When the Eighth Division was skirting the borders of Basutoland I thought
it would not be a waste of time to cross the border, and if possible
interview one of the chiefs. My opportunity came at last. Our general
decided to give his weary men a few days' rest, so getting into the saddle
at Willow Grange I rode to Ficksburg, and there crossed the River Caledon,
whose yellow waters, like an orange ribbon, divide Basutoland from the Free
State. At this point the river runs between steep banks, and when I crossed
it was about deep enough to kiss my horse's girths, though I could well
believe that in the flood season it becomes a most formidable torrent. An
artificial cutting has been made on both sides to facilitate the passage of
traders, black and white, but even there the ford is so constituted that
the Boers on the one side and the blacks on the other could successfully
dispute the passage of an invading army with a mere handful of men.
Once across the river one soon felt the influence of Jonathan, the "black
prince." The niggers, naked except for the loin cloth, swaggered along with
arms in their hands, and grinned with insolent familiarity into our faces.
They may have an intense respect and an unbounded love for the British--I
have read scores of times that they have--but I beg leave to doubt it.
Physically speaking they are a superb race of men, these sable subjects of
our Queen. Their heads sit upon their necks with a bold, defiant poise,
their throats are full, round, and muscular, their chests magnificent,
broad and deep, tapering swiftly towards the waist. Their arms and legs are
beautifully fashioned for strong, swift deeds. Strip an ordinary white man
and put him amongst those black warriors, and he would look like a human
clothes rack. They walk with a quick, springy step, and gave me the
impression that they could march at the double for a week without tiring.
But they are at their best on horseback. To see them barebacked dash down
the side of a sheer cliff, plunge into the river, swim their horses over,
and then climb the opposite bank when the face of the bank is like the face
of a wall is a sight worth travelling far to see.
There are many things in this world that I know nothing at all about, but I
do know a horseman when I see him, for I was bred in a land where
nine-tenths of the boys can ride. But nowhere have I seen a whole male
population ride as these Basuto warriors ride, and the best use England can
make of them is to turn them into mounted infantry. Give them six months'
drill, and they will be fit to face any troops in Europe. I never saw them
do any fighting, but they carry the fighting brand on every lineament--the
bold, keen eye, the prominent cheek-bone, the hard-set mouth, the massive
jaw, the quivering nostril, the swing and spring of every movement, all
speak the fighting race.
And their women; what of them? From the back of the head to the back of the
heel you could place a lance shaft, so straight are they in their carriage.
Their dress is a bunch of feathers and the third of a silk pocket
handkerchief, with a copper ring around the ankle and another around the
wrist. They do most of the daily toil, such as it is, though I know of no
peasant population in any other part of the world who get a living as
easily as these folk. The men allow the women to do most of the field
labour, but when the grain is bagged the males place it in single bags
across the back of a pony, and so take it to market. They walk beside the
tiny little ponies and balance the grain slung crosswise on the animal's
back, and when the grain has been sold or bartered they bound on to their
ponies and career madly homewards, each one trying to outdo his neighbour
in deeds of recklessness in the hope of winning favour in the eyes of the
dusky maidens. They are mean in regard to money or gifts, and know the
intrinsic value of things just as well as any pedlar in all England.
Judging the "nigger" merely as a human being, irrespective of sentiment,
colour, and so forth, I can only say that in my estimation he and his are
far better off in every respect than the average white labourer and his
family in England. These folk have plenty to eat, little to do, and are
very jolly. They would be perfectly happy if they only had a sufficient
number of rifles and a large enough supply of ammunition to enable them to
drive every white man clean away from their borders.
