Appendix
| Comparative Yearly Exports of Diamonds from the Promulgation of Act 48, 1882, to December 31st, 1886. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carats. | Declared Value. | Average per cent. | ||||
| 1882 Four months | 796,546⅝ | £1,156,273 | 14 1 | 6 | 29/ | |
| 1883 | 2,413,953⅜ | 2,742,521 | 1 | 0 | 22/ | 8 |
| 1884 | 2,263,686⅝ | 2,807,288 | 3 | 4 | 23/ | 9 |
| 1885 | 2,440,788⅜ | 2,492,755 | 13 | 2 | 20/ | 5 |
| 1886 | 3,135,432⁶⁄₈ | 3,507,210 | 14 | 0 | 22/ | 4 |
| Total, | 11,050,407⅜ | 12,706,049 | 6 | 0 | 23/ | |
Clause II.—Of R. Southey’s (Lieut. Gov. of Griqualand West) Despatch dated Apr. 11th, 1874, to Sir Henry Barkly, K. C. B., G. C. M. G., Gov. of Cape Colony.
“A policy under which people who desire to leave the country with their wives and children and stock, because they regard the exceptional laws to which they are made subject as oppressive and intolerable, and who while endeavoring to carry their desire into effect peaceably may be pursued by armed forces, may have all their property confiscated, their women and children captured and placed in forced servitude with their white fellow-subjects, and be themselves thereafter tried for rebellion, under savage instead of civilized laws, is to my mind a most objectionable policy, and one which should be superseded as quickly as possible.”
Petition of Jonathan Molapo and other Basuto Chiefs. Presented 21st March, 1882, by J. W. Matthews, M. L. A., Senior Member for Kimberley.
To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of Assembly of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, now in Parliament Assembled.
The humble Petition of the undersigned chiefs, sons and grandsons of the late Paramount Chief Moshesh, their councillors, headmen and followers, humbly sheweth,—
1st. That the Peace Preservation Act was proclaimed law in Basutoland by her Majesty’s High Commissioner and Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, from 21st May, 1880.
2d. That thereupon your petitioners, her Majesty’s loyal native subjects of the Basuto nation, did obey the said law, and surrendered their guns, her most gracious Majesty the Queen having been pleased previously to command their obedience, and to assure them most graciously of her deep interest in the welfare of her Majesty’s Basuto subjects, for proof of which your petitioners beg to refer to Earl Kimberley’s letter of 13th May, 1880, to his Excellency the Governor, Sir Bartle Frere, which was duly communicated to your petitioners by the Governor’s agent and chief magistrate in Basutoland, Colonel C. D. Griffith, C.M.G.
3d. That, owing to influences and wicked dispositions, which are now matters of history, the greater portion of her Majesty’s subjects in Basutoland, misled by the chiefs Lerothodi, Masupha, Joel Molapo, and other minor chiefs, rebelled against her Majesty’s commands, took up arms, slaughtered numbers of her Majesty’s loyal and obedient subjects for having obeyed her Majesty’s commands, and carried on open war against her Majesty’s colonial forces.
4th. That your petitioners, at the risk of their lives, and with the loss and sacrifice of all they had been possessed of before the rebellion, in cattle, sheep, horses, grain, wagons, ploughs, houses, lands and various other properties, remained faithful to her most gracious Majesty throughout the rebellion, and at her Majesty’s call did even enroll themselves for active service, fighting her Majesty’s battles against their rebellious countrymen at Kalabani, Lerothodi’s Village, Mafeting, Makwai’s Berg, Kolo, Tweefontein, Boleka, Maseru, Thlotse Heights, Mohalie’s Hoek and Quithing, in all of which the loyal Basuto subjects of her Majesty acquitted themselves to the satisfaction of the Commandant General of Colonial forces, as is most abundantly testified to in numerous dispatches, and in the official lists of killed and wounded.
5th. That in the month of April, 1881, and after open war had been carried on for nine months, negotiations were entered into between her Majesty’s Governor and High Commissioner and the Basuto chiefs then in rebellion, when your petitioners, knowing the character, feelings, and real objects of the rebel chiefs, as in duty bound, made humble petition to his Excellency the Governor, setting forth their apprehensions in regard to the consequences to themselves and their country that would assuredly arise from any arrangement which would not include a perfect submission of the rebels and the maintenance of a force sufficient to enforce such submission, to which they never received a reply, nor even acknowledgment.
