Impressions of South Africa Part 14

In the last preceding chapter I have carried the reader into the Transvaal through Natal, because this is the most interesting route. But most travellers in fact enter _via_ Cape Colony and the Orange Free State, that State lying between the north-eastern frontier of the Colony and the south-eastern frontier of the Transvaal. Of the Free State there is not much to say; but that little needs to be said, because this Republic is a very important factor in South African politics, and before coming to its politics the reader ought to know something of its population. I have already (Chapter V) summarized its physical features and have referred (Chapter XI) to the main incidents in its history.

Physically, there is little to distinguish it from the regions that bound it to the east, north, and west. Like them, it is level or undulating, dry, and bare--in the main a land of pasture. One considerable diamond mine is worked in the west, (at Jagersfontein) and along the banks of the Caledon River there lies one rich agricultural district. But the land under cultivation is less than one per cent, of the whole area. There are no manufactures, and of course very little trade; so the scanty population increases slowly. It is a country of great gra.s.sy plains, brilliantly green and fresh after rain has fallen, parched and dusty at other times, but able to support great numbers of cattle and sheep. Rare farmhouses and still rarer villages are scattered over this wide expanse, which, in the north-east, toward Natal, rises into a mountainous region. The natives (most of them of Bechuana stock) are nearly twice as numerous as the whites. Some live on a large Barolong reservation, where they till the soil and keep their cattle in their own way. The rest are scattered over the country, mostly employed as herdsmen to the farmers. Save on the reservation, they cannot own land or travel without a pa.s.s, and of course they are not admitted to the electoral franchise. They seem, however, to be fairly well treated, and are perfectly submissive. Their wages average thirty s.h.i.+llings a month. Native labour has become so scarce that no farmer is now permitted to employ more than twenty-five. Of the whites, fully two-thirds are of Dutch origin, and Dutch is pretty generally spoken.

English, however, is understood by most people, and is the language most commonly used in the larger villages. The two races have lived of late years in perfect harmony, for there has never been any war between the Free State and Great Britain. As the tendency of the English citizens to look to Cape Colony has been checked by the sentiment of independence which soon grew up in this little Republic, and by their attachment to its inst.i.tutions, so the knowledge of the Dutch citizens that the English element entertains this sentiment and attachment has prevented the growth of suspicion among the Dutch, and has knitted the two races into a unity which is generally cordial.[64] Nevertheless, so much Dutch feeling remained slumbering, that when it had been reawakened by Dr.

Jameson's expedition into the Transvaal in December, 1895, the scale was decisively turned in favour of one out of the two candidates at the election of a President which followed shortly thereafter, by the fact that the one belonged to a Dutch, the other to a Scottish family. Both were able and experienced men, the former (Mr. Steyn) a judge, the latter (Mr. Fraser) Speaker of the Volksraad. It may be added that the proximity of the Colony, and the presence of the large English element, have told favourably upon the Dutch population in the way of stimulating their intelligence and modifying their conservatism, while not injuring those solid qualities which make them excellent citizens. The desire for instruction is far stronger among them than it is in the Transvaal.

Indeed, there is no part of South Africa where education is more valued and more widely diffused.

The only place that can be called a town is Bloemfontein, the seat of government, which stands on the great trunk-line of railway from Cape Town to Pretoria, seven hundred and fifty miles from the former and two hundred and ninety from the latter town. It is what the Germans call a "freundliches Stadtchen," a bright and cheerful little place with 3,300 white and 2,500 black inhabitants, nestling under a rocky kopje, and looking out over illimitable plains to the east and south. The air is dry and bracing, and said to be especially beneficial to persons threatened with pulmonary disease. As it is one of the smallest, so it is one of the neatest and, in a modest way, best appointed capitals in the world. It has a little fort, originally built by the British government, with two Maxim guns in the a.r.s.enal, a Protestant Episcopal and a Roman Catholic cathedral as well as Dutch Reformed churches, all kinds of public inst.i.tutions, a s.p.a.cious market square, with a good club and an excellent hotel, wide and well-kept streets, gardens planted with trees that are now so tall as to make the whole place seem to swim in green, a national museum, and a very handsome building for the legislature, whose princ.i.p.al apartment is as tasteful, well-lighted, and well-arranged as any I have seen in any British Colony or American State. The place is extremely quiet, and people live very simply, though not cheaply, for prices are high, and domestic service so dear and scarce as to be almost unprocurable. Every one is above poverty, but still further removed from wealth. It looks, and one is told that it is, the most idyllic community in Africa, worthy to be the capital of this contented and happy State. No great industries have come into the Free State to raise economic strife. No capitalists tempt the virtue of legislators, or are forced to buy off the attacks of blackmailers. No religious animosities divide Christians, for there is perfect religious freedom. No difficulties as to British suzerainty exist, for the Republic is absolutely independent. No native troubles have arisen. No prize is offered to ambition. No political parties have sprung up.

Taxation is low, and there is no public debt. The arms of the State are a lion and a lamb standing on opposite sides of an orange-tree, with the motto, "Freedom, Immigration, Patience, Courage", and though the lion has, since 1871, ceased to range over the plains, his pacific att.i.tude beside the lamb on this device happily typifies the harmony which has existed between the British and Dutch elements, and the spirit of concord which the late President Brand so well infused into the public life of his Republic. In the Orange Free State I discovered, in 1895, the kind of commonwealth which the fond fancy of the philosophers of last century painted. It is an ideal commonwealth, not in respect of any special excellence in its inst.i.tutions, but because the economic and social conditions which have made democracy so far from an unmixed success in the American States and in the larger Colonies of Britain, not to speak of the peoples of Europe, whether ancient or modern, have not come into existence here, while the external dangers which for a time threatened the State have, years ago, vanished away like clouds into the blue.[65]

Although, however, the political const.i.tution of the Free State is not the chief cause of the peace and order which the State enjoys, it may claim to be well suited to the community which lives happily under it.