When I arrived at Jonathan's village that warrior was away with a band of
his young men, so that I could not see him, though I saw his son at a
wedding which was being held when I reached the scene. I was taken through
rows of naked, grinning savages, of both sexes, to be introduced to the
bride and bridegroom, whom I found to be a pair of mission converts. When I
saw the pair the shock nearly shook my boots off. The bride, a full-blooded
young negress, was dressed in a beautiful white satin dress, which fitted
her as if it had been fired at her out of a gun. It would not meet in front
by about three inches, and the bodice was laced up by narrow bands of red
silk, like a foot-baller's jersey. In her short, woolly hair she had pinned
a wreath of artificial orange blossoms, which looked like a diadem of snow
on a mid-winter mudheap. Down her broad back there hung a great gauzy lace
veil, big enough to make a fly-net for a cow camel in summer. It was not
fixed on to her dress, nor to her wreath, but was tied on to two little
kinky curls at each side of her head by bright green ribbons, after the
fashion of a prize filly of the draught order at a country fair. Her hands
were encased in a pair of white kid gloves, man's size, and a pretty big
man at that, for she had a gentle little fist that would have scared John
L. Sullivan in his palmiest days.
When I was introduced to the newly shackled matron she put one of those
gloved hands into mine with a simpering air of coyness that made me feel
cold all over, for that hand in the kid glove reminded me of the day I took
my first lesson from Laurence Foley, Australia's champion boxer, and he had
an eight-ounce glove on (thank Heaven!) on that occasion. In her right hand
the bride carried a fan of splendid ostrich feathers, with which she
brushed the flies off the groom. It was vast enough to have brushed away a
toy terrier, to say nothing of flies, but it looked a toy in that giant
fist.
The groom hung on to his bride's arm like a fly to a sugar-stick. He was a
tall young man, dressed in a black frock coat, light trousers, braced up to
show that he wore socks, shoes, white gloves, and a high-crowned hat. He
carried his bride's white silk gingham in one hand, and an enormous bunch
of flowers in the other. He tried to look meek, but only succeeded in
looking sly, hypocritical, and awfully uncomfortable. At times he would
look at his new spouse, and then a most unsaintly expression would cross
his foxy face; he would push out his great thick lips until they threw a
shadow all round him; open his dazzling white teeth and let his great
blood-red tongue loll out until the chasm in his face looked like a rent in
a black velvet gown with a Cardinal's red hat stuffed in the centre. He may
have been full of saving grace--full up, and running over--but it was not
the brand of Christianity that I should care to invest my money in. When he
caught my gaze riveted upon him, he tried to look like a brand plucked from
the burning; he rolled his great velvet-black eyes skyward, screwed up the
sluit which ran across his face, and which he called a mouth, until it
looked like a crumpled doormat, folded his hands meekly over his breast,
and comported himself generally like a fraudulent advertisement for a
London mission society.
From him I glanced to his "Pa," who had given him away, and seemed mighty
glad to get rid of him. "Pa" was dressed in pure black from head to
heel--just the same old suit that he had worn when he struck this planet,
only more of it. He was guiltless of anything and everything in the shape
of dress except for a large ring of horn which he wore on top of his head.
He did not carry any parasols, or fans, or geegaws of any kind in his great
muscular fists. One hand grasped an iron-shod assegai, and the other
lovingly fondled a battle-axe, and both weapons looked at home where they
rested. He was not just the sort of father-in-law I should have hankered
for if I had been out on a matrimonial venture; but I would rather have had
one limb of that old heathen than the whole body of his "civilised" son,
for with all his faults he looked a man. A chum of mine who knew the ways
of these people had advised me to purchase a horn of snuff before being
presented to the bride and groom, and I had acted accordingly.
When the ceremony of introduction was over, and I had managed to turn my
blushing face away from "Ma" and the bevy of damsels, as airily clothed as
herself, I offered the snuff box to the happy pair. The groom took a tiny
pinch and smiled sadly, as though committing some deadly sin. The bride,
however, poured a little heap in the palm of her hand about as big as a
hen's egg, regardless of her nice white kid gloves. This she proceeded to
snuff up her capacious nostrils with savage delight, until the tears
streamed down her cheeks like rain down a coal heap. Then she threw back
her head, spread her hands out palm downwards, like a mammoth duck treading
water, and sneezed. I never heard a human sneeze like that before; it was
like the effort of a horse after a two-mile gallop through a dust storm.
And each time she sneezed something connected with her wedding gear ripped
or gave way, until I began to be afraid for her. But the wreck was not
quite so awful as I had anticipated, and when she had done sneezing she
laughed. All the crowd except the groom laughed, and the sound of their
laughter was like the sound of the sea on a cliff-crowned coast.