6th. That subsequently, an agreement having been come to between his Excellency the Governor on one part, and the rebel chiefs of the Basutos on the other part, a document was published in the English language, but never publicly given out in Sesuto, bearing the signature of her Majesty’s Governor, Sir Hercules George Robert Robinson, G. C. M. G., known as the Governor’s Award, bearing date 29th April, 1881, and by which an end was put to actual hostilities in Basutoland.
7th. That the Governor’s Award having become known to your petitioners, they, feeling alarmed at and grieved with the apparent want of any tangible provision whereby the carrying out of the Award could if required be actually enforced, and further foreseeing great troubles and miseries to themselves arising from such a state of things, again approached his Excellency the Governor by humble petition of 11th of May, 1881, setting forth all their apprehensions and grievances, to which humble petition they never received either a reply or acknowledgment.
8th. That subsequently, to wit, on the 25th August, 1881, a change of government took place in Basutoland, Mr. J. M. Orpen succeeding Colonel C. D. Griffith, C. M. G., in the office of Governor’s agent, and from the first day when Mr. J. M. Orpen took over the government of Basutoland, your petitioners are grieved to say their rights and interests as her Majesty’s loyal and obedient subjects were ignored, they themselves were treated in every respect as if they had committed a crime by remaining loyal, whereas the rebels were encouraged in every way, and treated with a deference and submission as if their act of rebellion had been a virtuous and meritorious one; and the Colonial forces were gradually withdrawn from Basutoland, whilst it was a notorious fact that the rebels had not in any way complied with the conditions of the Award.
9th. That notwithstanding the open defiance of the Queen’s authority throughout Basutoland; notwithstanding the notorious anarchy which prevailed from one end of the country to the other; notwithstanding the persistent, obstinate refusal of complying in fact with his Excellency’s Award on the part of all the rebel chiefs; notwithstanding the repeated insults and injuries inflicted upon and forcible expulsion by the rebels of such of your petitioners as, in accordance with Mr. Orpen’s desires, had tried to reoccupy their former grounds; notwithstanding the direct insults and affronts offered frequently to the Queen’s representative and her magistrates in this country by the rebels; and notwithstanding the earnest reports of those magistrates in Basutoland who, from many years’ experience in the country, were best able to advise the government as to the real state of affairs; yet, the Acting Governor’s agent continued and persisted in officially reporting to the government that matters were satisfactory, that things were quieting down, that the Loyals’ cattle were being gradually restored, and that, more particularly in Mafeting and Leribe districts, the Loyals had returned and still were returning to live amongst the rebels, by whom they were well received, all of which official reports were diametrically opposed to real fact.
10th. That consequently, and as a natural sequence of such a policy, the conditions of the Governor’s Award remained unfulfilled in almost every particular clause thereof: the cattle fine was only partially complied with, no guns were surrendered, gun licences were taken up in, comparatively speaking, few instances, and then only without even the production, much less the surrender, of a single gun, and on payment of such insignificant sums, that in many instances even the sum of two shillings and sixpence sterling was accepted, instead of one pound as laid down in the Award; the great bulk of the cattle, almost all the horses, all the sheep and goats, and every description of movable and immovable property belonging to your petitioners, and which, according to the Award, should have been restored to them, were retained in the hands of the rebels, who refused to give them up; not a single sixpence of compensation was made to traders and others for losses inflicted upon them during the rebellion, and your petitioners being debarred from re-entering upon their lands and houses, were kept in the greatest misery, depending upon government rations, scarcely adequate to maintain themselves and their families, cooped up within confined areas around the fortified camps of the diverse seats of magistrates in Basutoland.