It is a simple const.i.tution, and embodied in a very short, terse, and straightforward instrument of sixty-two articles, most of them only a few lines in length.

The governing authorities are the President, the Executive Council, and the Volksraad or elective popular a.s.sembly. Citizens.h.i.+p belongs to all white persons born in the State, or who have resided in it for three years and have made a written promise of allegiance, or have resided one year and possess real property of the value of one hundred and fifty pounds sterling, a liberality which is in marked contrast to the restrictions imposed upon new comers by the laws of the Transvaal. Thus, practically, all the male white inhabitants are citizens, with full rights of suffrage--subject to some small property qualifications for new comers which it is hardly worth while to enumerate.

The President is elected by the citizens for five years and is re-eligible. He can sit and speak but cannot vote in the Volksraad, is responsible to it and has the general control of the administration.

The Executive Council consists of five members--besides the President--viz., the State Secretary and the Magistrate of Bloemfontein, both of whom are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Volksraad, and three other members chosen by the Volksraad. It is a.s.sociated with the President for divers purposes, but has not proved to be an important or influential body.

The Volksraad is elected by all the citizens for four years, half of the members retiring every two years. It has only one chamber, in which there sit at present fifty-eight members. It is the supreme legislative authority, meeting annually, and in extra sessions when summoned, and its consent is required to the making of treaties and to a declaration of war. The President has no veto on its acts, and the heads of the executive departments do not sit in it.

The obligation of military service is universal on all citizens between the ages of sixteen and sixty.

The const.i.tution can be altered by the Volksraad, but only by a three-fourths majority in two consecutive annual sessions. It is therefore a Rigid const.i.tution, like that of the United States and that of Switzerland.

This simple scheme of government seems calculated to throw nearly all the power in the hands of the legislature, leaving the President comparatively weak. Nevertheless, in point of fact the Presidents have been very important figures, partly because there have been no parties in the legislature, and therefore no party leaders. From 1863 till his death in 1888, the whole policy of the State was guided by President Brand, a lawyer from the Cape, whom the people elected for five successive terms. His power of sitting in and addressing the Volksraad proved to be of the utmost value, for his judgment and patriotism inspired perfect confidence. His successor, Mr. F. W. Reitz, who at the time of my visit (November, 1895) had just been obliged by ill-health to retire from office, enjoyed equal respect, and when he chose to exert it, almost equal influence with the legislature, and things went smoothly under him. I gathered that Judge Steyn, who was elected President early in 1896, was similarly respected for his character and abilities, and was likely to enjoy similar weight. So the Speaker of the legislature has been an influential person, because his office devolves upon him functions which the absence of a Cabinet makes important. The fact is that in every government, give it what form you please, call it by what name you will, individual men are the chief factors, and if the course of things is such that the legislature does not become divided into parties and is not called on to produce conspicuous leaders, general leaders.h.i.+p will fall to the executive head if he is fit to a.s.sume it, and legislative leaders.h.i.+p to the chairman of the a.s.sembly.

Were questions to arise splitting up the people and the legislature into factions, the situation would change at once. Oratorical gifts and legislative strategy would become valuable, and the President or the Speaker of the a.s.sembly might be obscured by the chiefs of the parties.

The people of the Free State were well satisfied with their const.i.tution, and showed little disposition to alter it. Some of the wisest heads, however, told me that they thought two improvements were needed: a provision that amendments to the const.i.tution, after having pa.s.sed the Volksraad, should be voted on by the people (as in the Swiss Referendum), and a provision securing to the judges their salaries, and their independence of the Volksraad. It is interesting to notice that both here and in the Transvaal the gravest const.i.tutional questions that have arisen turn on the relations between the legislative and the judicial departments. Some years ago the Free State Volksraad claimed the right to commit a person to prison for contempt, and to direct the State attorney to prosecute him. The Chief Justice, a distinguished lawyer, and his colleagues felt bound to resist what they thought an unconst.i.tutional stretch of power by the Raad. At first they seemed likely to be defeated, but by using their opportunities of charging juries to insist on their views they brought public opinion round to their side, and the Raad ultimately retired from the position it had taken up, leaving the question of right undetermined. It has never been definitely settled whether the courts of law are in the Free State (as in the United States), the authorized interpreters of the const.i.tution, though upon principle it would seem that they are. These South African Const.i.tutions were drafted by simple men in an untechnical way, so that many legal points obvious to the minds of English or American lawyers were left untouched, and have now to be settled either on principle or according to the will of what may happen to be the predominant power for the time being. It is, perhaps, better that they should remain in abeyance until public opinion has grown more instructed and has had fuller opportunities of considering them.

Small as is the white population of the Orange Free State, its geographical position and the high average quality of its citizens secure for it a position of great significance in South African politics; and the att.i.tude it might take would be an important factor in any dispute between the British Government and the Transvaal Republic.

The troubles of December, 1895, drew it nearer to the Transvaal, for the Free State Boers have strong political sympathy with their northern kinsfolk. They were, at the time of my visit, far from approving the policy of mere resistance to reform which President Kruger has taken up; and seemed quite indisposed to support the Transvaal if it should take any course at variance with its treaty engagements.[66] To this topic I may have occasion presently to return. Meanwhile I pa.s.s on to describe the native State which lies nearest to the Free State, which has been most closely connected with its fortunes, and which in one respect furnishes a parallel to it, having been of late years the most quiet and contented among native communities.

[Footnote 64: Mr. Brand was chosen President when practising law in Cape Colony; and afterwards accepted, with the full a.s.sent of his citizens, a British order of knighthood.]

[Footnote 65: Revising this book in October, 1899, I leave the above pa.s.sage as it was written in 1897, grieving to think that it describes what has now become a past, and that the future is likely to have far other things in store.]

[Footnote 66: I leave this as written in 1897. The invasion of the Transvaal in December, 1895, led to the conclusion of an alliance between the Free State and that Republic, whereby each bound itself to defend the other if attacked. The Free State has accordingly now (October, 1899), when hostilities have broken out between Britain and the Transvaal, thrown in its lot with its sister Republic. This is what every one who knew its history and the character of its people must have expected.]

