orders of the administrator, but of Sir Richard Martin, who had succeeded Sir Frederick Carrington as Commandant- General, and who in addi- tion was the deputy of the High Commissioner, and the representative in Rhodesia of the British Govern- ment. After careful consideration. Sir Richard Martin came to the conclusion that, with the meagre force at his disposal, it would not be safe to take the offensive until the rainy season was over, and the men under Captain de Moleyns' command had become in some measure habituated to the climate, and to the nature of the work before them. His whole force consisted of 200 of the British South Africa Company's police, fifty of Colonel Alder- 138 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT son's mounted infantry, who liad elected to join the police when Colonel Aldorson left the country, 400 of the Umtali volunteers, and 130 natives. The police were totally untrained, and unused to the country and its ways. They had been enlisted in England, and when Captain de Moleyns assumed command they had, as a matter of fact, not arrived, but were on their way from Beira to Salisbury. Many of them had contracted fever, and all were undrilled and unaccustomed to discipline. The natives, too, were equally undisciplined and unreliable ; most of them having to be disbanded, and fresh men enrolled. The volunteers formed the garrisons of Salisbury, Umtali, and the different laagers, and were not available for service in the field. A patrol was sent out early in December to Nyam- medha's kraal, on the Hunyani River, eight miles to the south-west of Salisbury, to ascertain the attitude of that chief He remarked ironically that if the white men would pay him hut-tax, he would allow them to remain in Salisbury, and several other chiei's were equally insolent. They were not anxious, they said, to fight, but they declined positively to pay hut-tax, or to give up their guns. This being the disposition of the Mashonas, it was apparent that a serious struggle was ahead. The total force available for offensive operations amounted in all to one hundred of the police, and seventy-five of the native contingent ; and, until May, they suffered so terribly from fever and dysentery that the sick-list varied from 25 per cent, to 50 per ATTACK UPON SEKI 139 cent., and in the low-lying districts rose sometimes to as high, as 75 per cent. Obviously nothing could be done until the health of the men had improved, so Sir Richard Martin wisely determined to defer con- tinuous operations until the rains were over. The natives, however, were not allowed to regain confidence by being left altogether unmolested, various kraals in the immediate vicinity of Salisbury being attacked, and in most cases destroyed. Seki, the chief of one of these kraals, about twenty-five miles from Salisbury, promised to surrender, and to give up his guns on a certain day, and Lord Grey went out in person to receive them. But when the day came Seki made excuses, and declined to give them up, asserting that he was afraid of the other chiefs who still remained armed. Lord Grey thereupon said to him, " We shall not come to talk any more ; next time we come it will be in a different way." He then left for Salisbury with a trooper as escort, but on reaching Ballyhooly, a store about half-way, he changed his mind and returned to the police who were encamped five or six miles from Seki's. It was in the middle of the wet weather, and raining hard, and he did not get there till midnight. Nevertheless he started with the men at 2 a.m., and himself led the party that stormed and took the kraal. This may have been rash, and not quite the recognised thing for a man in Lord Grey's position to do, but it put heart into the police, who were labouring under terrible difficulties at the time, and I think there are 140 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT few men who will not admire Lim for acting as he did. Ever}r\vhere it was apparent that the natives were not in a submissive mood, and as the police force was manifestly inadequate to cope with them, a patrol was sent out in March to the M'toko country, which lies ninety miles to the north-east of Salisbury, to try and raise a contingent of friendly natives. The patrol was commanded by Captain Harding, who was accompanied by the Honourable H. Howard,^ at that time acting as Lord Grey's secretary. They took with them a month's rations on pack mules, and marching rapidly, reached the M'tokos in four days. Negotiating with them proved to be ticklish work ; they naturally thought the white men must be in great straits if they were reduced to coming to them for assistance, but eventually Hard- ing succeeded in inducing Gurupila, the chief of the tribe, to join him with five hundred of his men, armed with muskets and assegais. He started back on 13th March, and was attacked at once. Several men were wounded, with the result that three hundred of the M'tokos deserted ; Gurupila, with the other two hundred, remaining staunch. The Mashonas increased rapidly in numbers, and the position became critical, so Harding halted about fifty miles from Salisbury, and sent Howard in for reinforcements. It was an exceedingly plucky ride, for Howard had been wounded in the foot, and was so prostrated with fever that he could hardly sit on his ' Times correspondent, killed at Omdurman, 2nd September 1898. THE MTOKO PATROL 141 horse. He had to make his way through hostile country, and did not reach SaUsbury till late at night, but De Moleyns started in a couple of hours after his arrival with only twenty-five men. Howard was too ill to return with him, and the native guide losing the way, it was several days before Harding's camji was reached, when nearly the whole force was found to be down with fever. The Mashonas had made several attacks, and in repel- ling them one or two of the men had been wounded. The camp was in the midst of what is known as the granite kopje country, and it was difficult to get at the enemy, or to dislodge them from their strongholds. The granite kopjes are massive hills, rising abruptly from the granitic plateau which composes the inter- mediate formation between the high and low veldts. Huge boulders are piled one on the top of the other in a weird jumble that makes them look like the strong- holds of the genii. The colouring, especially at sunrise and sunset, is delicately beautiful, and I have often felt, when looking at them, as though I were in fairyland. I have had the same feeling before in mountainous countries, but never so strongly as amongst these fan- tastic hills ; a feeling due, 1 fancy, to the false impres- sion their castellated summits give of supernatural agency. A fortnight was spent in reconnoitring, and in allowing Harding's men to regain their strength. They had been sent out without a doctor, and with no proper stock of medicines — an inexcusable omission, consider- 142 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT ing tlic nature of the work entrusted to them. An attack was then made on a kraal called Shaungwe, situated on the summit of a hill 850 feet in height. This kraal had been repeatedly assaulted by the Mata- bili, but had never been taken, and the Mashonas believed it to be impregnable. It had, however, two fatal weaknesses ; there was no water, and it could only be descended by one side — the other side being pre- cipitous — so that it was an easy matter to invest it. This was done, and a continuous fire was maintained both by night and by day. Soon after the investment Gurupila was shot through the lungs, and died in a few hours. His death was of serious consequence, for it naturally shook the constancy of his men. More- over, he had shown such cheery coolness and pluck that his loss was a matter of regret to the whole force. His body was carried away by his people to be buried in his own country ; they would not permit any one to touch it, or to go near it. Their devotion to their chief was remarkable. When he lay dying they crowded round him, and many of them spat on his wound in the hope of making it heal (the Kaffirs chew a certain herb, and spray the juice over a wounded place with their mouths); but Gurupila told them that his time was come, and that he was going to join his fathers. When he was dead, his body was swathed in matting, and borne away on his followers' shoulders. As a rule when a man in the native contingent died, or was killed, his companions asked for the English CAPTURE OF SH AUNG WE 143 funeral service to be read, and for a firing party — a request which was invariably acceded to, for it is only by attention to httle details of this kind that the affection of native troops can be retained. This, how- ever, was after they had been with the white men for some time; when they were quite raw they liked to take their dead away, and bury them unseen. Before longf it became clear that the Mashonas were suffering terribly from thirst. The cattle bellowed incessantly, and tried to break through the picket to get at the water at the bottom of the hill, and the men called out to the sentries, " How can you expect us to fight if you won't let us get at the water ? " After ten days they could hold out no longer, and twelve men and two hundred women surrendered, the rest of the men escaping down the precipice of the un- invested side ; many of them, ninety altogether, so the prisoners said, being killed in the attempt. Maramisa, the chief, was badly wounded, but managed to get away. The self-restraint shown by the women when they were brought into the camp was extraordinary. They had been many days without water, and their thirst must have been terrible ; yet they sat quietly in a circle, and when water was brought showed no unseemly eagerness to drink. There was no struggling ; each woman took a sip from the calabash, and handed it on to her neighbour ; their stoical composure was astonishing. As soon as the kraal was taken. Captain De Moleyns returned with the patrol to Salisbury. 144 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT On the lOtli Juno another patrol was sent out under Major Gosling — De Moleyns being ill with fever — to attack Mashanganyika's kraal. As it was known to be strongly fortified, he took with him a hundred and fift}^ of the police, the native contingent, three seven- pounders, and three maxims. He succeeded in taking it with the loss of one man killed and two wounded, and then moved farther to the eastward to attack Kunzi's stronghold, which was believed to be even more formidable. This kraal is about forty miles from Salisbury, in the same broken granite country as Shaungwe. The attack was made at daybreak. During the first rush two men were killed or wounded, and there was some danger of a repulse, but Harding and Lieutenant Feltham forced their way over the stockade under a heavy fire, closely followed by twenty or thirty men. Six more men were killed or badly hurt, but a lodgment was effected within the kraal, and command obtained of the entrance to the caves. Towards the evening the Mashonas withdrew to a kopje half a mile distant, which was also stormed and taken, the natives retiring into the hilly country, still farther to the eastward. During the attack on this kraal, one of Makoni's sons was badly wounded. After their father was executed, two of his sons, about eleven and twelve years old, took service with Harding, who at that time was acting as galloper to Major Watts. He took a fancy to the boys, and asked their mother if he DEATH OF PARIS 145 might have them, and she consented wiUingly, merely stipulating that they should be allowed to come back to see her once a year. One of the redeeming features in the Mashona character is their genuine affection for their children, and the respect the children pay to their parents, and to old people. The boys became greatly attached to Harding, and he to them. They accom- panied him on all his patrols, and became the privileged pets of the camp. I don't know what their real names were, but they were always known as Archer and Paris. They were both of them nice boys, and the younger one, Paris, had an impulsively affectionate nature. Harding told me a story about him which is worth recording, now that the poor lad is dead. They were out on a patrol in bitterly cold weather, and one morning when Paris brought him his coffee, Harding said, " How cold it is, Paris." That evening when he went to bed, he felt he had more clothing on than usual, and on counting his blankets found that Paris, without saying anything, had quietly put his own blanket on the bed when making it up. Ho was killed whilst bringing Harding some food from the camp. His brother was with him, and as they reached the fighting line, a bullet whizzed close by them, and Archer said, " Let us go back." " I can't," answered Paris, " I have the chief's food, I uaist go on," and he went on, and had his thigh shattered directly after- wards by a bullet. He was carefully nursed, and in a couple of months had all but recovered, when inflannna- 146 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT tion suddenly supervened, and he died. His brotlier felt his loss deeply, for the two boys had been inseparable. He is still with Major Harding, and bids fair to turn out a smart, dependable boy. He is now the bugler in the Black Watch, as the native contingent is generally called in Mashonaland. Still it must not be supposed that many of the Mashonas are capable of the feeling shown by poor little Paris. As a rule they are singularly unresponsive to kind treatment, but I was told, by those who have lived amongst them, that the women are more easily inlluenced by sentiment than the men. CHAPTER XI Attack upon Chesumba's — Character of the Mashona Caves — Kakubi, thk Witch-Doctor, and Nyanda, the Witch- Doctress — Termination of the Rebellion — Is the Use op Dynamite legitimate ? About the middle of July Captain de Moleyns decided to attack tlie kraal of a