THE BASUTOS.
Of the Basutos I have said something in my attempt to tell the story of
the Orange Free State; but the tribe still occupy so large a space in
South Africa and has made itself so conspicuous in South African affairs
as to require some further short mention for the elucidation of South
African history. They are a people who have been moved, up and down,
about South Africa and have thus travelled much, who have come to be
located on the land they now hold partly as refugees and partly as
conquerors, who thirty years ago had a great Chief called Moshesh of
whom some have asserted that he was a Christian, and others that he was
a determined Savage, who are still to be found in various parts of South
Africa, and who perhaps possess in their head-quarters of Basuto Land
the very best agricultural soil on the continent. There are at present
supposed to be about 127,000 of them settled on this land, among whom
there would be according to the general computation about 21,000
fighting warriors. The fighting men are estimated to be a sixth of the
whole tribe,--so that every adult male not incapacitated by age or
misfortune is counted as a fighting man. To imagine, however, that if
the Basutos were to go to war they could bring an army of 20,000 men
into the field, would be to pay an unmerited compliment to their power
of combination, to their commissariat supplies, and to their general
patriotism. But as in late years they have bought a great many ploughs,
as they are great growers of corn, and as they have become lovers of
trade, lovers of money, growers of wool, and friends of the English,--as
they are loyal English subjects,--we will not be indignant with them on
account of any falling off in their military capacity.
The Basutos are not Kafirs or Zulus. They are a branch of the Bechuanas
a large tribe or rather race of Natives whose own territory lies west of
the Transvaal, and between that and the great Kalahari Desert. I have
already spoke of the Baralongs of Thaba ’Ncho as having come out from
among the same race. Were I to say much of the Bechuanas I should find
myself wandering again all over South Africa. I will therefore not
pursue them further, merely remarking that they too are become
irrepressible, and that before long we shall find ourselves compelled to
annex one branch of them after another in connection with Griqualand
West and the Diamond Fields.
The first record, in date, which I have read of the Basutos is in a
simple volume written by a Missionary, the Rev. E. Cassalis, who was one
of a party of French Protestants sent out nearly 50 years ago from Paris
to the Cape with the double object of comforting the descendants of the
French emigrants and of converting the Natives. It was the fate of M.
Cassalis,--who though he writes in English I presume to have been a
Frenchman,--to establish a mission at a place called Moriah in
Basutoland in 1833, and to write a book about Basuto Manners. He does
not really tell us very much about the people, as, with laudable
enthusiasm, he is more intent on the ways of Providence than on the
details of history. If hardships and misfortunes come he recognises them
as precious balms. If they are warded off he sees the special mercy of
the Lord to him and his flock. The hyænas were allowed to take his
sheep, but an “inexorable lion,” who made the “desert echo with the
majestic sounds of his voice,” was not permitted by Providence to touch
himself. Something, however, is to be gleaned from his tale. The people
among whom he had come were harassed terribly by enemies. They were
continually attacked by Moselekatze, the Chief of the Matabeles, whom M.
Cassalis calls Zulus;[15]--and also by roaming bands of the Korannas, a
tribe of Bedouin South African Savages, only one degree, if one degree,
better than the Bushmen. With these Moshesh was always fighting,
entrenching himself when hard pressed on a high rock called Thaba Bosio
or Thaba Bosigo, from whence he would hurl down stones upon his
assailants very much to their dismay. The Basutos seem to have been a
brave people, but reduced by their enemies to very hard straits, so that
they were driven by want, in those comparatively modern days,--for we
are speaking of a period within the lifetime of the father of the
existing Chief of the tribe,--to have resort to cannibalism for
support.
It has been asserted, with general truth, that cannibalism has not been
a vice of South African Natives. It was not found among the Hottentots,
nor even among the Bushmen except with rare instances, nor among the
Kafirs or Zulus. There is no reason to believe that the Basutos brought
the practice with them from among their ancestors the Bechuanas. But
there is ample evidence that they practised it during the time of their
wars with the Matabeles and Korannas, and reason to suppose that it has
been carried on in a hidden, shame-faced way, in opposition to the
endeavours of their Chiefs, down to within a very modern date. M.