CHAPTER XX

BASUTOLAND

Basutoland is a comparatively small territory (10,300 square miles) somewhat larger than Wales or Ma.s.sachusetts. It is nearly all mountainous, and contains the highest summits in South Africa, some of them reaching 11,000 feet. Few European travellers visit it, for it lies quite away from the main routes; it has no commercial importance, and its white population is extremely small, the land being reserved for the natives alone. We were attracted to it by what we had heard of the scenery; but found when we came to traverse it, that the social conditions were no less interesting than the landscapes.

The easiest approach is from Bloemfontein. Starting from that pleasant little town one bright November morning on the top of the Ladybrand coach, we drove over wide and nearly level stretches of pasture-land, which now, after the first rains, were vividly green, and beginning to be dotted with flowers. The road was only a track, rough and full of ruts, and the coach, drawn by eight horses, was an old one, whose springs had lost whatever elasticity they might once have possessed, so that it was only by holding tight on to the little rail at the back of the seat that we could keep our places. The incessant pitching and jolting would have been intolerable on an ordinary drive; but here the beauty of the vast landscape, the keen freshness of the air, and the brilliance of the light made one forget every physical discomfort. About noon, after crossing the muddy flood of the Modder River, whose channel, almost dry a month before, had now been filled by the rains, we entered a more hilly region, and came soon after noon to the village of Thaba 'Ntshu, called from the bold rocky peak of that name, which is a landmark for all the country round, and is famous in history as the rallying-point of the various parties of emigrant Boers who quitted Cape Colony in the Great Trek of 1836-37. Near it is a large native reservation, where thousands of Barolong Kafirs live, tilling the better bits of soil and grazing their cattle all over the rolling pastures.

Some ten or fifteen miles farther the track reaches the top of a long ascent, and a magnificent prospect is revealed to the south-east of the n.o.ble range of the Maluti Mountains, standing out in the dazzling clearness of this dry African air, yet mellowed by distance to tints of delicate beauty. We were reminded of the view of the Pyrenees from Pau, where, however, the mountains are both nearer and higher than here, and of the view of the Rocky Mountains from Calgary, on the Canadian Pacific Railway. From this point onward the road mounts successive ridges, between which lie rich hollows of agricultural land, and from the tops of which nearer and nearer views of the Maluti range are gained. There was hardly a tree visible, save those which Europeans have planted round the farmhouses that one finds every seven or eight miles; and I dare say the country would be dreary in the dry season or in dull grey weather.

But as we saw it, the wealth of sunlight, the blue of the sky above, the boundless stretches of verdure beneath, made the drive a dream of delight. When the sun sank the constellations came out in this pure, dry African air with a brilliance unknown to Europe; and we tired our eyes in gazing on the Centaur and the Argo and those two Magellanic clouds by which one finds the position of the southern pole. Soon after dark we came to the top of the last high hill, and saw what seemed an abyss opening beneath. The descent was steep, but a beaten track led down it, reputed the most dangerous piece of road in the Free State; and the driver regaled us with narratives of the accidents that had taken place on the frequent occasions when the coach had been upset, adding, however, that n.o.body ever had been or would be killed while he held the reins. He proved as good as his word, and brought us safely to Ladybrand at 9 P.M., after more than twelve hours of a drive so fatiguing that only the marvellously bracing air enabled us to feel none the worse for it.

Ladybrand is a pretty little hamlet lying at the foot of the great flat-topped hill, called the Plaat Berg, which the perilous road crosses, and looking out from groves of Australian gum-trees, across fertile corn-fields and meadows, to the Caledon River and the ranges of Basutoland. A ride of eight miles brings one to the ferry (which in the dry season becomes a shallow ford) across this stream, and on the farther sh.o.r.e one is again under the British flag at Maseru, the residence of the Imperial Commissioner who supervises the administration of the country, under the direction of the High Commissioner for South Africa. Here are some sixty Europeans--officials, police, and store-keepers--and more than two thousand natives. Neither here nor anywhere else in Basutoland is there an inn; those few persons who visit the country find quarters in the stores which several whites have been permitted to establish, unless they have, as we had, the good fortune to be the guests of the Commissioner.

Basutoland is the Switzerland of South Africa and, very appropriately, is the part of South Africa where the old inhabitants, defended by their hills, have retained the largest measure of freedom. Although most of it is covered with lofty mountains, it has, like Switzerland, one comparatively level and fertile tract--that which lies along the left bank of the Caledon River. Morija, the oldest French mission station, lies in a pretty hollow between five and six thousand feet above the sea,--nearly all Basutoland is above 5000 feet,--some sixteen miles south-east from Maseru. Groves of trees and luxuriant gardens give softness and verdure to the landscape, and among them the mission houses and schools, and printing-house whence Basuto books are issued, lie scattered about, up and down the slopes of the hill. Though there are plenty of streams in Basutoland, there is hardly any swampy ground, and consequently little or no fever, so the missionaries invalided from the Zambesi frequently come here to recruit. The station of Morija has been for many years past directed by French-Swiss pastors, but the schools have been under the charge of Scottish Presbyterian clergymen, of course in the service of the Paris Society, and they gave us a hearty welcome.

They have large and flouris.h.i.+ng schools, from which a considerable number of young Kafirs go out every year among their countrymen and become an effective civilizing influence. There is among the Bantu tribes so little religion, in the European sense of the word, that the natives seem never to have felt the impulse to persecute, and hardly ever to obstruct the preaching of Christianity. When opposition comes, it comes from the witch-doctor or medicine-man, who feels his craft in danger, seldom from the chief. Here most of the leading men have been and still are on good terms with the missionaries. The Paramount Chief of the whole country lives three miles from Morija, at Matsieng, where he has established, as the wont of the Kafirs is, a new kraal on the top of a breezy hill, forsaking the residence of his father in the valley beneath. Here we visited him.