11th. That under these heartrending sufferings, and exposed daily to insults and injuries, not only on the part of the rebel Basutos, but, they grieve to say it, under continued pressure and insults heaped upon them by and through the acting Governor’s agent, your petitioners never swerving from their loyalty to her Majesty’s government, again, and for the third time, approached most humbly his Excellency the Governor by respectful petition of 20th October, 1881, setting forth again their miseries and grievances, and representing the true state of affairs in Basutoland, to which humble petition they have never received either reply or acknowledgment; but the said petition, for reasons unknown to your petitioners, was held back by the acting Governor’s agent, from the 20th of October to the end of November or beginning of December, and, subsequently, your petitioners were harassed and persecuted beyond measure by the acting Governor’s agent, who persisted in representing what is absolutely untrue—that your petitioners had been instigated by some white man to petition his Excellency; that the petition had been made by the said white man, and that its contents were not true, whereas the said petition was the cry from the hearts of your petitioners, and contained nothing but what was absolutely and strictly true; saying which, according to truth, your petitioners nevertheless humbly maintain that they have a perfect and constitutional right to ask any man, white or black, to draft, write, or translate such letters or petitions as they may deem expedient to address to the authorities in matters concerning their interests, and that neither the Governor’s agent nor any other official person serving in the government, has a right to object to or to discredit such documents bearing your petitioners’ signatures in any way whatever, on account of such having been drafted, written, or translated for them at their own request by any person whatsoever.
12th. That all the grievances and miseries of your petitioners remaining unredressed to the present day, the Governor’s Award being succeeded by an Ultimatum, which holds out the eventuality of an entire cancellation of the Award, whereby your petitioners, after having been dealt with more harshly and unjustly ever since they ventured to exercise their undoubted rights as free subjects of her Majesty the Queen, to petition his Excellency the Governor, would now be cast away entirely, and deprived even of the most solemn acknowledgment of their most sacred rights, which had been clearly laid down in the Award, and all their most humble petitions having been studiously ignored, your petitioners have but one anchor of hope left to them, to which last anchor they would now cling by approaching most humbly and yet most hopefully your Honourable House with their cries for justice.
13th. That your petitioners, before the rebellion, were possessed, in round numbers, of 28,000 head of cattle, 7,000 horses, 29,000 sheep and goats, 200 wagons, 400 ploughs, 12,000 bags of grain, and property of other description to the amount of £12,000 sterling, all of which losses have been duly registered at the diverse magistracies, and the lists of which losses will be found on official record, besides the value of their lands and the great comfort of their families, and tribal rights and positions, which cannot possibly be valued in money, and all of which they sacrificed in order to remain loyal subjects and faithful to her Majesty’s commands.
14th. That your petitioners, taking all the obligations of loyal subjects upon themselves, are fully aware that they owe, and they are fully prepared to maintain, that loyalty, as a moral obligation towards their most gracious Sovereign Lady the Queen, even in adversity, and they would cheerfully bear all their losses without a murmur, nor would they dare to trouble her most gracious Majesty’s government with their complaints and prayers for redress, if they knew or were told by her Majesty’s government that the power of the government had ceased to be strong enough to carry out her Majesty’s promise of protection, or to enforce the terms of the Award given by her Majesty’s Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, in which case your petitioners would loyally sympathise with her Majesty’s adversities in her dominions in South Africa, and, although poor and miserable by the misfortunes of war, they would nevertheless rally round her Majesty’s throne, and, being unable to give any more, they would at least offer their last drop of blood in the defence of her Majesty’s prestige and in the maintenance of her Majesty’s rule in South Africa; but
15th. That your petitioners’ faith in the might and good faith of her Majesty’s all-powerful rule over her glorious Empire throughout the world has not in the least been shaken by recent events in Basutoland; and they being convinced of this power, and fully confident that their interests are now as dear to her Majesty as they were when Earl Kimberley expressed her Majesty’s sentiments towards your petitioners in his letter of the 13th May, 1880; and further knowing that the justice of your petitioners’ claim to be reinstated in all the rights and properties lost by reason of their loyalty during the late rebellion has been clearly laid down in his Excellency’s Award, and was acknowledged as indisputable by both the last and the present responsible Ministers of the Cape Colony, and being fully convinced that all their present miseries and wretched situation is exclusively due to the mistaken policy adopted by the present government of Basutoland in dealing with the rebellious chiefs.