Cassalis tells us the stories of cannibalism which he had heard from
Natives on his arrival in the country, and, giving 1820 as a date, says
that Moshesh put an end to these horrors. He acknowledges in a note that
he has been accused of inventing these details for the sake “of giving a
dramatic interest to our recital,”--and goes on to declare that when he
was in the country, “there were thirty or forty villages the entire
population of which is composed of those who were formerly cannibals and
who make no secret of their past life.” Had I read all this without
light from subsequent record, I should have felt that M. Cassalis was a
writer far too simple and too honest to have invented anything for the
sake of “dramatic interest:”--but that he was a man who might have been
hoaxed even by thirty or forty villages. Having been taught to believe
that Cannibalism had not prevailed in South Africa, I think I might have
doubted the unaided testimony of the French missionary. But there is a
testimony very much subsequent which I cannot doubt.
In November 1869 there appeared a paper in “Once a Week” called
“Ethnological Curiosities from South Africa.” From whom it was supplied
to that periodical neither do I know,--nor does the gentleman by whom
the body of the paper was written. The assumed name of “Leyland” is
there given to that gentleman, without any authority for the change, and
it is told that he had contributed the narrative to the Ethnological
Society and had called it a visit to the Cannibal Caves. This is true;
but the name of the gentleman was Mr. Bowker who was the first
Government Agent in Basutoland. He was not at all sorry to see his paper
reappearing in so respectable a periodical, but has never known how it
reached “Once a Week,” or why he was called Mr. Leyland. This is not of
much general interest; but he goes on to describe how he, and a party
with him, were taken by guides up the side of a mountain, and by a
difficult pathway into a cave. The date is not given, but the visit
occurred in 1868. The cavern is then described as being black with the
smoke of fires, and the floor as being strewn with the bones of human
beings,--chiefly those of women and children. “The marrow bones were
split into small pieces, the rounded joints alone being left unbroken.
Only a few of these bones were charred by fire, showing that the
prevailing taste had been for boiled rather than for roast meat.” Again
he says, “I saw while at the cavern unmistakeable evidence that the
custom has not been altogether abandoned, for among the numerous bones
were a few that appeared very recent. They were apparently those of a
tall bony individual with a skull hard as bronze. In the joints of
these bones the marrow and fatty substances were still evident, showing
but too plainly that many months had not elapsed since he met his fate.”
This was as late as 1868.
Again. “There are still a good many old Cannibals in existence. On the
day that we visited the cavern I was introduced to one of them, who is
now living not very far from his former dwelling-place. He is a man of
about sixty, and, not to speak from prejudice, one of the most God-lost
looking ruffians that I ever beheld in my life. In former days when he
was a young man dwelling in the cavern, he captured during one of his
hunting expeditions three young women. From these he selected the
best-looking as a partner for life. The other two went to stock his
larder.”
This comes from a gentleman who saw the ghastly remains, who well knows
the people of whom he is speaking, and who from his official position
has had better means of knowing than any other European. They come, too,
from a gentleman who is still alive to answer for his story should a
doubt be thrown upon it. His idea is that a certain number of the
Basutos had been driven into the terrible custom by famine caused by
continued wars, and had afterwards carried it on from addiction to the
taste which had been thus generated. M. Cassalis, who was right enough
in saying that the Basutos were Cannibals, was wrong only in supposing
that his disciple Moshesh had been able to suppress the abomination.
There is, however, reason to believe that it has now been suppressed.
The noble simplicity of individual missionaries as to the success of
their own efforts is often charming and painful at the same
time;--charming as shewing their complete enthusiasm, and painful when
contrasted with the results. M. Cassalis tells us how Moshesh used to
dine with him in the middle of the day, on Sunday, because, having come
down from his mountain to morning service, he could not go up the hill
for dinner, and so be back again in time for afternoon prayers. Moshesh
used to have his dinner inside the missionary’s house, and the rest of
the congregation from the mountain would remain outside, around, not
wasting their time, but diligently learning to read. And yet I fear that
there are not many Christians now on the mountain, which is still well
known as Thaba Bosigo.