Lerothodi, the Paramount Chief, is the son of Letsie and grandson of Moshesh, and now ranks with Khama as the most important native potentate south of the Zambesi. He is a strong, thickset man, who looks about fifty years of age, and is not wanting either in intelligence or in firmness. He was dressed in a grey shooting-coat and trousers of grey cloth, with a neat new black, low-crowned hat, and received the Deputy Acting Commissioner and ourselves in a stone house which he has recently built as a sort of council-chamber and reception-room for white visitors. Hard by, another house, also of stone, was being erected to lodge such visitors, and over its doorway a native sculptor had carved the figure of a crocodile, the totem of the Basutos. When a chief sits to administer justice among the tribesmen, as he does on most mornings, he always sits in the open air, a little way from his sleeping-huts. We found a crowd of natives gathered at the levee, whom Lerothodi quitted to lead us into the reception-room. He was accompanied by six or seven magnates and counsellors,--one of the most trusted counsellors (a Christian) was not a person of rank, but owed his influence to his character and talents,--and among these one spoke English and interpreted to us the compliments which Lerothodi delivered, together with his a.s.surances of friends.h.i.+p and respect for the Protecting Power, while we responded with phrases of similar friendliness. The counsellors, listening with profound and impressive gravity, echoed the sentences of the chief with a chorus of "ehs," a sound which it is hard to reproduce by letters, for it is a long, slow, deep expiration of the breath in a sort of singing tune. The Kafirs constantly use it to express a.s.sent and appreciation, and manage to throw a great deal of apparent feeling into it. Presently some of them spoke, one in pretty good English, dilating on the wish of the Basuto[67] tribe to be guided in the path of prosperity by the British Government. Then Lerothodi led us out and showed us, with some pride, the new guest-house he was building, and the huts inhabited by his wives, all scrupulously neat.

Each hut stands in an enclosure surrounded by a tall fence of reeds, and the floors of red clay were perfectly hard, smooth, and spotlessly clean. The news of the reception accorded shortly before (in London) to Khama had kindled in him a desire to visit England, but his hints thrown out to that effect were met by the Commissioner's remark that Khama's total abstinence and general hostility to the use of intoxicants had been a main cause for the welcome given him, and that if other chiefs desired like treatment in England they had better emulate Khama. This shot went home.

From the chief's kraal we had a delightful ride of some twenty miles to a spot near the foot of the high mountains, where we camped for the night. The track leads along the base of the Maluti range, sometimes over a rolling table-land, sometimes over hills and down through valleys, all either cultivated or covered with fresh close gra.s.s. The Malutis consist of beds of sandstone and shale, overlaid by an outflow of igneous rock from two to five thousand feet thick. They rise very steeply, sometimes breaking into long lines of dark brown precipice, and the crest seldom sinks lower than 7000 feet. Behind them to the south-east are the waterfalls, one of which, 630 feet high, is described as the grandest cascade in Africa south of the Zambesi. It was only two days' journey away, but unfortunately we had not time to visit it.

The country we were traversing beneath the mountains was full of beauty, so graceful were the slopes and rolls of the hills, so bright the green of the pastures; while the sky, this being the rainy season, had a soft tone like that of England, and was flecked with white clouds sailing across the blue. It was also a prosperous-looking country, for the rich soil supported many villages, and many natives, men as well as women, were to be seen at work in the fields as we rode by. Except where streams have cut deeply into the soft earth, one gets about easily on horseback, for there are no woods save a little scrub clinging to the sides of the steeper glens. We were told that the goats eat off the young trees, and that the natives have used the older ones for fuel. In the afternoon we pa.s.sed St. Michael's, the seat of a flouris.h.i.+ng Roman Catholic mission, and took our way up the steep and stony track of a kloof (ravine) which led to a plateau some 6000 feet or more above sea-level. The soil of this plateau is a deep red loam, formed by the decomposition of the trap rock, and is of exceptional fertility, like the decomposed traps of Oregon and the Deccan. Here we pitched our tent, and found our liberal supply of blankets none too liberal, for the air was keen, and the difference between day and night temperature is great in these lat.i.tudes. Next morning, starting soon after dawn, we rode across the deep-cut beds of streams and over breezy pastures for some six or seven miles, to the base of the main Maluti range, and after a second breakfast prepared for the ascent of the great summit, which we had been admiring for two days as it towered over the long line of peaks or peered alone from the mists which often enveloped the rest of the range. It is called Machacha, and is a conspicuous object from Ladybrand and the Free State uplands nearly as far as Thaba 'Ntshu. Our route lay up a gra.s.sy hollow so steep that we had thought our friend, the Commissioner, must be jesting when he pointed up it and told us that was the way we had to ride. For a pedestrian it was a piece of hand and foot climbing, and seemed quite impracticable for horses. But up the horses went. They are a wonderful breed, these little Basuto nags. This region is the part of South Africa where the horse seems most thoroughly at home and happy, and is almost the only part where the natives breed and ride him. Sixty years ago there was not a horse in the country--the animal, it need hardly be said, is not a native of South Africa. But in 1852, the Basutos had plenty of ponies, and used them in the short campaign of that year with extraordinary effect. They are small, seldom exceeding twelve hands in height, a little larger than the ponies of Iceland, very hardy, and wonderfully clever on hills, able not only to mount a slope whose angle is 30 to 35, but to keep their footing when ridden horizontally along it. A rider new to the country finds it hard not to slip off over the tail when the animal is ascending, or over the head when he is descending.