A little later one of the bridesmaids, whose toilet consisted of a dainty
necklace of beads and a copper ring around one ankle, invited me to drink a
draught of native beer. The beer was in a large calabash, and I felt
constrained to drink some of it. These natives know how to make love, and
they know how to make war, but, as my soul liveth, they don't know how to
make beer. The stuff they gave me to drink was about as thick as
boardinghouse cocoa; in colour it was like unto milk that a very dirty maid
of all work had been stirring round in a soiled soup dish with an unwashed
forefinger. It had neither body nor soul in it, and was as insipid as a
policeman at a prayer meeting. Some of the niggers got gloriously merry on
it, and sang songs and danced weird, unholy dances under its influence. But
it did not appeal to me in that way, possibly I was not educated up to its
niceties. All I know is that I became possessed of a strange yearning to
get rid of what had been given me--and get rid of it early.
The wedding joys were of a peculiar nature. Bride and bridegroom, linked
arm in arm, marched up and down on a pad about twenty yards in length, a
nude minstrel marched in front, and drew unearthly music from a kind of
mouth organ. Girls squatting in the dust _en route_ clapped their
hands and chanted a chorus. The groom hopped first on one leg and then on
the other, and tried to look gorgeously happy; the bride kicked her satin
skirts out behind, pranced along the track as gracefully as a lady camel in
the mating season; behind the principal actors in the drama came a regiment
of youths and girls, and the antics they cut were worthy of the occasion.
Now and again some dusky Don Juan would dig his thumb into the ribs of a
daughter of Ham. The lady would promptly squeal, and try to look coy. It is
not easy to look coy when you have not got enough clothes on your whole
body to make a patch to cover a black eye; but still they tried it, for the
sex seem to me to be much alike on the inside, whether they dress in a coat
of paint or a coat of sealskin.
By-and-by the groom took his bride by the arm, and made an effort to induce
her to leave her maids of honour and "trek" towards the cabin which
henceforth was to be her home. The lady pouted, and shook his hand off her
arm; whilst the maidens laughed and clapped their hands, dancing in the
dust-strewn sunlight with such high kicking action as would win fame for
any ballet dancer in Europe. The young men jeered the groom, and incited
him to take charge of his own. He hung down his ebony head and looked
sillily sullen, and the bride continued to "pout." Have you ever seen a
savage nigger wench pout, my masters? Verily it is a sight worth travelling
far to see. First of all she wraps her mouth in a simper, and her lips look
like a fold in a badly doubled blanket. Then slowly, she draws the corners
towards, the centre, just as the universe will be crumpled up on the Day of
Judgment. It is a beautiful sight. The mouth, which, when she smiled,
looked like a sword wound on the flank of a horse, now, when the "pout" is
complete, looks like a crumpled concertina. The groom again timidly
advanced his hand towards the satin-covered arm of his spouse, and the
"pout" became more pronounced than ever. The white of one eye was slyly
turned towards the bridesmaids, the other rolled with infinite subtlety in
the direction of him who was to be her lord and master; and the "pout" grew
larger and larger, until I was constrained to push my way amidst the maids
to get a look behind the bride, for I fancied the back of her neck must
surely have got somehow into the front of her face. When I got to the front
again the "pout" was still growing, the rich red lips in their midnight
setting looking like some giant rose in full bloom that an elephant's hoof
had trodden upon. So the show proceeded. At last one of the bridesmaids
stepped from amidst her sisters, and playfully pushed the bride in the
direction of her home. Then the "pout" gave way to a smile, the white teeth
gleaming in the gap like tombstones in a Highland churchyard. I had been a
bit scared of her "pout," but when she smiled I looked round anxiously for
my horse. After a little manoeuvring, the blissful pair marched cabinwards,
with the whole group of naked men and maids circling round them, stamping
their bare feet, kicking up clouds of dust like a mob of travelling cattle.
The men yelled some barbarous melody, flourished their arms, smote upon
their breasts, and anon gripping a damsel by the waist circled afar like
goats on a green grass hill slope. The maids twisted and turned in
fantastic figures, swaying their nobly fashioned bodies hither and thither,
whilst they kept up a continuous wailing, sing-song cry. So they passed
from my sight into the regions of the honeymoon, and the clubbings and
general hidings which follow it.