cliief called Chesnmba, twelve miles from Salisbury, where some fifteen hundred natives were known to be congregated. It was built upon the banks of the Rewa, a little stream flowing into the Hunyani a few miles below Chesumba's. Another kraal of almost equal extent was situated at the junction of the two streams, and it was thought unwise to permit this large body of natives, whose attitude moreover was most hostile, to remain un- subdued at so short a distance from the town. I will relate what took place with some detail, as I went out from Salisbury, and made a careful exami- nation of the caves ; my reason being that when I came up to Mashonaland I had a strong impression of the unnecessary cruelty involved in the use of dynamite against these poor creatures, who, after all, were only making a last gallant stand for the possession of their country, I will try to describe the kraal, but my 148 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT description can convey only a vague impression of its appearance, utterly unlike as it is to anything I have ever seen in any part of the world. The country for the first ten miles from Salisbury is flat and scantily wooded, but about two miles from Chesumba's it changes altogether in character. Groups of enormous boulders are strewn about in a confused tangle ; the ground between them being heavily timbered. De Moleyns took with him 100 of the police, the native contingent, two seven-pounders, and two maxims. From the information he had received of the strength of the kraal, he felt that his only chance of success, except with great loss of life, was by making a surprise attack immediately before dawn. He moved out of Salisbury therefore at 2 a.m. and marched steadily until four o'clock, when his guides told him the kraal was within a quarter of a mile. On reconnoitring he found this to be the case, and as the day was beginning to break ordered an immediate assault. The Mashonas were taken by surprise, but had he delayed half-an-hour longer they would have been on the alert, and the loss must have been considerable ; and in Mashonaland at that time, the life of every armed man was of con- sequence. The kraal was situated to the east of the Kewa, the banks of which are composed of huge masses of granite, piled one on the top of the other to a height of several hundred feet, forming a series of natural cavities, the mouths facing: towards the stream, and the hillside at chesumba's 149 the back forming tlie terminus of the caves. The kraal from the side of the stream was practically impregnable, but from the other side, where the troops were halted, it was more accessible, and the artificial fortifications were therefore stronger and more extensive. The ground all the way from Salisbury is, as I have mentioned, quite flat until it breaks precipitously away into the bed of the stream. The huts Avere clustered together at the extreme edge of the plain, with a little ground in front of them, which had been cleared for cultivating mealies and tomatoes. Around the huts was a palisade fifteen feet in heis^ht, formed of the trunks of trees driven into the ground, and held firmly together with creepers and thorn bushes ; an aperture being left in the middle of sufficient size to allow one person at a time to pass in or out. This aperture was closed when not in use, not by transverse bars, but by movable tree-trunks, having exactly the same appearance as the others, so that it was impossible for an attacking party to discover in what part of the palisade the entrance was. When the troops delivered the assault, the Mashonas, who were awakened from their sleep, bolted hurriedly down the side of the cliff, and disappeared in the crevices of the rocks, from which they kept up a constant but ineffectual fire, two of the police being killed and one wounded. The storming party cleft their way through the palisade, and rushed past the huts to find themselves confronted by a second and still stronger line of defence, consisting of natural sconces 150 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT formed by tlie granite boulders ; the intervening spaces being filled up with a stockade several feet in thick- ness. This line of defence was right on the edge of the precipice, in an angle of the rocks, and was com- manded by the mouths of the caves, so that when the men reached the other side, they came imder a raking fire from an unseen enemy — always a trying thing for troops. The natural defences were so strong that the inner stockade could easily have been held by a dozen reso- lute men against any number of assailants, but the Mashonas are not a courageous people ; they can endure heroically, but can neither defend nor attack. They have always been hunted down by the Matabili, and other tribes, and their refuge has been in flight, and in the diffi- culty of getting at them in their interminable burrows. Like the conies they are a feeble folk, and dwell in the rocks, and into them they retire when danger threatens, emerging again when it has passed. They reminded me of the little red Himalayan marmots, which sit by the side of their holes, keeping up a shrill, incessant " dring," but directly they are approached dive out of sight, and even when wounded tumble into their holes to die. The predecessors of the Matabili ground down the Mashonas terribly, far worse than the Matabili, under whom they increased both in numbers and in cattle, always a sure sign of the prosperity of a Kaffir tribe. They say themselves that they preferred the Matabili rule to ours, because under them they w^ere troubled chesumba's 151 but once a year, whereas now tlieir troubles come with each day's rising sun. It is the reguLarity of toil, and the constant intermeddling in their lives, that they find so irksome. They would rather endure the risk of sudden onslaughts and death than the constant supervision and interference of the white man's rule. In ordinary speech the word " cave " denotes simply an underground cavity of greater or less extent, but these Mashona caves far more nearly resemble burrows. They are merely the crevices underneath the granite boulders where they do not rest flush with the ground, and are often only just large enough for a man to lie under, flat upon his stomach, like a lizard ; though here and there there are bigger spaces formed by the leaning together of two boulders, which resemble true caves. These crevices connect naturally, and are easily got into, and as easily got out of ; the collection of boulders forming, in fact, an underground fortress of enormous extent. This of Chesumba's was about a mile in length by half a mile in width, and many, Kunzi's for instance, are even larger. They are nearly always situated by the side of a stream (there is a theory that the boulders have been hurled together by a strong current), so there is never any lack of water, the stream generally flowing underground through the caves ; and the Mashonas have always been in the habit of storing their grain in them, so that in case of an attack, they can hold out for an indefinite time. The Matabili indeed gave up trying to take them : " What is the use," they said, " of 152 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT fighting against people whom you cannot see, and who shoot you out of a hole in the ground, so that the bullet travels up your body and comes out at your head ? " (At the attack on Thabas Imamba, a trooper stooped to pick up a bit of a Kaffir pot to see what it was. It covered a hole communicating with a crevice, and a man lying inside it shot him through the shoulder.) They depended for their loot in women and cattle and grain upon the result of the first attack, before the Mashonas had had time to take refuge in their caves : after that they could inflict but little damage, but passed on their way like the dust-storms that spring up suddenly all over Mashonaland, and die as suddenly away. The Matabili raided this part of the country systematically, but they never succeeded in making the people slaves as is commonly supposed. Most of the Mashona chiefs purchased a precarious immunity from attack by the payment of a. tribute, but one or two of them, like Makoni and- M'tasa, did not even do that. To so back, however, to the attack on Chesumba's. When the inner stockade had been taken, De Moleyns made his interpreter call out to the Mashonas to sur- render — that they would not be hurt, but that if they did not come out he would dynamite them until they did. Their only answer was a shower of bullets. It was not that they did not understand what dynamite is : the}^ understood thoroughly, so much so that Kunzi is said to have actually used it himself to enlarge some of his caves. De Moleyns then told them they should chesumba's 153 have two hours in which to send out their women and children, and as none were sent out, he was rehictantly obhged to blow up the nearest of the caves, and a number of women and children then crawled out, and were sent to the camp to be looked after. This went on for four days, cave after cave being blown up, whilst repeated requests were made to the people to surrender. At last they did so, and the caves were destroyed as far as possible. One hundred and eleven men gave themselves up, and five hundred women and children ; the rest managed to get away. It is believed that com- paratively few were killed. The dynamite, though ter- rible enough, has not the invariably awful effect that it might be expected to have, because the twists and turns of the caves break the force of the explosion. The prisoners were located on a piece of ground five miles from Salisbury, with the exception of eight men who were put on their trial for murder. Among the prisoners was the chief Maramombo, whose arm was badly injured. He refused to allow it to be amputated, saying he would rather die than live without it, but he ultimately made one of those marvellous recoveries noticeable amongst savages all over the world. Whilst Captain de Moleyns was occupied with this kraal. Major Ridley with a squadron of the 7th Hussars attacked and took Umzwitze's kraal, sixteen miles from Charter, three of the Hussars being killed, and Major Ridley himself wounded. In August many other fortified kraals were taken and destroyed, but the only 154 RHODES FA AND ITS GOVERNMENT serious resistance that was made was at Mashayan- gombi's, where Sir Kichard Martin himself took com- mand. It was taken with a loss on our side of four men killed and six wounded. Three hundred and twenty women gave themselves up, and were sent to the location with the others. By the end of September the whole of the chiefs had submitted, the only persons of consequence still remaining at large being the witch-doctor Kakubi, and the witch-doctress Nyanda. I was in Salisbury when Kakubi was captured, and brought in to stand his trial for murder. He was a half-starved, miserable-looking wretch, but he, and still more Nyanda, had exercised immense power, and they, and a witch-doctor who had come up from Matabililand, seem to have really been the main instigators of the Mashona rising. Late in September Harding was sent to patrol the M'Toko country, and went right through it to the Inyanga mountains near Umtali. He reported that everything was quiet, so prospectors and farmers began once more to venture out, though with an excusable hesitation. How greatly the war has retarded the development of the country may be judged from the fact that all through the summer absolutely nothing was done, the settlers remaining in enforced idleness in the towns, and at the stores along the main road. I may say frankly that my preconceived opinion was entirely changed by what I saw at Chesumba's, and that USE OF DYNAMITE 155 I satisfied myself, tlioiigh I confess with considerable hesitation — its effects are so fearful — that the use of dynamite under proper supervision is legitimate, and, on the whole, perhaps more humane than the alterna- tive process of investing the caves, and starving the natives out. The question is of importance, because protests have on various occasions been made with regard to its use in South African warfare. Those who have studied the history of the subject will remember Bishop Colenso's indignant and eloquent protest against its employment in Langalibale's revolt in 1873, and in 1882 such powerful representations were made regard- ing its adoption by the Boers that the British Govern- ment instructed Mr. Hudson, the British Resident at Pretoria, to report to them upon the matter. The conclusion he came to was that what was done was done with the greatest possible humanity, every induce- ment being used to persuade the natives to come out of the caves before they were blown up, and the British Government therefore declined to interfere further. Still it is evident that with dynamite in the hands of a harsh or indiscreet man, unless the strictest super- vision is exercised, re^'rettable excesses will occur. That, on the wlioL^, it has been used humanely (hiring the Mashona rising is proved by the fact that most, though not all, of the missionaries approved of its use. The fact, too, that it was employed by Sir Richard Martin and Captain do Moleyns, who arc known for their punctilious regard for humanity, is a sufficient 156 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT guarantee that it was made use of when they were present in a proper way, but, if rumour is to be be- lieved, it was not always employed with an equal sense of responsibility. The Mashona caves, as I have explained, are really vast underground fortresses with interminable ramifica- tions, and it is argued that to use dynamite to blow them up is as legitimate as to blow up the gate, or to blow in the wall of a town, preparatory to an assault, or to blow up a man-of-war with a torpedo. There is, however, this difference, that in civilised warfare the opposing forces are both furnished with the same