Your petitioners, therefore, approach your Honourable House most humbly and most hopefully, and pray that it may please your Honourable House to inquire into your petitioners’ case, and if it so please your Honourable House to permit your petitioners to plead their cause at the bar of your Honourable House, by a deputation of three chiefs whom your petitioners have chosen as their spokesmen, and to grant generally such relief to your petitioners as your Honourable House may deem meet, and in duty bound will ever pray.
Jonathan Molapo,
Chief of the Leribe District.
Mokhethi Moshesh,
Hadiyana Mosheshoe,
(And 896 others).
Basutoland, March 14, 1882.
Protest Against Annexation Presented by President Burgers to Sir Theophilus Shepstone on April 12th, 1877
Whereas I, Thomas Francois Burgers, State President of the South African Republic, have received a despatch (dated the 9th inst.) from her British Majesty’s Special Commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, informing me that his Excellency has resolved, in the name of her Majesty’s government, to bring the South African Republic by annexation under the authority of the British crown; and whereas I have not the power to draw the sword with good success for the defence of the independence of this state against a superior power like that of England, and moreover feel totally disinclined, in consideration of the welfare of the whole of South Africa, to involve its white inhabitants in a disastrous war by any hostile action on my part, without having employed beforehand all means to secure the rights of the people in a peaceful way: Therefore, I do hereby, in the name and by authority of the government and the people of the South African Republic, solemnly protest against the intended annexation.
Given under my hand and under the seal of the state, at the government office at Pretoria, on this the 11th day of April, in the year 1877.
Proclamation.
Whereas her Majesty’s Special Commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, has thought fit, in spite of my solemn protest entered yesterday against his Excellency’s intention communicated to me by missive dated 9th of April, to carry out that intention, and has to-day proclaimed the authority of her Britannic Majesty’s government over the South African Republic; and Whereas the government has decided to submit provisionally under protest for the purpose of, in the meantime, sending to Europe and America a deputation, in the persons of Messrs. S. J. P. Kruger and E. P. Jorissen, for the purposes of defending the right of the people and for endeavoring to arrive at a peaceful solution of the matter:
Now, therefore, I, Thomas Francois Burgers, State President of the South African Republic, hereby, on behalf and by advice of the executive, command all officials, burghers and inhabitants, to abstain from every word and every deed of violence by which the work of the deputation may be made fruitless, and I exhort all burghers and inhabitants to assist in maintaining the decision of the government and in the preservation of order and the prevention of bloodshed.
Thos. Burgers,
State President.
Government Office, Victoria, April 12, 1877.
Shortly after the proclamations were read, most of the officials assembled in the Volksraadszaal, where his Honor the President addressed them, in a state of great emotion, very nearly in the following words:
“Gentlemen, officials of the South African Republic: You are no strangers in the land. You also know what the government has resolved to do. We bow only to the superior power. We submit because we cannot successfully draw the sword against that superior power, because by doing so we would only plunge the country into deeper miseries and disasters. We have resolved to appeal to England herself; and if we get no redress there, then we will seek the friendly intervention of other powers that have acknowledged our independence. I have called you together to make one request to you: continue to occupy your offices in abeyance of the result of this appeal. No other oath of office will be demanded from you, and you can continue to serve under the oath once sworn to the Republic. I have pledged my word for you, and I know I can depend upon you that you will not disappoint me. Serve the new government with the same honesty and fidelity with which you have served our government, for by that you will serve the people. I am leaving my office under protest on behalf of myself, of the government, of the officials, of the Volksraad, and of the people. Grant me therefore this one favor, that you serve the people so long, and redeem the pledge that I have given for you. I thank you for the fidelity which you have shown me in your posts as officials. I leave my office with the certainty that I have not offended any one of you willfully, and if I have perhaps done so from weakness, I ask you to forgive me.”
Mr. Consul of Belgium: “You are the only representative of a foreign power present here to-day. You know what has happened here to-day, and you know also what has caused this event, and of course you will communicate every thing to your government. I thank your government, your king, your people and yourself, for the brotherly hand offered by Belgium to this youthful Republic. Be you my spokesman to your king and people, and tell them that, although the government be altered, yet the people remain. Meanwhile I request you, Mr. Consul, that you remain here at your post until the result of the protest shall be known. And now, gentlemen, for the moment I leave the scene. I wish you God’s richest blessing. Farewell. Be true to yourselves, to the people and to the government.”