The hollow brought us to a col fully 7500 feet above the sea, from which we descended some way into a valley behind, and then rode for three or four miles along the steep sides, gradually mounting, and having below us on the right a deep glen, covered everywhere with rich gra.s.s, and from the depths of which the murmur of a rus.h.i.+ng stream, a sound rare in South Africa, rose up softly through the still, clear air. At length we reached the mountain crest, followed it for a s.p.a.ce, and then, to avoid the crags along the crest, guided our horses across the extremely steep declivities by which it sinks to the east, till we came to a pa.s.s between precipices, with a sharp rock towering up in the middle of the pa.s.s and a glen falling abruptly to the west. Beyond this point--8500 feet or so above sea-level--the slopes were too steep even for the Basuto horses, and we therefore left them in charge of one of our Kafir attendants. A more rich and varied alpine flora than that which clothed the pastures all round I have seldom seen. The flowers had those brilliant hues that belong to the plants of our high European mountains, and they grew in marvellous profusion. They were mostly of the same genera as one finds in the Alps or the Pyrenees, but all or nearly all of different species; and among those I found several, particularly two beautiful _Gerania_, which the authorities at Kew have since told me are new to science. It was interesting to come here upon two kinds of heath--the first we had seen since quitting the Cape peninsula, for, rich as that peninsula is in heaths, there are very few to be found in other parts of South Africa, and those only, I think, upon high mountains.

After a short rest we started for the final climb, first up a steep acclivity, covered with low shrubs and stones, and then across a wide hollow, where several springs of deliciously cold water break out. Less than an hour's easy work brought us to the highest point of a ridge which fell northward in a precipice, and our Kafirs declared that this was the summit of Machacha. But right in front of us, not half a mile away, on the other side of a deep semi-circular gulf,--what is called in Scotland a _corrie_,--a huge black cliff reared its head 400 feet above us, and above everything else in sight. This was evidently the true top and must be ascended. The Kafirs, perhaps thinking they had done enough for one day, protested that it was inaccessible. "Nonsense," we answered; "that is where we are going;" and when we started off at full speed they followed. Keeping along the crest for about half a mile to the eastward--it is an arete which breaks down to the corrie in tremendous precipices, but slopes more gently to the south--we came to the base of the black cliff, and presently discovered a way by which, climbing hither and thither through the crags, we reached the summit, and saw an immense landscape unroll itself before us. It was one of those views which have the charm, so often absent from mountain panoramas, of combining a wide stretch of plain in one direction with a tossing sea of mountain-peaks in another. To the north-east and east and south-east, one saw nothing but mountains, some of them, especially in the far north-east, toward Natal, apparently as lofty as that on which we stood, and many of them built on bold and n.o.ble lines. To the south-east, where are the great waterfalls which are one of the glories of Basutoland, the general height was less, but a few peaks seemed to reach 10,000 feet. At our feet, to the west and south-west, lay the smiling corn-fields and pastures we had traversed the day before, and beyond them the rich and populous valley of the Caledon River, and beyond it, again, the rolling uplands of the Orange Free State, with the peak of Thaba 'Ntshu just visible, and still farther a blue ridge, faint in the extreme distance, that seemed to lie on the other side of Bloemfontein, nearly one hundred miles away. The sky was bright above us, but thunderstorms hung over the plains of the Free State behind Ladybrand, and now and then one caught a forked tongue of light flas.h.i.+ng from among them. It was a magnificent landscape, whose bareness--for there is scarcely a tree upon these slopes--was more than compensated by the brilliance of the light and the clearness of the air, which made the contrast between the sunlit valley of the Caledon and the solemn shadows under the thunder-clouds more striking, and the tone of the distant ranges more deep and rich in colour, than in any similar prospect one could recall from the mountain watch-towers of Europe. Nor was the element of historical interest wanting. Fifteen miles away, but seeming to lie almost at our feet, was the flat-topped hill of Thaba Bosiyo, the oft-besieged stronghold of Moshesh, and beyond it the broad table-land of Berea, where the Basutos fought, and almost overcame, the forces of Sir George Cathcart in that war of 1852 which was so fateful both to Basutoland and to the Free State.

Less than a mile from the peak on which we sat, we could descry, in the precipice which surrounds the great corrie, the black mouth of a cave.

It was the den of the cannibal chief Machacha, whose name has clung to the mountain, and who established himself there seventy years ago, when the ravages of Tshaka, the Zulu king, had driven the Kafir tribes of Natal to seek safety in flight, and reduced some among them, for want of other food, to take to human flesh. Before that time this mountain-land had been inhabited only by wandering Bushmen, who have left marks of their presence in pictures on the rocks. Here and there among the crags jabbering baboons darted about, and great hawks sailed in circles above us. Otherwise we had seen no living wild creature since we left the pastures of the valley.

The summit of Machacha is composed of a dark igneous rock, apparently a sort of amygdaloidal trap, with white and greenish calcareous crystals scattered through it. The height is given on the maps as 11,000 feet; but so far as one could judge by frequent observations from below and by calculations made during the ascent, I should think it not more than 10,500. It seems to be the culminating point of the Maluti range, but may be exceeded in height by Mont aux Sources, eighty miles off to the north-east, where Basutoland touches Natal on the one side and the Free State on the other.

Descending by a somewhat more direct route, which we struck out for ourselves, we rejoined our horses at the pa.s.s where we had left them three hours before, and from there plunged down the kloof, or ravine, between the precipices which led to the foot of the mountain. It was here too steep to ride; indeed, it was about as steep a slope as one can descend on foot with comfort, the angle being in some places fully 40 A grand piece of scenery, for the dark rock walls rose menacing on either hand; and also a beautiful one, for the flowers, especially two brilliant shrubby geraniums, were profuse and gorgeous in hue. At the bottom, after a very rough scramble, we mounted our horses, and hastened along to escape the thunderstorm which was now nearly upon us, and which presently drove us for shelter into a native hut, where a Basuto woman, with her infant hanging in a cloth on her back, was grinding corn between two stones. She went on with her work, and presently addressed my wife, asking (as was explained to us) for a piece of soap wherewith to smear her face, presumably as a more fragrant subst.i.tute for the clay or ochre with which the Basuto ladies cover their bodies. The hut was clean and sweet, and, indeed, all through Basutoland we were struck by the neat finish of the dwellings and of the reed fences which inclosed them. When the storm had pa.s.sed away over the mountains, "growling and muttering into other lands," and the vast horizon was again flooded with evening suns.h.i.+ne, we rode swiftly away, first over the rolling plateau we had traversed in the forenoon, then turning to the north along the top of the sandstone cliffs that inclose the valley of the Kaloe River, where Bushman pictures adorn the caves. At last as night fell, we dropped into the valley of the Kaloe itself, and so slowly through the darkness, for the horses were tired, and the track (which crosses the river four times) was rough and stony, came at last to the mission station of Thaba Bosiyo. Here we were welcomed by the Swiss pastor in charge of the mission, Mr. E. Jacottet, whose collection of Basuto and Barotse popular tales have made him well known to the students of folk-lore. No man knows the Basutos better than he and his colleague, Mr. d.y.k.e of Morija; and what they told us was of the highest interest.