weapons, where- as in savage wars only the civilised force is provided with these powerful engines of destruction. The dis- tinction is surely material, and it ought on]}* to be used with the greatest reluctance, and as a last resort, and ample time ought to be given to the women and children to come out. Otherwise we shall deserve the censure deservedly bestowed vipon St. Arnaud by Mr. Kinglake. " St. Arnaud had warmly approved the de- struction of life which had been effected in 1844 by filling with smoke the crowded caves of the Dahra ; but he had sagaciously observed that the popularity of the measure in Europe was not coextensive with the ap- probation which seems to have been bestowed upon its author by the military authorities. These counter-views guided M. St. Arnaud. . . . ' Then,' he writes to his brother, ' I had all the apertures hermetically stopped up. I made one vast sepulchre. No one went into the USE OF DYNAMITE 157 caverns. No one but myself knew that under there there are five hundred brigands who will never ajj^ain slaughter Frenchmen." There has been nothing of this kind in Mashonaland. Whether the use of dynamite is legitimate, in cases where women and children are assembled, is a point about which there will always be a difterence of opinion ; but supposing it to be so, it seems to have been used, on the whole, with due pre- cautions and in a proper way. The point, however, that I am anxious to emphasise, is that the word " caves " is misleading. It conveys the idea that the people collect together in extensive under- ground chambers, which are blown to pieces with them in it. This was what I thought myself, before I had seen Chesumba's, and as I fancy many other people have the same idea, I have taken more pains than I should otherwise have done to explain how essentially erroneous it is. CHAPTER XIl Splendid Work done by the Police in Mashonaland, and by THE Native Contingknt under Major Harding — Bravery op the Mashonas — They are Treacherous, but not Incapable of Gratitude — The only way to Govern them IS BY Justice, not through Fear. The work done last year by the police aud hussars in Mashonaland has really been very fine. The former were a mere handful of men, who had to operate under the most trying cu-cumstances over an enormous extent of country of an exceptionally difficult character ; one so bare of supplies, that everything had to be sent up from the base. There were not many casualties at each par- ticular attack, but the constant fighting from January to September, and still more the incessant exposure to sudden and violent alternations of rain and heat, which, with the bad and insufficient food, brought on fever and dysentery, tried the men severely. The majority were gently born, and unused to hardship and expo- sure ; many were scarcely more than boys, and all were unacclimatised, so disease played havoc with them from the first. In spite of it the pluck they showed was splendid ; the more so that the operations being of a guerilla nature, they had little to encourage them in 158 THE MASHON ALAND POLICE 159 the way of recognition, either in England or in South Africa. Only those who have been in Mashonaland can rightly aj)preciate what they have done; but the total amount of the casualties will convey some slight idea of the arduous nature of their work. Out of a force of 250 police^ and 120 of the native contingent, 26 men were killed, and 35 wounded; 21 died from illness, and 20 more were sent out of the country incapacitated and utterly broken down. Including illness, therefore, the total loss amounted to rather over one-fourth of the men engaged — an extraordinarily high percentage. This does not include the loss of the hussars either by sick- ness or in action, but only those incurred by the police. It was the long days of camping in the wet, when many of them were prostrate with fever, but unable to be put on the sick-list until the fighting of the moment was over, that tried the men's fortitude the most. Continual attacks of fever shake a man to bits, and break down his nerve as nothing else will, and I could quite understand Captain de Moleyns' feeling of com- punction when he looked back upon it all. " I am really sorry," he said to me, " for the awful time the men have had. It couldn't be helped — the work had to be done — but I have felt for them all the same, and I confess I am proud of the way in which these mere lads responded to every call we made upon them." I think Captain de Moleyns' personal influence had a good deal to do with it : the men followed because he led them himself. 160 KHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT But splendidly as the English police behaved, they could never have effected what they did had they not been loyally backed up by the native police (organised during the rebellion), whose services have been simply invaluable. It is composed chiefly of Zulus, with a sprinkling of men from Chinde and Zumbo. When Sir Richard Martin took over charge, he found the existing native police in a state of utter disorganisation, so he disbanded most of them, and raised what was practically a new corps, and placed it under the command of Major Harding of the B.S.A. Company's police, who has succeeded in making them a thoroughly reliable, efficient, and well-disciplined force. He obtained a remarkable influence over the men, and was able not only to make them follow him to a difficult assault, but to retain control of them afterwards — a much more difficult matter. He has shown what grand fighting material lies ready to our hand if entrusted to men who are in sympathy with the native character. They require a man who can be stern as well as just, but who understands them sufficiently not to wound their feelings in matters of native custom and etiquette. They are only grown-up children, and must be humoured without being spoilt. With proper leading there is no reason why they should not prove as good soldiers as the Sikhs. We conquered India, not with white troops, but with native regiments led by English officers, and if we chose we might conquer Africa in the same wa}'-, to the exceedinp- benefit both of the natives and of our- MASHONA COURAGE 161 selves ; but to evoke the necessary feeling of devotion we must be inflexibly just. That is what gave Gordon his marvellous power. Harding deserves all the more credit because he had to work his men into shape, not in time of peace, but in the midst of a most arduous and trying cam- paign. He has been ably assisted by his sergeant, a mounted infantry man, who lives in the camp with the men, and has them always under his eye. The police say that so far from the Mashonas being cowards, they fought in their own peculiar fashion with magnificent courage. During several of the attacks, when the dynamite was thrown into the caves, they rushed forward and snatched away the fuse, although they knew too well from what they had seen what the awful effect of the explosion would be. They were naked savages, fighting with the most primitive weapons, and they naturally took refuge in their caves, but that does not mean that they were cowards. Even the few guns they had were charged with self-made powder of an inferior character. A ludicrous exemplification of this occurred during the M'toko patrol. Gurupila's men had been supplied with English powder, and used the same charge as they were accustomed to use of their own powder. The consequence was that the guns kicked tremendously, and several of the men had their faces damaged, whereupon they laid the guns down on the ground and let them oft' with their toes. After the inhuman talk about the natives to which L 162 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT I had to listen during nay walk up from Uintali. it was a pleasant relief to meet once more witli that feeling of respect for a brave enemy which does so much to lessen the unavoidable brutalities of warfare. A little incident that took place during an attack on one of the kraals is worth recording. A cave was about to be blown up, when one of the native contingent heard a child crying just inside it. He called out to the officers who were bringing up the dynamite to stop, jumped into the cave at imminent risk of being shot, and brought the child out. Colonel Alderson relates how Major Harding did exactly the 'same thing. It shows the force of example ; no troops are more in- fluenced by it, for good or for evil, than native troops. In fighting against savages treachery must always be expected, and it requires considerable self-restraint not to resort to similar methods. Indeed, all over South Africa I was assured, and not only by the irresponsible critic at the wayside canteen, but by men of position and influence, that when dealing with savages the only possible way to succeed is to behave as they do ; that they do not understand anything else, and sometimes the temptation to yield to this kind of reasoning must be overpowering. At one of the kraals, for instance, two of the police officers were asked by a Mashona to come up to the rock under which he was lying to have a confer- ence. They came within hearing distance, but he called out, " Come nearer, I can't hear ; " and when they did so, he fired at them from a few feet off, luckily hitting MASHONA TREACHERY 163 neither. It did not make them feel very amiably- disposed towards him. Poor young Coryndon, a brave lad of nineteen, who had hurried out to Mashonaland when the rebellion began, was killed when going unwarily to capture a goat tied up on the veldt as a decoy, being shot by a Mashona who was lying in ambush near by. The Zulus and the Matabili, who are an off-shoot of the Zulu race, may generally be depended upon to keep their word, but the Mashonas have all the evil character- istics of a do-wn- trodden people, treachery amongst them. The frequent conferences, or " indabas," as they are called, held by Lord Grey with the different Mashona chiefs, were attended, therefore, with a very real risk of assassination. And Lord Grey shirked neither fatigue nor danger when he thought his presence on a patrol might be of service in effecting a peaceful surrender. Moreover, to his infinite credit, he never allowed him- self to be carried away by the wave of vindictive feeling against the natives which was passing over the country. The better tone which is everywhere noticeable in Mashonaland is largely due to the restraining influence exerted by him, by Sir Richard Martin — of whom I never heard any one speak except with respect — by Judge Vintcent and Mr. Duncan, and by Captain de Moleyns ; they have been resolute without being harsh, and England has every reason to be grateful to them. But though the Mashonas are treacherous, it is absurd to assert, as men so often do, that they have no 164 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT finer feelings, and no instinct of g^ratitiide. So far as I have been able to ascertain, tbey are quick and intelli- gent, and capable of miicb devotion to their masters. It is all a matter of how they are treated. A prospector, with whom I was walkinof alonorary Review, speaks out very plainly : " Mr. Mackenzie's observations regarding forced labour in Rhodesia demand the most serious consideration of both the home and the colonial public. Most Rhodesian settlers who discuss the cause of the recent rebellion— and who, for obvious and sufficient reasons, are shy of dividging their names to the public — say far stronger things concerning the labour system in the new territory than ever Mr. Mackenzie has said. If it be true that chiefs were fined, and even lashed, for fail- ing to produce such and such a number of ' boys ' in so many hours, it is imperative that the British Govern- ment — and still more, the British public — should know it. Mr. Mackenzie says that this system of forced labour is ' opposed to the deepest purpose and the dearest wishes of the British people.' Unhappily, experience both in Africa and in Australia does not bear out this view. To be candid with one another, do not most of us who have come to the colonies from the mother-land undersfo a weakening of moral fibre as regards the treatment of natives, as the inliuence of English ideas wanes ? If we 192 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT do, it is not surprising. The settler, aware of the vast potentialities of the land with which he has cast in his lot, his mind harassed, his energies confined owing to the scarcity of labour, naturally looks with an eye of longing upon the vast labour supplies which the native tribes represent. Only the other day, Mr. George Albu, speaking before the Mines Commission at the Rand, hinted, not obliquely, at forced labour as a possible expedient in the Transvaal, If once forced labour — another name for slavery — be allowed in any province of Africa under British over-lordship, depend upon it the poison will work its way through all the States. That it is a poison we strenuously insist ; dividends are admirable things in their way, and dividends let us have, if we can possibly get them by fair means, but to get dividends out of Africa at the expense of the great moral idea which must be behind all our development will be to take a most serious step towards our failure and decadence." The article urges that Mr. Mackenzie had formulated a case which the Parliamentary Committee could not dismiss without searching investigation, and that repre- sentative indunas from Rhodesia ought to be summoned before it. No such investigation was made, and when I was in Rhodesia both the people and the press were clamouring for the recognised imposition of some form of forced labour. CHAPTER XV Faulty Tactics of the Matabili — Their Failure to Invest BuLAWAYO — Arrest and Detention of Gambo — Probable INCLUSION of the Natal Labour Provisions in the pro- posed Native Code for Rhodesia. The rising was to have begun all over Matabililand on Saturday the 27th March, but