Mr. Swart briefly addressed his Honor in a few words of farewell, uttering the hope that the day may soon come when we would again welcome him as head of the state. He then handed to his Honor the key of the government office.
His Honor said: “Here is the key of our office. I hand it over to the superior power and thereby give it into the hands of God, who will at the proper time deliver it to the right man. I order you—it is my last order—to deliver it to the chief of the new government and conduct yourselves worthily as men and officers. Farewell.”
The Zulu Ultimatum.
Message from his Excellency the Lieutenant Governor of Natal to Cetywayo, King of the Zulus and chief men of the Zulu nation.
1. The Lieutenant Governor of Natal sends, in the name of the Queen’s High Commissioner, these further words to the Zulu king and nation.
2. These are the words of the High Commissioner and they are sent by the Lieutenant Governor, through the same officers who delivered the words of the Award in respect of the disputed boundary question, namely:—The Hon. John Wesley Shepstone, Secretary of Native Affairs, Natal; the Hon. Charles Brownlie, Resident Commissioner for Native Affairs in the Cape Colony, at present attached to the staff of the High Commissioner; Mr. Henry Francis Fynn, Resident Magistrate, Umsinga Division, Natal; and Colonel Forester Walker, of her Majesty’s Scots Guards, lately attached to the staff of the High Commissioner; to be delivered by them to the Zulu representatives, that they may be duly communicated to the king and council and people of the Zulu nation.
3. The king and nation will recognize in the Award that has just been given on the matter of the disputed boundary, the determination of the British government to give effect to the words which have been spoken at different times by its representatives in this country regarding the matter.
4. The dispute respecting the boundary was one that had existed for many years. It was a question between the government of the Transvaal Republic and the Zulu nation. The latter made many and frequent representations to the Natal government on the subject. The government of Natal was always anxious that the dispute should be settled by peaceful means, and always counselled the Zulu king accordingly. It considered that the dispute might be and could be settled properly and satisfactorily, by means of an impartial inquiry; and was always ready to use its good offices for that purpose. The opportunity for doing so, however, did not occur. The years passed without any settlement of the question, and at length last year the Transvaal came under British rule. Now when that took place, the Zulu king, if he trusted the British government, had every reason to believe that whatever rights the Zulus might have in the disputed territory would be investigated and accorded to them. But, without waiting, the king sent armed Zulus on to the disputed territory, and by threats obliged the European settlers in it to leave their homes. This proceeding on the part of the Zulu king might well have been resented by the English government: but having regard to the promises and words of its representatives in times past, and desirous to avoid all appearance of prejudging a long-standing question in which its own interests had become involved, it withheld its hand in order that the inquiry so long spoken of might be held.
5. The inquiry was instituted by the government of Natal, and was held by trusty persons appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Natal. It was held in the presence of the representatives both of the Transvaal government and the Zulu king and nation, and all that was said and put forward in support of these claims by both parties was heard and considered.
6. It is clear from the inquiry that some negotiations took place between Cetywayo and the Boers in 1861. Cetywayo’s right of succession to the late king Panda was then very uncertain. Two other sons of Panda were in the hands of the Boers, and the evidence goes to show that certain promises to cede land were made by Cetywayo, partly in order to obtain the surrender of these two sons of Panda, and partly in consideration of presents of cattle.
7. What were the extent and character of the promises made by Cetywayo has since been disputed, but promises of some sort there undoubtedly were. Certain land was also beaconed off, but no recognition or confirmation of the cessions said to have been promised appears ever to have been given by the king Panda, or by the great council of the Zulus, and accordingly the commissioners who inquired into the dispute, after careful deliberation, recorded their finding against any authoritative or sufficient cession of that land having been made by the king or nation. This decision has been accepted by the High Commissioner and has now been communicated to the Zulu king and nation. This Award assigns as belonging to the Zulu nation, and as subject to the Zulu king, a great portion of the disputed land claimed by the king, which lies between the Buffalo and Pongola Rivers.
8. But while the British government in this way gives up to the Zulu king and nation land which is thought by the commissioners to be by strict right belonging to the Zulus, and while the British government has, and always will have, a due regard for it, at the same time will strictly require all that is due to its own honors and the just rights and interests of the Queen’s subjects.