Next day was Sunday, and gave us the opportunity of seeing a large congregation of Basuto converts and of hearing their singing, the excellence of which reminded us of the singing of negro congregations in the Southern States of America. We had also two interesting visits. One was from an elderly Basuto magnate of the neighbourhood, who was extremely anxious to know if Queen Victoria really existed, or was a mere figment of the British Government. He had met many white men, he told us, but none of them had ever set eyes on the Queen, and he could not imagine how it was possible that a great chieftainess should not be seen by her people. We satisfied his curiosity by giving full details of the times, places, and manner in which the British sovereign receives her subjects, and he went away, declaring himself convinced and more loyal than ever. The second visitor was a lady who had come to attend church. She is the senior wife of a chief named Thekho, a son of Moshesh. She impressed us as a person of great force of character and great conversational gifts, was dressed in a fas.h.i.+onable hat and an enormous black velvet mantle, and plied us with numerous questions regarding the Queen, her family, and her government. She lives on the hill among her dependents, exerts great influence, and has done good service in resisting the reactionary tendencies of her brother-in-law Masupha, a dogged and turbulent old pagan.

The mission station lies at the foot of the hill of Thaba Bosiyo, in a singular region where crags of white or grey sandstone, detached from the main ma.s.s of the tabular hills, stand up in solitary shafts and pinnacles, and give a weird, uncanny look to the landscape. The soil is fertile and well cultivated, but being alluvial, it is intersected in all directions by the channels of streams, which have dug so deep into it that much good land is every year lost by the mischief the streams work when in flood. The sides of these channels are usually vertical, and often eight, ten, or even twelve feet high, so that they offer a serious obstacle to travellers either by waggon or on horseback. The hill itself is so peculiar in structure, and has played such a part in history, as to deserve some words of description. It is nearly two miles long and less than a mile across, elliptical in form, rising about five hundred feet above its base, and breaking down on every side in a line of cliffs, which, on the north-west and north side (toward the mission station), are from twenty to forty feet high. On the other side, which I could not so carefully examine, they are apparently higher. These cliffs are so continuous all round as to leave--so one is told--only three spots in the circ.u.mference where they can be climbed; and although I noticed one or two other places where a nimble cragsman might make his way up, it is at those three points only that an attack by a number of men could possibly be made. The easiest point is where a d.y.k.e of igneous rock, thirty feet wide, strikes up the face of the hill from the north-north-west, cutting through the sandstone precipice. The decomposition of this d.y.k.e has opened a practicable path, from fifteen to twenty-five feet in width, to the top. The top is a large gra.s.sy flat, with springs of water and plenty of good pasture.

It was this natural fortress that the Basuto chief Mosheshwe, or, as he is usually called, Moshesh, chose for his dwelling and the stronghold of his tribe, in A.D. 1824. The conquests of the ferocious Tshaka had driven thousands of Kafirs from their homes in Natal and on both sides of the Vaal River. Clans had been scattered, and the old dynasties rooted out or bereft of their influence and power. In the midst of this confusion, a young man, the younger son of a chief of no high lineage, and belonging to a small tribe, gathered around him a number of minor clans and fugitives from various quarters, and by his policy--astute, firm and tenacious--built them up into what soon became a powerful nation. Moving hither and hither along the foot of the great Maluti range, his skilful eye fixed on Thaba Bosiyo as a place fit to be the headquarters of the nation. There was good land all round, the approaches could be easily watched, and the hill itself, made almost impregnable by nature, supplied pasture for the cattle as well as perennial water. By tactfully conciliating the formidable tribes and boldly raiding the weaker ones, Moshesh rapidly acquired wealth (that is to say, cattle), strength and reputation, so that in 1836, when the emigrant Boers moved up into what is now the Free State, he was already the second power north of the mountains, inferior only to the terrible Mosilikatze. The latter on one occasion (in 1831) had sent a strong force of Matabili against him. Moshesh retired into his hill, which he defended by rolling down stones on the a.s.sailants; and when the invaders were presently obliged to retreat for want of food, he sent supplies to them on their way back, declaring his desire to be at peace with all men. The Matabili never attacked him again. In 1833 he intimated to the missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Society his willingness to receive them, planted them at Morija, and gave them afterwards their present station at the foot of Thaba Bosiyo, his own village being, of course, on the top. Their counsels were of infinite value to him in the troublous times that followed, and he repaid them by constant protection and encouragement. But though he listened, like so many Kafir chiefs, to sermons, enjoyed the society of his French friends, and was himself fond of quoting Scripture, he never became a Christian and was even thought to have, like Solomon, fallen in his old age somewhat more under heathen influences. Many were the wars he had to sustain with the native tribes who lived round him, as well as with the white settlers in the Orange River territory to the north, and many the escapes from danger which his crafty and versatile policy secured. Two of these wars deserve special mention, for both are connected with the place I am describing. In December, 1852, Sir George Cathcart, then Governor of Cape Colony, crossed the Caledon River a little above Maseru and led a force of two thousand British infantry and five hundred cavalry, besides artillery, against the Basutos. One of the three divisions in which the army moved was led into an ambush, severely handled by the nimble Basuto hors.e.m.e.n, and obliged to retreat. The division which Sir George himself led found itself confronted, when it reached the foot of Thaba Bosiyo, by a body of Basutos so numerous and active that it had great difficulty in holding its ground, and might have been destroyed but for the timely arrival of the third division just before sunset. The British general intrenched himself for the night in a strong position; and next morning, realizing at length the difficulties of his enterprise, set out to retire to the Caledon River. Before he reached it, however, a message from Moshesh overtook him. That wary chief, who knew the real strength of the British better than did his people, had been driven into the war by their over-confidence and their reluctance to pay the cattle fine which the Governor had demanded. Now that there was a chance of getting out of it he resolved to seize that chance, and after a consultation with one of the French missionaries, begged Sir George Cathcart for peace, acknowledging himself to be the weaker party, and declaring that he would do his best to keep his tribesmen in order. The Governor, glad to be thus relieved of what might have proved a long and troublesome war, accepted these overtures. The British army was marched back to Cape Colony, and Moshesh thereafter enjoyed the fame of being the only native potentate who had come out of a struggle with Great Britain virtually if not formally the victor.