it broke out pre- maturely on the 23rd, the preceding Tuesday. The white men in the Filibusi district were massacred, and the Matabili closed in around Bulawayo. From that time, until the 25th April, there were continual fights in the immediate neighbourhood of the town, and had the natives possessed any leader of ordinary military ability, they should have had no difficulty in wiping out the whole of the white population of Rhodesia. They had but to close the Tuli road to the south — an easy matter — and the Bulawayo people, having only a fortnight's provisions, and a very limited supply of ammunition, would have had no choice but to cut their way out — a desperate task in the face of an overpowering enemy, and by a road winding through continuous defiles. But instead of seizing the road, they left it open, and only invested the town on the other three sides, so that Colonel Plumer was able 193 194 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT to enter it without difficulty with the hurriedly raised Matabili Relief force. The Matabili are said to have done this deliberately, in the hope that the white men would clear out, and let them have the country once more to themselves ; but it is also asserted, and with more probability, that they intended to attack the white people during their retreat through the Mangwe Pass, when they would have had a fair chance of destroying them at one blow. Whatever the motive may have been, it proved to be a fatal error in tactics. They could easily have shut off all access to the town, for it is calculated that during the last days of the fighting in its vicinity they could not have had less than twenty-five thousand men in the field. Their disorganisation was mainly due to a lucky chance. Gambo, the head induna of the western district, one of their most important men and a warrior of re- pute, would naturally have been in command, having led an impi during the first Matabili war, but he happened to be in Bulawayo at the time of the premature outbreak in the Filibusi district. He had been sent for to have the rinderpest regulations ex- plained to him, and when the news of the murders arrived, Mr. Duncan, who was acting as administrator, ordered him to be arrested, and retained him in custody during the whole of the rising, his people in consequence remaining steady all through it. There is an interesting account in the first issue of the Matabili Times, published on the 13th April 1894, GAMBO 195 written with the cyclostyle, which was kindly given to me by Mr Lowinger, the editor, which shows the great authority held by Gambo in the country, and how important a bearing his detention had upon the issue of the rebellion : " Gambo, son-in-law of the late king, Lo Bengula, and one of the last important chiefs to surrender, came into camp on the 29th March, attended by his indunas and followers. On the following morning the administrator, Dr. Jameson, received Gambo at an indaba, when Umlugulu, the great dance-doctor Secombi, and other chiefs were present. In reply to a question from Gambo, the administrator said he would be looked after by the Company till such time as the land that he formerly lived upon was cultivated and yielded crops. He was allowed to take up his own land again, seeing there were no old workings there, and that it would be futile to prospect for gold. For the present they would all be disarmed, but later on Gambo and his indunas would be allowed arms for personal protection and trading purposes. They would be afforded police pro- tection, and would have the same consideration shown them as the white people had, and any complaint made to the police would receive proper attention. Their women would also be protected. Regarding the ' Amaholis,' which tribe were the slaves of the Mata- bili, and since the outbreak, as Gambo asserted, were becoming^ insubordinate, the administrator said that the ' Amaholis ' would still have to serve them as before, 196 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT but that if tliey refused there was to be no fighting, but the grievances would have to be brought to the notice of the poUce for redress." Does not this show how natural it was for the Abezansi — the young bloods of the Matabili — to be- come angry and sullen when they were called upon in the way that Mr. Taylor has described, to work for two months in the year, side by side with the Amaholis, their former slaves ? " Brought by the native police," to use Mr, Taylor's own words, "before the native com- missioner, and handed over to a master to whom they were registered for a specified term and wage." Natur- ally they felt that this was not in accordance with Dr. Jameson's declaration to Gambo, and that faith had not been kept with them. That in itself is enough to induce any native tribe to rise ; " two words " is what they are never able to understand ; they believe in their rulers laying down a law, and adhering to it rigidly. That the labour grievance was not an occasional grievance, but one extending to a large number of people is proved by a statement by Mr Taylor in the Chartered Company's Report for the year 1894-1895, that the total number of natives employed by Europeans was over ten thousand. What made the matter worse was that not only were the Matabili deprived of the ser- vices of the Amaholi — that, in spite of Dr. Jameson's undertaking to the contrary, was unavoidable — but they were themselves compelled to labour side by side with them. THE NATIVE CODE 197 At the Bulawayo festivities, Captain Lawley made an important statement. " I think," he said, " that I am betraying no State secrets when I tell you that a code of laws, which has received the sanction of the High Commissioner, is now in the hands of the Colonial Secretary, which will, I hope, enable us to carry these views into practical effect. It is a simple code, but it will enable us, I hope, to wean the natives from a life of indolence, disturbed occasionally by exhilarating out- bursts of war and plunder, to a life of regular habits, and regular industry." The provisions of this new code should be carefully scanned to see whether any of its clauses can possibly be twisted into sanctioning the imposition of what, under another name, Avill be but a form of compulsory labour. In all probability the provisions of Natal Act 19 of 1891 will be adopted in the Khodesian Code. Sir R. Martin referred to them incidentally in his report, but drew a marked distinction between such powers when given to an old colony and to a new one, and I may add the distinction is even greater when they are given to a company, whose primary object is the declaration of a dividend. One of the officials of the Mozambique Company in Beira told me that company was unable to develop the country properly because the officials were per- petually being hampered by the foolish humanitarian party in Lisbon. There, too, the inevitable conflict is 198 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT going on between the governing class, who look to the interests of the whole community, and the commercial class, who think mainly of their own. The same conflict occurs in India in the indigo and tea districts between the Indian civil servants and the planters. Clause 36 of the Natal Act is to the following effect : " The supreme chief has power to call upon all natives to supply labour for public works, and for the general needs of the Colony. This call or command may be transmitted by any person authorised to do so, and each native so called upon is bound to obey such call, and render such service in person unless legally released from such duty." And Clause 39 declares that " the supreme chief, in the exercise of the political powers which attach to his office, has authority to punish by fine and im- prisonment, or by both, for disobedience to his orders or disregard of his authority." Although there may be no objection to the tem- porary imposition of compulsory labour for the needs of a colony in time of famine or drought, it is a very different matter if it is to be enforced regularly, and if the men are to be employed, not by the State, but to be handed over to the various companies for the development of their mines and other properties. It is difficult to understand on what grounds compulsory labour of that kind could be defended. Mr. Whitaker, whose father was for fifty years, on and ofi", Premier and Attorney-General of New Zealand, COMPULSORY LABOUR 199 referred thus to the New Zealand system in the evi- dence he gave before the Bulawayo Chamber of Mines : " They (in New Zealand) adopted a system which I am very much in favour of, and that was, that when they conquered any portion of country, they gave the natives back a certain amount of land, and never asked them to work, but allowed them to live by themselves. Isolation," he said, " has been to their advantage, and that of the white man too, in that it has opened avoca- tions for a white population to settle in the country. In New Zealand we have very few social evils, and have no rows with the natives, and don't look upon them as a factor in the community." It is quite true that the Amaholis (not the Matabili) were accustomed to work compulsorily for Lobengula, but it is a very different thing having to turn out now and again for some special purpose to being obliged to work for fixed periods. It is the regularity of the work that natives cannot stand. In Chitral exactly the same difficulty was encountered. There the people had always been accustomed to " begar " or forced labour, but they objected strongly to being constrained to go to and fro, day after day, from village to village. " Are we to be made carriers of loads for all our lives?" they said; "it were better to fight, and be killed at once." The natives in Rhodesia have exactly the same feeling. In time they will learn the value of money, just as the Chitralis are learning it, but an enforced servitude is not the right way to teach 200 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT it to them : it will only delay tlie educating process which is so much desired. And with regard to the Matabili, it must be remembered that labour of any kind is entirely opposed to their habits ; that it will take years before they can become resigned to it, " Like all other branches of the Zulu race," says Sir Richard Martin, " the men were averse to labour, which they considered altogether derogatory. It was for them to hunt and fight ; the tilling of gardens and such menial work fell to the lot of the women. Thus it may be said that, previous to the arrival of the white man in their country, the idea of work was altogether foreign to them." How strong an objection they feel to it may be judged from the following telegram from Sir F, Car- rington on 19th September 1896: " Inderna's people are reported by ofiicer commanding to be unwilling to surrender at Gwelo, saying they have plenty of corn, and will not work in the mines." I make no apology for dwelling at considerable length upon this subject, for its importance cannot be over-estimated ; the more so, that the Colonial Office seems disposed to accede to the Chartered Company's proposals. Speaking in the House of Commons on May 7, 1898, Mr Chamberlain said, " The corvee existing in Matabili- land was of this nature — that the natives against their will were practically compelled to give a certain time of the year to ordinary industrial labour. It was not the THE NATIVE CODE 201 whole of their time, but I think it was for three months in the year that the native chiefs had to furnish a certain proportion of labour for the mines. . . . When you say to a savage people, who have hitherto found their chief employment, occupation, and profit in war, ' You shall no longer go to war ; tribal war is forbidden,' you have to bring about some means by which they may earn their living in place of it, and you have to induce them, sooner or later, to adopt the ordinary methods of earning a livelihood by the sweat of their brow. But with a race of this kind, I doubt very much if you can do it merely by preaching. I think that something in the nature of inducement, stimulus, or pressure is absolutely necessary if you are to secure a result which is desirable in the interests of humanity and civilisation." After that pronouncement of opinion, it is to be hoped that the forthcoming native code will be submitted to the keenest scrutiny before it is definitely promulgated.