I only stayed a few days amongst these savages, but, short as my stay was,
I arrived at the conclusion that the sooner they are disarmed the better.
There are hundreds of white women living upon isolated farms within easy
riding distance of the Basuto villages, and as we are disarming the
husbands and brothers of these women it is our solemn duty to see that the
savage warriors have not the means within their reach to injure or outrage
those whom we have left practically defenceless. It is true that these
women are the wives, daughters, and sisters of our enemy, but surely in all
England there does not breathe a man so poor in spirit as to wish to place
them at the mercy of a horde of barbarians. Ours is a grave responsibility
in regard to this matter. Just at present the native warriors are quiet in
their kraals, but a day will surely dawn when the younger and more
turbulent fighting men will lust for the excitement of war. They look upon
the Boer farmers who dwell near their borders as so many interlopers, whose
title deeds were signed by the rifle, and they long for the time to come
when they can sweep them backwards with the strong arm. They never speak of
the land close to their border as the Free State. They call it with deadly
significance the "conquered territory," and the idea of reconquest is
strong in their minds. Of old time the Boer farmers stood ever ready to
defend what they had conquered with the rifle, and the nigger had learned
to dread the Dutch rifle as he dreads few things in this world. To-day he
knows that the Boer is helpless, and is unsparing in his insolence to his
old-time foe. Later on friction between the white man and the black is
certain to ensue, and if he has the upper hand the black man will not stop
at mere insolence.
I don't know how the Imperial Parliament may feel about it, but I do know
that if there is wrong done the Boers by the blacks, the South African
farmers of British blood will rise like one man to defend the men and women
of their own colour. They will never permit the black man to dominate the
white, and that will cause friction between the Colonists and the Imperial
Government. There is more in this than may meet the eye at the first
glance, for if the Colonists rise to battle with the blacks the Imperial
troops will have to assist them whether the Government of the day likes or
dislikes it, or else we shall see the Colonists of our own blood clamouring
for the withdrawal of British rule in South Africa, and we shall hear again
the cry for a South African Republic. Not a "Dutch" South African Republic
next time, but a blended nationality, and Colonial Britons and Colonial
Dutchmen will be found fighting side by side under one flag, for one common
cause.
Surely, if it is not wise to allow the whites to carry arms, it is not wise
or right to allow sixty thousand fierce fighting men to remain fully
equipped and mounted. To me it seems that now, whilst we have two hundred
and fifty thousand fighting men in Africa to overawe and intimidate the
warriors, we should take from them, by force if necessary, everything in
the shape of warlike weapons. White men are not permitted in any of our
Colonies to ride or strut about the country armed to the teeth. Therefore,
I ask, why should these negroes be privileged to do what Australians or
Canadians are forbidden to do? They have no valid excuse for being in
possession of weapons of war. They have now no enemies capable of attacking
them upon their borders. There is no animal life of a savage or dangerous
character near them, and their armament is a menace to the public safety.
If their young men will not settle down to the peaceful calling of
husbandmen, tillers of the soil, and breeders of stock, let them be drafted
into our Army for service abroad. If there is not enough for the more
elderly men to do in the farming line, let them turn their energies towards
the development of the diamond mines and gold mines that lie within their
borders--mines which at present they will not work themselves nor allow any
white man to work.
I have spent a good many years of my life exploring new mineral territory,
and have seen much of the best auriferous country known to modern times;
but that Basuto country, presided over and held by a mere gang of black
barbarians, ought, in my estimation, to be one of the richest gems in the
British diadem. That good payable gold-bearing rock exists there I know
beyond question. I also know beyond all doubt that diamonds are to be
easily won from the soil, and I am thoroughly cognisant of the fact that at
least one, and I believe many, quicksilver mines can be located there.
Others who know the country well have told me of coal and tin and silver
mines, and samples have been shown to me which made my mouth water. Yet,
all this wealth, which nature's generous hand has scattered so liberally
for the use of mankind, is jealously locked away year by year by men who,
in their savage state, have no use for it themselves, yet will not, upon
any consideration whatever, grant a mining concession to a white man, no
matter what that white man's nationality may be. Verily, the heathen badly
want educating, and we have now 250,000 of the right kind of schoolmasters
within handy reach of them.