But a still severer ordeal was in store for the virgin fortress and its lord. After much indecisive strife, the whites and the Basutos were, in 1865, again engaged in a serious war. The people of what had then become (see Chapter XI) the Orange Free State had found the Basutos troublesome neighbours, and a dispute had arisen regarding the frontier line. The Free State militia, well practised in native warfare, invaded Basutoland, reduced many of the native strongholds and besieged Thaba Bosiyo. A storming party advanced to carry the hill by a.s.sault, mounting the steep open acclivity to the pa.s.sage which is opened (as already mentioned) by the greenstone d.y.k.e as it cuts its way through the line of sandstone cliff. They had driven the Basutos before them, and had reached a point where the path leads up a narrow cleft formed by the decomposition of the d.y.k.e, between walls of rock some twenty feet high.

Thirty yards more would have brought them to the open top of the hill, and Moshesh would have been at their mercy. But at this moment a bullet from one of the few muskets which the defenders possessed, fired by a good marksman from the rock above the cleft, pierced Wepener, the leader of the a.s.sailants. The storming party halted, hesitated, fell back to the bottom of the hill, and the place was once more saved. Not long after, Moshesh, finding himself likely to be overmastered, besought the Imperial Government, which had always regarded him with favour since the conclusion of Sir George Cathcart's war, to receive him and his people "and let them live under the large folds of the flag of England." The High Commissioner intervened, declaring the Basutos to be thenceforward British subjects, and in 1869 a peace was concluded with the Free State, by which the latter obtained a fertile strip of territory along the north-west branch of the Caledon which had previously been held by Moshesh, while the Basutos came (in 1871) under the administrative control of Cape Colony. Moshesh died soon afterwards, full of years and honour, and leaving a name which has become famous in South Africa. He was one of the remarkable instances, like Toussaint l'Ouverture and the Hawaiian king Kamehameha the First, of a man, sprung from a savage race, who effected great things by a display of wholly exceptional gifts. His sayings have become proverbs in native mouths. One of them is worth noting, as a piece of grim humour, a quality rare among the Kafirs. Some of his chief men had been urging him, after he had become powerful, to take vengeance upon certain cannibals who were believed to have killed and eaten his grandparents. Moshesh replied: "I must consider well before I disturb the sepulchres of my ancestors."

Basutoland remained quiet till 1879, when the Cape Government, urged, it would appear, by the restless spirit of Sir Bartle Frere (then Governor), conceived the unhappy project of disarming the Basutos. It was no doubt a pity that so many of them possessed firearms; but it would have been better to let them keep their weapons than to provoke a war; and the Cape Prime Minister, who met the nation in its great popular a.s.sembly, the Pitso, had ample notice through the speeches delivered there by important chiefs of the resistance with which any attempt to enforce disarmament would be met. However, rash counsels prevailed. The attempt was made in 1880; war followed, and the Basutos gave the colonial troops so much trouble that in 1883 the Colony proposed to abandon the territory altogether. Ultimately, in 1884, the Imperial Government took it over, and has ever since administered it by a Resident Commissioner.

The Basuto nation, which had been brought very low at the time when Moshesh threw himself upon the British Government for protection, has latterly grown rapidly, and now numbers over 220,000 souls. This increase is partly due to an influx of Kafirs from other tribes, each chief encouraging the influx, since the new retainers, who surround him, increase his importance. But it has now reached a point when it ought to be stopped, because all the agricultural land is taken up for tillage, and the pastures begin scarcely to suffice for the cattle. The area is 10,263 square miles, about two-thirds that of Switzerland, but by far the larger part of it is wild mountain. No Europeans are allowed to hold land, and a licence is needed even for the keeping of a store. Neither are any mines worked. European prospectors are not permitted to come in and search for minerals, for the policy of the authorities has been to keep the country for the natives; and nothing alarms the chiefs so much as the occasional appearance of these speculative gentry, who, if allowed a foothold, would soon dispossess them. Thus it remains doubtful whether either gold or silver or diamonds exist in "payable quant.i.ties."