^ ^ Mr, Chamberlain will hardly venture to sanction the corvue if he has reason to believe it is against the wish of tlie majority of the people of Great Britain, and that it is so may be inferred from the opinion of the Times upon forced labour, which may be taken as representing the considered view of the nation. On September 13th, 1898, the 'Times said in a leading article : " But as a matter of practice, what colonists can be trusted to work a system of ' forced labour' among native races ? It is a mere euphemism for slavery. And if there is one prin- ciple more than another which has lain at the root of British Impe- rialism it is the doctrine that wherever the British flag flies the slave is free." For most people that will sum up the whole question. CHAPTER XVI Closk of Matabili Rebellion — The ^Iatabili Mounted Police — LiTTLK likelihood OF ANOTHER RiSING — CuARACTER OF THE Mashona Rebellion — Attack upon the Families of Mr. Bester and Mr. Botha at Enkledoorn — Relief of the Abercorn Mine by Mr. Duncan's Patrol — The Ma- SHONAS IN REALITY A VERY INTELLIGENT RaCE. TuE people iii Rhodesia were living in perfect ignor- ance that any rebellion was impending. There was no armed force in the country, for Dr. Jameson had taken all the white police with him except five, and Mr. Duncan, who was acting as administrator, was oblisfed to disband the native police at once, as they were manifestly in sympathy with the rebels. The out- break came like a thunderclap. On Monday the 23rd March 1896, Tom Maddox, a prospector, was killed in the Filibusi district. He was very popular with the natives, and had always treated them well, and that in spite of it he should have been murdered was a sign that the rising was ffoincf to be serious. All the settlers in the Filibusi district collected together, and orders were sent to them from Bulawayo to come in there at once, while the Rhodesia Horse was promptly called out. At that tiiiie the only Imperial otiicer in Bulawayo DEFENCE OF 1UTLAWAY0 203 was Captain Nicholsou of the 7t,h Hussars. Ailer the Jameson raid he had been sent up by tlie Imperial Governmeut to take over charge of the arms and amirmnition. Fugitives began to pour into the town from all directions, and the women and children were placed in the club for safety. If the Malabili had attacked the town at once they could casdy have (akcii it, for there were only about, four liuudrcd rifles in tiie wlu)le place. Fortunately there was no lack of amiinmitiou. The story of its defence is familiar to every one. The difficulties the administration had to contend with were very great. They had only these four hundred rilles, and were afraid to render the towu defenceless with so large a force of natives in the near neighbourhood. Yet they were obliged to send out sinndtaneously a number of small relieving forces to bring in the people from the outlying districts, and they were also obliged to establish forts on the Tuli road, for on the kee[)ing of that open lay their whole chance of rcliel". liy the first of April the Matabili had invested the other three sides of the town, and constant engagements took place ; the last light in its immediate vicinity being on the 25th April, when Captain Macfarlane, ft)rmerly of the l*th Lancers, who seems to have boon the backbone of the defence, effec- tually crushed them at the Umguzi River. He had only four men killed and live wounded, but, he inllicted terrible loss on the enemy, who twice charged right up 204 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT to the guns in the old heroic MatabiK-Zulu style. After the fight they melted away, and never held together again. Numbers fled towards the Zambesi, where they suffered terribly from fever and famine, as well as from wild animals. It is said that eighteen of them were killed by lions in one night alone in the dense forest that lies some fifty miles to the north of Gwelo. The most probable explanation of the premature outbreak of the rebellion is the uncontrollable irrita- tion produced by the shooting of the cattle. What- ever the cause may have been, the Matabili did not become properly organised for several weeks after it began. Their original idea was to attack Bulawayo early in the morning, and then to sweep the country, killing off the settlers one by one. Had they adhered to this plan not a soul would have been left alive. As it was, the settlers were able to get into laager not only in Bulawayo, but in Gwelo, Mangwe, Tuli, and Belingwe. The difificulties of the defence must not be estimated from the actual fisrhtinfif, or from the number of men killed. The horses died wholesale from horse- sickness and want of forage. There was great scarcity of water, wells having to be sunk to procure it, and very little food. At one time there were only eight bags of meal left in the Government store, and a little bully beef. There was considerable danger of famine — all the food having to be brought up by the coach, which might have been stopped at any time. The DEFENCE OF BULAWAYO 205 cattle captured on the patrols were driven into the town, and died there of rinderpest, and the stench was fearful. Yet there was but little typhoid or other serious illness, showing how exceedingly healthy Bulawayo is. The chief trouble was from veldt sores, a kind of scurvy brought on by the want of fresh meat and vegetables the supply of which was altogether stopped. The safety of Bulawayo being thus assured by the efforts of the people themselves before help could be sent to them, they began at once to take measures to bring the country again into subjection. On May 11th, Colonel Napier was sent up the Salisbury road to meet Mr. Rhodes, who was coming down with Colonel Beal and the Salisbury relief column. Colonel Plumer arrived in Bulawayo on the 15th with the Matabili Relief force, and a day or two later Sir Richard Martin, who had been sent out from England as Deputy of the High Commissioner, and Commandant of the police. Ten days afterwards. General Sir Frederick Carrington arrived also, to assume general command of the opera- tions, bringing with him Colonel Baden-Powell as chief of his staff. Earl Grey, the newly-appointed adminis- trator, had come into the town before that, on the 28th April, and had relieved Mr. Duncan of his duties as acting administrator. He had a narrow escape, for a Matabili impi under the induna Babyan crossed the road just before the coach in which he was came up, and crossed it again at the same place immediately after it had passed. 206 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT Colonel Plumer was instructed to move along the Guai River to attack the Matabili, who were said to be collected there in force. At the same time, Colonel Paget, who was advancing up the Tuli road with the 7th Hussars, instead of going on straight to Bulawayo, was sent with two squadrons through the thickly populated Belingwe district to Victoria, and thence to circle round through Gwelo ; Major Ridley with another squadron coming straight on to Bulawayo through Maklutsi and the Mangwe Pass. Towards the end of the rising there was a severe fight at Thabas Imamba, about seventy nnles to the north of Bulawayo, at which Mr. Rhodes was present, and after that the only part of Matabililand where the natives were able to hold their own was in the Matoppo hills, into which they had retreated. They were attacked there simultaneously by General Carrington at the Cantoor, and by Major Laing, of the Belingwe field force, at the Nungweni Pass, ten miles farther to the west. It was intended that the two forces should join inside the hills, but neither was able to force its way through, and both had to retire with con- siderable loss. On a subsequent occasion, at the Nungweni Pass, when Captain Nicholson was in com- mand, if it had not been for the coolness with which Captain Hoel Llewellyn worked the Maxim during a Matabili onrush, the loss must again have been considerable. A day or two later the Matabili were attacked at Umlugulu, where there proved to be some FIGHT IN THE MATOPPOS 207 awkward caves. Major Kershaw was killed, and several of the men, and once more the Matabili remained masters of the situation. The whole of the country to the southward and eastward had, however, been brought under control, the natives retreating either into the Matoppos, or right away to the Zambesi. The only chiefs who attempted any resistance were Wedza, whose kraal is near Belingwe, and Uwini, whose kraal is about twenty miles from Gwelo. Wedza capitulated, and is still living at his kraal, but Uwini was taken prisoner, and, though badly wounded, was tried summarily by court-martial and shot as a rebel. By order of the High Commissioner, Colonel Baden- Powell, who confirmed the death sen- tence, was himself tried by court-martial and was acquitted. Lord Grey in his report makes the following reference to the capture of these kraals : " They " (the Hussars) "did valuable service in blowing up the strong- holds of Monogola and of Wedza, a notoriously bad character ; and they demonstrated the power of the Queen in a way that admitted of no doubt, to a large and important district, by the capture and execution of Uwini, whose death has had a most salutary influence in the pacification of the country. The fact that Uwini and Wedza had successfully withstood the raids of Lobengula, had caused the Matabili on this occasion to take refuge in their fastnesses, and then consider them- selves in safety/' 208 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT But many people in Rhodesia think that Uwini was treated with unnecessary harshness ; that he was not in any way more guilty than the other rebel chiefs who were not shot when taken prisoner, and that as a brave opponent, who had been badly wounded in a gallant attempt to resist a vastly superior force, he might well have been accorded different treat- ment. Lord Rosmead felt constrained by what had happened to remind all military officers in Rhodesia that martial law had not been proclaimed there, and that prisoners ought to be handed over to the civil authorities. The reduction of the Matoppos would have been long and difficult task, and opinions are divided as to the advisability of what was done. Most of the military men seem to think that it would have been wiser to have gone on until the Matabili were brought to their knees, and sued for peace. Instead of that Mr. Rhodes, at great personal risk, held his famous meetings or indabas, and arranged terms which at the time were a financial necessity, for the Chartered Company could not have borne the expense of the war much longer ; nor would it have been possible to have got up provisions, as the rains were beginning. What Mr. Rhodes did seems therefore to have been the wisest course which could have been adopted. Still, as it is, the natives think that it was not they, but wo, who asked that hostili- ties should cease. Their pride has not been humbled, MATIBILILAND POLICE 209 and it is by no means unlikely that some day they may again be tempted to try conclusions with us. Mr. Car- negie, in the weighty statement which Sir Richard Martin has appended to his report — a statement the whole of which should be read and re-read — makes this remark : " As to the position of the Mata- bili nation in the country at the present moment, let me say that under Lobengula there were two factions, one representing the old warriors, and the other the young bloods. From all I can gather to-day these two parties still exist in the land ; the one in the Matoppo hills, and the other in the bushy country in the north-west. Nyamande represents the younger men of the tribe, and he, being the son of Lobengula, and one of the Insukumini, would in their estimation be most likely a fit and proper person to be made king. Usipampamu, who some months ago crossed the Zambesi, may have a few followers, though I hear the Barotze have driven him back in two battles. But the nation as such is divided into two factions — the one under Umlugulu and Ufisela, among the Matoppo hills, and the other under Umtini, Bugwele, and the others in the bushy country. The final stand will most likely be made among the Matoppo hills." If they should rise again, it will be a much easier matter to subdue them, for a chain of forts connected by the telephone has been built outside the Matoppos, so that they can be effectually prevented from breaking out ; and, what is more to the purpose, Sir Richard o 210 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT Martin and Captain Nicholson have got the MatabiHland Police into thoroughly good order, and have converted what was a very scratch corps indeed into a smart and well-disciplined body of men. There is no native contingent in Matabililand as in Mashonaland, but a rather larger force of white police, consisting of six hundred troopers and twenty-one officers. Two hun- dred are stationed in the Bulawayo depot, and the rest in the forts, of which there are twenty-nine, scattered about all over the country. They have seventeen machine-guns, and six field-guns, so they should have no difficulty in crushing any incipient rebellion before it has had time to gather force. The natives have been partially disarmed, and a Disarmament Act has come into force by which it has been made illegal for any of them to possess arms Avitli- out leave from the administrator ; and the Chartered Company are resolved to enforce this law strictly. It is a similar law, only not nearly so stringent, as the Arms Act in force on the Indian frontier, and is abso- lutely necessary for the safety of the country. More- over, the settlers are now on the alert and will not be taken by surprise as they were before. An excellent system has also been initiated by Sir Richard Martin, by which a prospector if he wants a rifle can obtain it on the recommendation of the administrator. With it he is given the name of the fort in the district to which he is attached. Each of these forts is stocked with provisions for a couple of POSSIBILITY OF ANOTHER RISING 211 months, as well as with spare arms and ammimition ; and should any disturbance occur in the district, the prospector becomes at once a member of the garrison, and is entitled both to ammunition and to rations. Naturally, there is still a good deal of hesitation about I venturing out to prospect, and wild rumours are con- 1 stantly afloat, but Captain Nicholson declares that the natives are absolutely under control. Up to the present they have abided loyally by the terms of the agreement made with them, and have not fired a shot since the day on which they agreed to give in, or to sit down, to use their own expressive phrase. Too great a dependence must not be placed upon native declarations, but they say themselves that they understand now that they are not a match for the white men. Mr. Rhodes asked one of their indunas if they had really thought they had any chance of suc- ceeding. " Yes," he said, " we felt sure we could beat you, but we know now that we could no more beat you than we can lick our elbows." After he had gone, Mr. Rhodes and those who were with him tried to lick their elbows, but found it an impossibility. In spite of the financial difficulties in which the rebellion involved them, the Chartered Company, when they found the natives in a starving con- dition, supplied them with food amounting to a weight of over five million pounds (two thousand five