But Moshesh though he was not a Christian was a great Chief, and
gradually under him the Basutos became a great tribe. Probably their
success arose from the fact that the land on which they lived was
fertile. The same cause has probably led to their subsequent
misfortunes,--the fertility of the land having offered temptation to
others. Their mountains and valleys became populated, and,--as the
mountains and valleys of a still uncivilized race,--very rich. But there
arose questions of boundaries, which so often became questions of
robbery. I have already told how Maroco the Chief of the Baralongs at
Thaba ’Ncho held that the land he occupied was his by right of purchase,
and how Moshesh had declared that he had never sold an inch of his land.
Moshesh was very fond of allegory in his arguments. The Baralongs were
certainly living on land that had belonged to the Basutos; but Moshesh
declared that, “he had lent them the cow to milk; they could use her;
but he could not sell the cow.” For the full understanding of this it
must be known that no Kafir, no Zulu, no Basuto can bear the idea of
selling his cattle. And then the Boers of the Free State who had settled
upon Basutoland, would have it that they owned the land. There came days
of terrible fighting between the Basutos and the Boers,--and of renewed
fighting between the Basutos and other tribes. One can imagine that they
should again have been driven by famine to that cannibalism of which Mr.
Bowker saw the recent marks. They were at a very low ebb at Thaba
Bosigo, being at last almost eaten up by President Brand, and the Boers.
Then they asked for British intervention, and at last, in 1868, Sir
Philip Wodehouse issued a proclamation in which he declared them to be
British subjects. A line of boundary was established between them and
the Orange Republic, giving the Orange Republic the “Conquered
Territory” which they still call by that objectionable name, but leaving
to the Basutos the possession of a rich district which seems to be
sufficient for their wants. The Orange Republic, or Free State, did not
at all like what was done by the British. Their politicians still
insisted that Great Britain was precluded by treaty from concerning
itself with any native tribe north of the Orange River. It tried to make
the most of its position,--naturally enough. Perhaps it did make the
most of its position, for it now holds the peaceable possession of a
great portion of the land of its late enemies, and no longer has a
single hostile nation on its borders. We may say that the possibility of
a hostile nation has passed away. Nothing can be more secure than the
condition of the Orange Republic since Great Britain has secured her
borders. There was a convention at Aliwal North, and the boundary line
was permanently settled on March 12, 1869.
Since that time the Basutos have been a peculiarly flourishing people,
living under the chieftainship of a junior Moshesh, but undoubted
subjects of the Queen of England. Their territory is a part of the Cape
Colony, which they help to support by the taxes they pay. Their hut tax,
at the rate of 10s. a hut amounts to £4,000 a year. Why it should not
come to more I do not understand, as, according to the usual calculation
of four to a hut, there should be about 32,000 huts among them, which
would give £16,000. They also contribute £2,000 a year in other taxes.
In the year ended 30 June, 1876, they were governed, instructed, and
generally provided for at the rate of £7,644 15s. 1d. As their revenue
is hardly £5,000, this would shew a serious deficiency,--but they who do
the finance work for Basutoland have a very large balance in hand,
amounting, after the making up of all deficiencies at the date above
named, to £22,577 4s. These figures are taken from the last published
financial Report of the Cape of Good Hope. I need not tell an
experienced reader that no book or document is produced so
unintelligible to an uninitiated reader as an official financial report.
Why should Basutoland with a revenue of £5,000 a year have a Treasury
Balance of £22,577 4s.? Every clerk concerned in the getting up of that
report no doubt knows all about it. It is not perhaps intended that any
one else should understand it. I have said above that the Basutos are
governed and instructed. Alas, no! Under the general head of
expenditure, education is a conspicuous detail; but it is followed by no
figures. It seems to be admitted that something should be expended for
the teaching of the Basutos; but that the duty so acknowledged is not
performed.