The natives, however, go in large numbers--in 1895-6 as many as 28,000 went out--to work in the mines at Kimberley and on the Wit.w.a.tersrand, and they bring back savings, which have done much to increase the prosperity of the tribe. At present they seem fairly contented and peaceable. The land belongs to the nation, and all may freely turn their cattle on the untilled parts. Fields, however, are allotted to each householder by the chief, to be tilled, and the tenant, protected by public opinion, retains them so long as he tills them. He cannot sell them, but they will pa.s.s to his children. Ordinary administration, which consists mainly in the allotment and management of land, is left to the chief; as also ordinary jurisdiction, both civil and criminal. The present tendency is for the disposing power of the chief over the land to increase; and it is possible that British law may ultimately turn him, as it turned the head of an Irish sept, into an owner. The chief holds his court at his kraal, in the open air, settles disputes and awards punishments. There are several British magistrates to deal with grave offences, and a force of 220 native police, under British officers. Lerothodi, as the successor of Moshesh, is Paramount Chief of the nation; and all the greater chieftains.h.i.+ps under him are held by his uncles and cousins,--sons and grandsons of the founder of the dynasty,--while there are also a few chiefs of the second rank belonging to other families. Some of the uncles, especially Masupha, who lives at the foot of Thaba Bosiyo, and is an obstinately conservative heathen, give trouble both to Lerothodi and to the British Commissioner, their quarrels turning mainly on questions of land and frontier. But on the whole, things go on as well as can be expected in such a world as the present: disturbances tend to diminish; and the horses or cattle that are occasionally stolen from the Free State farmers are always recovered for their owners, unless they have been got away out of Basutoland into the colonial territories to the south and west. As far back as 1855, Moshesh forbade the "smelling out" of witches, and now the British authorities have suppressed the more noxious or offensive kinds of ceremonies practised by the Kafirs. Otherwise they interfere as little as may be with native ways, trusting to time, peace, and the missionaries to secure the gradual civilization of the people. Once a year the Commissioner meets the whole people, in their national a.s.sembly called the Pitso,--the name is derived from their verb "to call" (cf.

[Greek: ekklesia])--which in several points recalls the _agora_, or a.s.sembly of freemen described in the Homeric poems. The Paramount Chief presides, and debate is mainly conducted by the chiefs; but all freemen, gentle and simple, have a right to speak in it. There is no voting, only a declaration, by shouts, of the general feeling. Though the head of the nation has been usually the person who convokes it, a magnate lower in rank might always, like Achilles in the Iliad, have it summoned when a fitting occasion arose. And it was generally preceded by a consultation among the leading men, though I could not discover that there was any regular council of chiefs.[68] In all these points the resemblance to the primary a.s.semblies of the early peoples of Europe is close enough to add another to the arguments, already strong, which discredit the theory that there is any such thing as an "Aryan type" of inst.i.tutions, and which suggest the view that in studying the polities of primitive nations we must not take affinities of language as the basis of a cla.s.sification.

To-day the Pitso has lost much of its old importance, and tends to become a formal meeting, in which the British Commissioner causes new regulations to be read aloud, inviting discussion on points which any one present may desire to raise, and addresses the people, awarding praise or blame, and adding such exhortations as he thinks seasonable.

The missionaries (like the Bishops in a Witenagemot) and the chief British officials are usually present. In perusing the shorthand report of the great Pitso held in 1879, at which the question of disarmament was brought forward by the Cape Prime Minister, I was struck by the freedom and intelligence with which the speakers delivered their views.

One observed: "This is our parliament, though it is a very disorderly parliament, because we are all mixed up, young and old; and we cannot accept any measure without discussion." Another commented severely upon an unhappy phrase that had been used at Cape Town by a member of the Cape Government: "Mr. U. said the Basutos were the natural enemies of the white man, because we were black. Is that language which should be used by a high officer of the Government? Let sentiments like these pa.s.s away--we are being educated to believe that all people are equal, and feel that sentiments like these are utterly wrong." A third claimed that the people must keep their guns, because "at our circ.u.mcision we were given a s.h.i.+eld and an a.s.sagai, and told never to part with them; and that if ever we came back from an expedition and our s.h.i.+eld and a.s.sagai were not found before our house, we should die the death." And a fourth, wis.h.i.+ng to excuse any vehement expression he might use, observed: "We have a proverb which says that a man who makes a mistake in a public a.s.sembly cannot be killed." In this proverb there is the germ of the English "privilege of Parliament." It is easy to gather from the whole proceedings of these Pitsos how much more popular government has been among the Basutos than it was among the Zulus or Matabili. Tshaka or Lo Bengula would in a moment have had the neck twisted of any one who ventured to differ publicly from his opinion. In this respect the Basutos resemble their kinsfolk the Bamangwato, among whom Khama rules as a chief amenable to public opinion, which, in that instance, is unfortunately far behind the enlightened purposes of the sovereign.

Nowhere has the gospel made such progress among the Kafirs as in Basutoland. The missionaries,--French, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and English Episcopalian,--working not only independently but on very different lines, have brought nearly fifty thousand natives under Christian influences, as members or adherents. Not all of these are baptised converts--the Franco-Swiss missionaries, by whom far the largest part of the work has been done, tell me that baptisms do not increase fast; and they are wise in not measuring the worth of their work by the number of baptisms. Education is spreading. At the last public examinations at the Cape, the French Protestant missionaries sent up twenty Basuto boys, of whom ten pa.s.sed in honours, and ten in high cla.s.ses, the standard being the same for whites and blacks. There are now one hundred and fifty schools in the country, all but two of which are conducted by the missionaries.

Strange waves of sentiment pa.s.s over the people, at one time carrying them back to paganism, at another inclining them to Christianity--the first sign of the latter tendency being discernible in an increase of attendance at the mission schools. The women are more backward than the men, because they have been kept in subjection, and their intelligence has remained only half developed. But their condition is improving; men now work with them in the fields, and they demand clothes instead of so much oil, wherewith to smear their bodies. As education becomes more diffused, old heathen customs lose their hold, and will probably in thirty years have disappeared. The belief in ghosts and magic is, of course, still strong. On the top of Thaba Bosiyo we were shown the graves of Moshesh and several of his brothers and sons, marked by rude stones, with the name of each chief on his stone. But we were told that in reality the bodies of Moshesh and of several of the others are not here at all, having been dug up and reinterred more than a mile away near the foot of the hill. Were the body under the stone, the ghost, which usually dwells near the body, would be liable to be called up by necromancers, and might be compelled to work mischief to the tribe--mischief which would be serious in proportion to the power the spirit possessed during life. Considering, however, that nearly all the ancient world held similar beliefs, and that a large part of the modern world, even in Europe, still clings to them, the persistence of these interesting superst.i.tions need excite no surprise, nor are they productive of much practical ill, now that the witch-doctor is no longer permitted to denounce men to death.