hundred tons), the transport cost of which from the railway base could certainly not have been less 212 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT than £100 per ton. That is to say, they have ex- pended on their rebelHous subjects, at a time of great financial difficulty, at least £250,000. It fully justi- fies Father Daignault's comment, " I must add that the action of the Company in supplying the natives Avith seed and food, and trying to find employment for them, after they caused the Company such a loss of life, money, and property, is highly creditable, and I cannot instance a similar case of equal generosity." This clemency has had the best possible effect ; and another great factor that makes for peace is the railway. The natives are fully aware of its importance, one of them having been heard to say, " What is the good of fighting against the white men ? the oxen are all dead from rinderpest, but they can make their wasfo-ons run without oxen." But by far the most effectual guarantee for peace will be the firm but just rule which there is every reason to hope is being instituted. Of Judge Vintcent and his work there is but one opinion. Mr Milton, who rules in Salisbury, has an admirable record in South Africa ; and Captain Lawley, the deputy-adminis- trator in Matabililand, although he has won the en- thusiastic confidence of the settlers, is determined that fair treatment shall also be accorded to the natives. Let us hope that the words he spoke at the Bulawayo banquet will in time come true — he may be depended upon to do his utmost to bring about their fulfilment : " It was a tide of coumiercial activity and commercial THE RISING IN MASHONALAND 213 enterprise, but it was a tide which bore upon its bosom the heaUng influences of Christianity and civihsation, and would in the end do much to diminish the sum of human suffering and of human sin." That is as it should be, but vastly different methods of evangelisation will have to be employed in the future to those which have been adopted in the past. The Mashonaland rising began on the 18th June, when the Matabili rebellion was practically over; so both Imperial troops and volunteers were sent up from Bulawayo to assist in quelling it ; Colonel Alder- son, with the mounted infantry, coming out direct from England. The rebellion was never really serious, and soon resolved itself into a gradual reduction one by one of the different chiefs, who had no cohesion, and did not co-operate in any way with each other. Like the rising in Matabililand it was full, however, of gallant incidents of individual pluck. Most of them have already been recounted in the Chartered Company's Report, but one, not contained in it, is, I think, worth relating, as it gives a vivid idea of the horrors entailed by a native rebellion. A Mr. Bester, a Dutchman, had a farm about twenty miles from Enkledoorn, and was living there with his wife, his children, and his aged mother. They were attacked suddenly, and Bester was shot in the shoulder. He managed to crawl into the house, where he fainted from loss of blood. A white man who was 214 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT helping him with the farm was assegaiecl, and killed before he could reach shelter. The two ladies barri- caded the doors and windows, and kept off the natives with the help of Mr. Bester's three daughters, the eldest of whom was under sixteen. Early the next morning Mr Botha, his wife, and two daughters arrived. His house had been attacked also, and his son killed, and he and the rest of his family had escaped by night, walking more than fifteen miles. Mercifully the natives hardly ever move from their kraals at night, so they had been able to get away unobserved. That afternoon the attack upon the two families was renewed, and young Mrs. Bester was killed. Mr. Botha was sick and unable to move, and Mr. Bester was hors de coinbat with his wound ; so Mrs. Botha and old Mrs. Bester had agfain to conduct the whole of the defence, and of the subsequent retreat. As soon as it grew dark, they made their way on foot to Enkledoorn, reaching it a little before daybreak. I heard the story from several transport riders, but they were not quite sure of the details, for which I am indebted to Dr. Wiener, who was in Enkledoorn at the time (it was in June 1896). He attended Mr. Bester for the wound in his shoulder, and succeeded in pulling him through. The relief, too, of the Abercorn mine, by a volun- teer force commanded by Mr. Duncan, was a very fine piece of work. Captain de Moleyns told me it was one of the finest during the whole of the Mashona rebellion. When Lord Grey arrived in Bulawayo, Mr. THE ABERCORN PATROL 215 Duncan handed over charge to him, and, as soon as it was at all safe, started for Salisbury. He and his com- panion, a Mr, De Preez, rode in one night from Charter, a distance of sixty-four miles. They left on Thursday afternoon at five o'clock, and arrived the following morning at seven. News came on the Saturday that the Abercorn people were in danger, and Duncan hastily got sixty men together, and started off the same evening to relieve them. The Abercorn is fully seventy miles from Salisbury, and they had intermit- tent fighting all the way, and did not reach it till the Monday morning, when they found seven white men in the last stage of exhaustion. They had been be- sieged for twenty-three days by the Mashonas, who had built a circle of stone barricades around the store. One man, who had attempted to parley with them, had been killed, and three had been wounded. They had plenty of food, but were hard put to it for water, being obliged to drink gin and lime-juice. They had suffered terribly, too, from the extremes of heat and cold, one of them dying of pneumonia soon after thoy were relieved. They had made a laager of provision cases, and of sacks of flour piled breast-high, but unprotected at the top, and had connected it by a passage with the store, which consisted of the usual thatched wattle-and-daub hut. The patrol started with only a bully-beef tin and a few biscuits, which each man carried in his wallet ; so they were glad to find plenty of food at the store. They remained there that night, and on the following 216 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT morning made a detour to avoid the Maslionas, in case they should have blocked the road along which they had come. To do this, they had to cut a path for twelve miles throusfh the bush for the ambulance waggon and the Maxim. Jack Rowland, one of the rescued men, died that night, the funeral service being read by the Jesuit missionary. Father Biehler, who had pluckily accompanied the patrol, and who, indeed, accompanied most of the important patrols all through the rising. They got back to Salisbury on Friday without any casualties ; but it was fortunate they made a detour, for it was found afterwards that the direct road had been barricaded behind them immediately after they had passed. Great holes, twenty feet in length and twelve feet in width, had been dug in it, and covered with branches and earth, so that a hostile force coming along the road at night might fall into them, like elephants into Mashona game-traps. Cover- ing barricades had also been built on the side of the hills, so that it would have been impossible for any but a very strong force to cut its way through. The Mashonas are not as brave as the Matabili, but they have a far better idea of fortification; and the way in which their kraals are defended shows a high order of intelligence, which it is to be hoped will be turned to advantage when peace is restored. It is the custom now to run them down, to deride them as a base and degraded race, but that was not the opinion formed by travellers who visited THE MASHOJ^A CHArlACTER 217 Mashonaland before we took possession of it. I liave already quoted what Colonel Wood thought of them, and Baines formed an equally appreciative estimate of their character. " All hunters and traders," he writes, " who have had intercourse with the Mashonas agree in describing them as a friendly, peaceable, industrious, and ingenious people. They make fine iron from mag- netic iron ore, groAv cotton, construct rude textile fabrics, and in many of these particulars are entirely in advance of the surrounding tribes." What they require is a firm but just rule — to be treated as children who have to be taught, but who require encouragement as well as severity to make them learn, and, above all things, justice. When dealing, too, with these native tribes, we must not expect rapid results. Mr. Ritter, the magis- trate of the New Hanover division of Natal, in his report of 1897, brings this out very forcibly : " The progress of any race towards civilisation in one year (if there is no retrogression) must be imperceptibly small. The races now occupying Europe required about 2000 years to rise from barbarism to their present status, and even superior races did not progress steadily, but had periods of relapsing. A nation advances simi- larly to a man ascending to the summit of a mountain. He cannot go up in a straight line, but he occasionally has to descend into a valley and then to go up again. One thing is certain. Teaching will not convert a savage into a civilised being. We can improve a very counuon 218 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT fruit-tree by grafting at once ; but to breed race-horses from common stock requires very many generations. Every nation has to go through the bitter-sweet school of life, like the individual, but what to the latter is a year, to the former is a century. . . . Taken all in all, the natives have many sterling qualities, and the vigour of a youthful nation. They would occasionally like to peg out a witch over an ant-heap, but I am sorry to say my ancestors have burnt a witch as late as the eighteenth century." We are apt to expect too much from the natives, and, if they do not always keep up to our standard, to grow impatient and out of temper with them, which is a fatal mistake. They require firm and indeed rather severe treat- ment, but treatment which they can understand. The one thing that unsettles them altogether is vacillation. If they have been told that a certain punishment will be inflicted it ought to be inflicted, even though to western ideas it may seem unduly harsh. They do not resent severity in the least — they respect it ; but they resent injustice, and above all things they dislike suspense. Let punishment be swift and certain, and not be kept dangling over their heads indefinitely. CHAPTER XVII The B.S.A, Company's Police : in Mashonaland and in Mata- BiLiLAND — Excellent System initiated by Captain Nicholson. A NUMBER of letters have recently appeared in the papers declaring that the Chartered Company's police are badly fed, badly clothed, badly paid, and in general badly treated. In Mashonaland they have certainly had a hard time, but to a great extent it was unavoid- able. The rinderpest entailed great difficulties of transport, and as the patrols were obliged to move quickly, they could take but little with them in the shape either of food or of clothing. They had no tents, only a waterproof sheet, and had to camp for days together in heavy rain. Naturally they got fever, and many of them died, and others have been crippled for life. Still that is incidental to the nature of their service. When the French took Madagascar, they lost an immense number of men through fever and disease. In the opening up of any new tropical country there must always be a terrible mortality from sickness. Where the Company have been seriously to blame, is in not sending a doctor out with each of the principal patrols. On many of them not only was there no 219 220 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT doctor, but there was no medicine chest, or proper surgical instruments. I know that on one of the most important patrols all that the officer in command had with him was a small case of fever medicines, with which he did what he could. The kit was shockingly bad, and no provision was made for the men's health and comfort when they were in camp. The pay, too, for a country like Mashonaland, is exceedingly small ; for troopers it is only five shillings a day, of which one shilling is deferred pay. After the first year's service they are given an extra sixpence a day, and on re- engaging after two years an extra shilling, but with the scale of prices prevailing in Mashonland an extra six- pence is worth nothing at all. Indeed, a sixpence is a comparatively rare coin, a shilling being the usual standard of value ; so much so that in most of the wayside stores, if the price of anything contains a six- pence, it is almost always tossed for to make it even money. A threepenny-bit is rarer still, and pennies are unlaiown. I bought some stamps at the post-office in Umtali, and when the clerk gave me my change in five penny stamps I asked him to let me have two pennies and a threepenny-bit ; he laughed — " We don't have pennies here," he said ; " and I have hardly seen a tickie (threepenny-bit) since I have been in the country." I fancy this scarcity of small coin is due to the difficulty the banks have of getting up bullion, but the country will always be an exjDcnsive one till a smaller standard of value is introduced. THE RHODESIAN POLICE 221 What lias especially irritated the police is, that they, being enlisted in England, and knowing nothing about the country, were only paid five shillings a day during the rising, whilst the volunteers enlisted in Rhodesia were paid ten shillings. Five shillings a day is only £7 a month, and when one considers the wages paid to men in other occupations, it is not surprising that the police are discontented, and that few of them re-enlist at the expiration of their service. There are many natives who get quite as good or even better pay, and a clerk in a store gets about four or five times as much, from £25 to £30 a month. The men complain especially that in the letter of introduction to Sir Richard Martin given to each man when he is enlisted, there is a clause wdiich is really a great hardship, when the unhealthy nature of the country between Beira and Umtali is considered. It runs thus : " He (Sir Richard Martin) has been in- formed that all recruits enrolled in England are liable to be again medically inspected on arrival at Salisbury, and that if then rejected for any cause, they may be discharged without further claim, other than the £15, that has to be handed to them on their arrival at Cape Town or Durban, as specified in the particulars." (I am told, however, that instead of being given this £15, the men's expenses are now paid for them to Salisbury or Bulawayo, as the case may be.) They complain that if taken into the hospital at Umtah on their way from Beira, before the final medical inspection 222 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT at Salisbury, they are made to pay their own expenses whilst there, by virtue of this clause. Another pro- vision which presses hardly upon them is, that if they are discharged in Salisbury or Bulawayo they are not assisted back to the place where they may have been enlisted. It is like asking a time-expired man to find his way back from India. The agreement entered into with the men is silent on this point, so legally they have no claim on the Company, but considering the splendid work they have done, and the terrible hard- ships they have been called upon to endure, they might surely be treated a little more liberally. They feel very bitter about it, because the whole of their deferred pay is, they say, used up in getting out of the country. An efficient police is above all things a necessity for Rhodesia, because, until a greater sense of security prevails, the country cannot be developed, nor will capital be attracted to it. For a man with colonial experience, it is by no means a bad thing to go for a while into the police — he has an opportunity to look around him and learn the local conditions ; but it is foolish for educated men to come out direct from Eng- land. They can save nothing from their pay, and if they fall ill, as they are more than likely to do, before final enlistment at Salisbury, they will be about £30 out of pocket, and with no means of getting home. Can one wonder that there are continual reports that the men are in a semi-mutinous condition ? THE RHODESIAN POLICE 223 In Matabililand the conditions are vastly better ; the country is healthier, and the police have not had the same rouerh work as in Mashonaland. The cost of living is materially less, and a trooper can save some- thing substantial out of his pay. The class of men is, however, changing rapidly in character ; fewer gentle- men are enlisting, though I am not sure that this is to be regretted, for steady, well-educated men of the artisan class make more trustworthy police than public schoolboys and University men, who are excellent for a campaign, when employed to do purely military work, but who cannot stand the monotonous work of a civilian police force, which is what the Matabililand police is rapidly becoming. The curse of the country is drink. The conditions I I of life, as well as the climate, favour it, but until it is checked the high rate of mortality (which is generally erroneously attributed to fever) will continue. Father Daignault, of the Jesuit mission, who has a wide experience, said in the evidence he gave before the Chamber of Mines, " Yes, I have known many cases of sickness and death brought on through excess in drinking. If we compare the population of Bulawayo with that of other countries in respect to intemperance, I think we are as Ioav as we can afford to be." If the men can keep from drink, they can in Mata- bililand save a fair amount, and when they obtain their discharge ought to have from £30 to £40 in hand with which to start prospecting. For a working 224 RHODESIA AND ITS COVERNMENT man, or lor \\\o l;in(l n\' man wlio becomes a policeman al liomc, (liui is a liaiidsoiiu' sum, but it is not a snffi- v'u'ul indiK'cmcnt tor the men of o'ood family wlio, up t:0 the present, lia\'e been ehietly enlisted. Many of t.liem are I'ailtn-es, who bave (b'itted out. witli an in- lro(bi('tion to Mr. Rhodes as tlieir only stand-by, and been di'allotl into the poli(;c as a matter of course, and it is mostly they Avho have done the grumbling. It is relat('d that one of tluMu wcMit- to Mr. lihodi\s, and said he expected to be something better than a mere trooper. " What did you expect ? " said Mr. Rlu)dt\s ; " to be a (^aptaiTi or a, major ? " " Well, I thought 1 should be a majoi-," was the reply. " V^eiy wh>11," said Mr. Rhodes, " 1 will rais(> a t roop ol majors, and make you one ol them." There have boon more than enough of this kind of men in the Ivhodesian police, but tlu're luive also been plenty of boys of good family, who have gone out thinking they were going to a fair opening in a new counlrw and were cpiite imsuiti'd by the intluenees of their birth and education foi- the rough life and coarse (U)mpanionshi]), unusually rough even for a colony, which they have been obliged to endure. Those who have survi\('d have come splendidly out of the terrible ordeal of lighting and exposure into which they were pitchforked inunediately on their arrival, but if the nature of their service were understood in l']ngland, fewer nu*n oi' this staniji would enlist : the reca'uits would ct>me mainly from the llotsam and ji'tsani of South Africa. MATABI LILAN I > I'OLTCE 2 '2 5 Matabililaiul, :is I ]\a\c said, is iiioih' advanced than iMashonaland, aud I ho poTux' I here have iiiori' comfort and loss exposure, and C(.)nsoquontly do noL foci the same amonnt of dissatisfaction. This is })roved by (he I'aet- tliat out of a total of six huiuh-od men ovei- (hroo hnnch-ed ha\e rt'-t>nhsled, and ihat^ hist year there were only three desertions and three conrts- martial. The savings-bank has done nnieli to diminish crime by diminishing drink. Captain Nicholson started it, about a. year ago, and more than three lumdred of the men liave already become depositors, the total amonnt. deposited from Nov^Mnber 1806 to Oi^tober 1807 being 15305 ; the amount to stand to a. deposi- tor's credit being strictly liuiit.ed t.o 1100. I went over the barracks at. Hulawayo, and I'ouud a good billiainl- room, a library, a well-manageil canteen and a store, all run by the men themselves, and various other arrange- ments for their comfort. There is nothing of the sort as yet in Salisbury, where the work of suppressing the rising has absorbed all t.he energies both of the ollicers and of the men. If properly encouraged the police might become an exceedingly powerful, colonising faiit.or. At the vwA of their t.wo yeai's' service they sluudd have anpiired some knowledge both of the natives and of the lan- guage, which, with the little money they should have saved, would enable tluMU to go out and j)ros])ect. in a, way that men new t() the country cannot, do. More than that., it" they kee[) their eyi's open, they will be P 226 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT able when on their patrols to jutlge which places have the best prospects to offer. What Captain Nicholson is trying to do, and what he has largely succeeded in doing, is to make the force a training-school of this kind. But for this purpose a particular stamp of man is required — of rather greater intelligence than the ordinary soldier, and able to take up a responsible position, as they will constantly be stationed in outposts without an officer, or sent on a patrol Avith possibly only one companion. Either this class of men ought to be exclusively recruited, or the pay should be in- creased, and the admissions confined to a higher class of men altogether, so as to produce a crack corps like the Cape or Natal Mounted Police. (Their pay may not be higher, but the cost of living is much less.) Rhodesia is too new for that, but more stability of character in the men enlisted should be looked for : when savasces have to be dealt with, that is of the utmost importance, especially where, as in Matabililand, the country is practically under police control. The Imperial authorities, I should add, are doing what they can to second Captain Nicholson's efforts to make the force a colonising factor, the Colonial Office having allotted a certain number of trooperships to the Colo- nial College at Hollesley Bay in Suffolk. General Sir Arthur Cunynghamo's account of the Kaffraria police in 1876 shows how difficult it is even for a long-established colony, like the Cape, to main- tain police in a state of efficiency, and one should MATABILTLAND POLICE 227 not be too critical in judging their shortcomings in Rhodesia. I have adverted to them because they have been much commented upon of late ; but what was wrong is being gradually remedied in Mashona- land as well as in Matabililand. Captain Nicholson's administrative Avork cannot be too highly praised, the more so when the circumstances under which it has been done are borne in mind. The force was raised temporarily in July 189G, but was not definitely orga- nised until November of that year. Fighting was still going on, and owing to the ever-present transport difficulty it was hard work to establish anything like system ; but in spite of everything being against him, and of the difficulty of obtaining suitable recruits, he has succeeded in creating a smart, well- disciplined, and trustworthy force. The men in Mashonaland have shown what mettle they are made of, and now that the rebellion there is over, it is to be hoped that they will bo looked after in the same way that their fellow-troopers are in Mata- bililand. What Sir Arthur Cunynghame says about the Kaftraria police is worth recalling : " The frontier armed and mounted police, as they are distinctively called, are a special body, which was originally formed by Sir George Cathcart, when Governor of the Cape, at the termination of the war in 1852. ... As years rolled on, the Afrikander farmers' sons Avould no longer enter the service. Other fields of labour presented 228 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT tliemselves of a much more lucrative character, such as diamond and gold digging and transport riding (which means accompanying waggons to distant parts of the colony with merchants' goods). It became requisite to obtain young men from England. The selection was left to the Colonial Agent, possibly a clever man for civil duties, but not at all acquainted with military ones, having no special knowledge of our profession. He appears to have represented that the lowest standard of pay in this force was from five to six shillings a day per man, so that he had no diffi- culty in obtaining recruits. The men, however, found on their arrival that deductions from this pay were made for the purchase of horses and accoutrements, their own keep, that of their horses, and other ex- traneous expenses. They came to the conclusion, therefore, that they had been deceived, and said (with truth) that they were infinitely worse off than the British soldier, for whom all these extras were provided by the Government." I have quoted this passage to show, what I have endeavoured to show all through my account of Rhodesia, that the purely administrative, as distin- guished from the political mistakes, which the Char- tered Company have made, have been made before both by the Imperial and by the Colonial Governments on almost every occasion on which fresh territory has been annexed. There is no reason why they should continue to be made ; but the Chartered Company RHODESIAN POLICE 229 cannot in fairness be blamed for failing to attain, at a time of exceptional trial and. stress, to a higher stan- dard than that of which those Governments have hitherto shown themselves capable. Moreover, the Chartered Company, and Mr. Rhodes personally, have behaved with infinitely greater liberality than the Imperial Government has been wont to do under similar circumstances. Mr. Rhodes' generosity has been very great. CHAPTER XVIII Treatment of the Natives prior to the Rebellion — Advisability of a General Amnesty. What was done to the natives during and after the rebellion, when the blood of the colonists was inflamed almost to madness by the brutal murder of their com- rades, is intelligible, and to a certain extent excusable, but there can be no excuse for the treatment accorded to them before it broke out. It forced the Matabili into insurrection, and converted the Mashonas from a people who welcomed us as deliverers from Matabili oppression into a people who have dared death in its most abhorrent form in the hope of shaking off our rule ; it demands therefore the strictest and most impartial investigation. Only a Government inquiry, conducted with full protection to those who are will- ing to give evidence, can elicit the truth of the many terrible stories with which the country is reeking; of things done for which no condemnation can be too vehement. The men to whom the guardianship of the natives was especially entrusted were the native commis- sioners ; some have proved worthy of their trust, but 230 TREATMENT OF THR MASHONAS 231 many have not. They have treated the natives harshly and with gross injustice, and are mainly respon- sible for the rebellion and for the brutal ferocity which was one of its saddest features. " Sir Richard Martin," says Lord Grey, " condemns the administration for not exercising more care in the selection of the native commissioners, some of whom, he states, were too young and inexperienced, and were not calculated to inspire the natives with respect. This unqualified condemnation I resent as a slur most undeservedly cast upon the officials, who, as a class, have, under difiicult circumstances, done their duty to the administration." That Lord Grey should defend his officials is only what he is bound to do as head of the Chartered Com- pany's administration, but is the view he takes of their conduct borne out by a scrutiny of the facts ? The Rev. John White, one of the Wesleyan mis- sionaries in Mashonaland, wrote a forcible letter which appeared in the Methodist Times in January 1897, which I give in full, as it does not appear in the blue- book. From beginning to end it. is worthy of the most careful consideration. I regret that I was not able to meet Mr. White when I was in Rhodesia. He was away at the time in one of the mission stations, but he has since returned to England, and has kindly given me permission to insert his letter here. So far as T am able to judge, every word of it is justified. 232 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNS KNT THE CAUSE OF THE MASHONA REBELLION. To the Editor of the " Methodid Times:' " Dear Sir,^ — As most of your readers are aware, for the last three months the settlers in jSTorthern Rhodesia have been engaged in a desperate and bloody struggle with the natives of this country. Already about two hundred lives have been lost, two-thirds of which have been cruelly murdered. Irrespective of opinions or position, we have fought together to pre- serve our o^vn, and the lives of the helpless women and children in our midst. " Now that the back of the rebellion has been broken, and the probability of settlement seems nearer, we are better able to give a dispassionate opinion of the affair. Until the present I for one have refrained from ex- pressing myself publicly on the question. I waited to hear what would be assigned as the cause of the rebellion. What would the press of the country say ? Would the British South Africa Company see and honestly confess its mistake ? Would means be at once adopted to remedy the evil ? The local press has now spoken. It declares the natives have been treated in the past Avith too much clemency. The influence of the ' Exeter Hall Negrophilists ' has been most severely deprecated. An imaginary contention that cruelty to the natives by whites had anything to do with the rising has been described as a ' cruel, TREATMENT OF THE MASHONAS 233 cowardly, and wicked lie.' Now, sir, I presume many of these papers find their way to England ; that they are read by the British public, and may do something to influence .opinion on this matter. Their contention challenges a counter- verdict — they compel us, even though reluctantly, to state the truth as we also believe it. Since I have lived two and a half years in this country, and am now spending the whole of my time amongst the natives, I will be exonerated from any charge of presumption when I declare I know a little about those unfortunate people and their affairs. What Caused the Mashonas to Revolt. "I. The Malachninistration of Native Affairs. — In every large district a native commissioner is appointed, who acts as Government representative to the natives. His duties are to administer justice, settle disputes, collect hut-tax, and in a general way look after their affairs. These commissioners arc controlled by the Chief Native Commissioner, who resides at Salisbury. Some of these men have acted fairly and justly to the Mashonas ; others, again, have proved themselves utterly unworthy of their position. Their attitude towards the great social question of this country has been such as to destroy in the native's mind that respect that he should have for the new-comer. Many of them have purchased, according to native law, women whom they keep as mistresses. Provided it 2?>4 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT were contended that tlieso women do not regard their position as an unkindly one at present, we want to know what will become of them in the future. Many of these men will only remain here for a short time, when, in all probability, they will cast these unfortunate women and their children adrift. The effects of this upon the natives have been anything but good. But worse than this, in one case at least this has been carried to a criminal extreme. Last year an instance was reported to me in which one of these officials used the influence of his position to obtain a girl for immoral purposes. By means of threats of punishment he compelled the chief to give him his own daughter. I { brought the matter to the notice of the Administrator, ; and the accused was found guilty of the charge. He shortly after left the country ; yet so trivial seemed the offence that within nine months he was back again, I and held an official position in the force raised to punish the rebels, " In the same district (Lo Magundi's) another glaring act of official injustice and cruelty was committed in 1894. A policeman named Cooper was murdered by a large chief (Mazimba Guba) who lived in the extreme north of the district. Under the Sub-Inspector of Police a force was sent out to punish the murderer or murderers. At that time Rev. G. H. Eva was in charge of the Wesleyan mission station some thirty miles south of the place. One Sunday, shortly after the murder had been committed, this force arrived at his TREATMENT OF 'I'HE MASHONAS 235 station just as he Avas concluding the service. Accord- ing to previous arrangement, a number of the sur- rounding chiefs and their people had gathered there for the day. The officer in charge ordered the chiefs to be arrested, seven in number. Without in any way fastening them, they were told that if they attempted to run away they would be shot. They then moved on. About five minutes later Mr. Eva heard a shot, and ran to see what was the matter. He found only three of the chiefs were with the force ; three had been shot, and one had escaped. The officer, by way of explaining, said, ' Your indunas (chiefs) have run away. I am very sorry for what has happened.' Mr. Eva declares, ' I am prepared to swear on oath that these chiefs were absolutely innocent of the policeman's death ; indeed, they were at the time totally ignorant of its occurrence, and did not know of it until I told them.' Thus, on the pretext of their attempting to run away, these three innocent chiefs lost their lives. Although this case was reported to the Government, nothing was done in the matter. Very often, too, great injustices have been done to the natives in the way the hut-tax has been collected. The sum of ten \ shillings per year is charged as tax for every occupied hut. This amount, especially in the more remote districts, is often paid in kind. In the collecting of this rarely any attempt is made to levy the fee equitably. The huts are numbered, the number of cattle or goats demanded and taken. It has often happened that a 236 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT lazy, unscrupulous owner of huts has had his paid for by some more industrious person, who owned none, but who had the misfortune to possess a cow. This has had a tendency to make the natives discontented and the hut-tax repulsive. In many districts where pre- viously considerable herds of cattle were to be found, now hardly one exists. I do not say the hut-tax ought to be discontinued. I do think, however, some more just and less repulsive method of collecting ought to be devised. " The above cases are typical. Such injustices and cruelties have had a tendency to make the natives fear and hate the Government and most of its officials. " II. The Native Constable Ntdsance. — Some time ago the Government enlisted and trained a large number of Mashona and Matabili police. They were placed under the control of the native commissioners. These fellows, previously the most arrant cowards, once they are invested with a little authority and armed with a rifle, develop into the cruellest of tyrants. They are sent about from place to place uncontrolled to execute the orders of their master. They never scruple to use their position to get almost anything they wish. They demand and obtain from the unwilling people as much beer, meal, and meat as they may require. One night, as I was travelling north, I arrived late at a kraal, and was preparing to sleep outside, when the chief, who happened to know me, offered me a hut for myself and carriers. About midnight I was awoke by some half- TREATMENT OF THE MASHONAS 237 dozen people — men, women, and children — rushing into my place, apparently much distressed. On inquir- ing the cause, they told me a native policeman, who was sta3dng overnight at the kraal, had attempted to force his Avay into the hut where these women were sleeping. I have since gathered that attempted assaults on women by these scoundrels are of frequent occurrence. Such has become the reputation of these representatives of official justice that their arrival at a ' kraal ' is the occasion of the worst alarms, and often leads the people to run away and hide themselves. Recently at the Matoppo hills, when the Matabili chiefs were arranging terms of surrender, they men- tioned as one of the causes of the revolt the treatment they had received at the hands of certain Government officials, but especially of the native police. " III. Injustices of Rhodcsian Settlers. — Scattered throughout this country are a considerable number of white settlers — farmers, hunters, gold 'prospectors,' traders, and others. The conduct of many of these towards the natives has been humane and just. Others, however, have given the heathen Mashona a very poor opinion of civilised justice and propriety. Many of them have bought, according to native custom, Kaffir girls, whom they regard as their property. The girls consider themselves, to all intents and purposes, as slaves of these men. In consequence, before many years elapse, the Government will be confronted with a most serious social problem unless it puts an end to 238 EHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT this sort of thing at once. Many of these men are utterly unscrupulous, and when away from the Govern- mental control take the law practically into their own hands, and do as they like with the KafRrs. I have often heard of cases in which wages have been refused when due, and, in some instances, the claimant been flogged for insisting on payment. " Put the foregoing facts together, and then let me ask you whether the charge of injustice by whites to natives is a ' cruel, cowardly, and wicked lie.' Any unbiassed person must admit that for the terrible step they took they had some provocation. These cruelties and injustices have been rankling in their minds for many a long day, and only needed propitious circum- stances to bring them to a most disastrous issue. ' We had better be dead,' some of them said, ' than be tor- mented like this.' " IV. The Rinderpest mid Locust Flagtie. — For two or three seasons unusually large swarms of locusts have visited this country, destroying large quantities of the crops, and in some instances reducing many of the people to the verge of starvation. This year a terrible cattle plague swept through the land, killing thousands of animals. In their ignorant and superstitious way of reasoning, they attributed these calamities to the 'whites' being in their country. ' The locusts and cattle disease,' they said, ' came with the " Barungu" ' (the white men). Again and again they have asked, ' When are the white people returning to the land from whence they came ? ' TREATMENT OF THE MASHONAS 239 " V. The Pernicious Influence of the Witch-Dodors. — As is their custom, these Mashonas, when they need advice, resort to these niediunis of their gods. The witch- doctors then inquire from the ' Murenga '■ — the Great Spirit. ' If you want to get rid of your troubles,' they rephed, 'kill the white men.' That the advice was atrociously cruel and fearfully indiscriminate we will all admit. But think for a moment. These people are utterly savage, and reason accordingly. They believed they had grievances ; they ignorantly thought we had brought the plagues amongst them ; they know nothing of venting their grievances in a constitutional manner. According to their notions, the best way to rid themselves of an evil is to destroy the cause. Hence they listened to the advice of their prophets. "VI. The Op2')ortune Moment. — These witch-doctors, through their coming much in contact with men, are naturally shrewd and cunning. 'L'hey took care to give their advice when it was likely to be acted upon. Dr. Jameson had taken away a number of the mounted police for purposes with which everybody is acquainted. Now, early this year a force of armed men had gone down to assist to quell the rebellion in Matabililand. Then, when off our guard, when the country was ill prepared for it, these naturally cowardly Mashonas rose in one dark mass, carrying death and desolation into the abodes of all within their reach. Within a few days some one hundred and thirty unsuspecting, many 240 RHODESIA AND ITS GOVERNMENT of them perfectly innocent, people were hurried into eternity. " We who live here regard the future with some anxiety. Will the Chartered Company see its mistake, and make an honest attempt to amend matters ? If so, they will find no more loyal supporters than the missionaries. If not, and these atrocities are repeated, then in the name of justice and humanity we must make our voice heard. We do not forget the many good qualities of the Company. As a Church, they have treated us handsomely ; their occupation of this territory has done much to advance civilisation in Central Africa ; they have brought many necessities of life within easier reach of the natives. These things we cannot overlook. At present the land is under a dark cloud ; confusion and strife reign everywhere. Let those in authority face the position with brave and honest hearts. Where corruption and injustice are found, let them be swept away, and let the foundations of this new colony be laid in righteousness and truth, then we feel sure a bright and successful future awaits us. John White, IVesleyan Minister. " Salisbury, 30