9. It has already been intimated in connection with the Award, which was an Award regarding the territory lying on this or the south side of the Pongola River, that on the other, or north side of that river, the Zulu king must not, as he has of late appeared inclined to do, attempt to take any action in respect of that territory, as if he had any right or jurisdiction there, but that if the king has, or thinks he has, any claim of any nature in that direction, he must state them to the British government, by whom they will be duly considered.
10. The High Commissioner has under his consideration the proceedings connected with the outrage that was committed some months ago in Natal territory by Zulu subjects, the sons, relatives and people of the Zulu chief Sirayo. This has been a grievous and gross outrage committed on British territory. Mehlokazulu, Inkumbokazulu and Tyekwana, sons of Sirayo, and Zuluhlenza, a brother of Sirayo, with a large number of armed attendants, crossed the Buffalo River into Natal territory in two parties, and by force and violence took out of Natal territory two Zulu women. Having taken these women back into the Zulu country, they there, as it is reported, killed them.
11. The Lieutenant Governor of Natal, when he heard of these occurrences, sent messages, one on the 1st and another on the 6th of August, to the king, stating what had occurred, and requesting that the sons and relatives of Sirayo, the ringleaders of the outrages, should be given up to the Natal government for punishment for the offences committed by them in Natal territory. Cetywayo, in reply, admitted that Sirayo’s people had done wrong, but he has endeavored to make light of the offence, and he has not given up the men as desired. Instead of doing this, they sent £50, which he wished the Natal government to accept as a fine in lieu of the punishment of Sirayo’s people. The money was not accepted, and the king was told that such a fine would be no punishment for those guilty of the offence, and no reparation for the outrage. The king said, however, that he would lay the matter and demand of the Lieutenant Governor before his great council; but many weeks have passed and no further intimation has been received by the Natal government to show that the king has laid the matter before the council, or what the deliberations of the council has been.
12. Her Majesty’s High Commissioner has now therefore to require that the Zulu king will forthwith send in to the Natal government for trial under the laws of the Colony, for the offence committed by them in the Colony, the persons of Mehlokazulu, Inkumbokazulu, and Tyekwana, the sons of Sirayo, and also Zuluhlenza, the brother of Sirayo, who was wrongly accused, as he was not one of the party who came into Natal territory, but was at Umhlan-den-Hlorn at the time; he is accordingly exempted from this demand, but the others now demanded must be sent in and delivered over to the Natal authorities within twenty days from the date that this demand is made. The Zulu king is required, in addition, to pay to the British government a fine of 500 head of cattle for the outrage, and for his delay in complying with the request of the Natal government. These cattle must also be sent in within the period above named.
13. There has also been another offence committed by Zulu subjects on the persons of British subjects at Middle Drift on the Tugela River, below Fort Buckingham. These two British subjects, Messrs. Smith and Deighton, were, while at or near the drift in the month of September last, surrounded by a party of fifteen Zulus who, armed with guns and assegais, in an excited state, took hold of the two white men, and made them sit down, demanding what they were doing there, as the ground belonged to Cetywayo. Gradually the Zulus became more quiet, and after detaining the two white men for an hour and a half, or thereabouts, they allowed them to go. This interference with and treatment of two British subjects was an interference and treatment which was unwarrantable. It was an offence against the persons of two British subjects which cannot be passed over without notice, and as a punishment for the offence, and a warning against the commission of similar offences in the future, the High Commissioner requires that a fine of 100 head of cattle shall be paid to the British government. This fine must also be paid within the period of twenty days from the date of the communication being made.
14. The two cases referred to have been cases of offence—one of them of a most serious and outrageous nature—committed by individual Zulu subjects on British territory, or against the persons of British subjects, for which it has been found necessary to demand that reparation shall be made in the manner above stated.
15. There is also the case of Umbelini, a Swazi refugee living in the Zulu country, who is charged with having recently made a murderous raid into the country north of the Pongola River, which is claimed as British territory by the Transvaal government. It will be necessary for the offenders in this case to be given up to be tried by the Transvaal courts for the offence of which they have been accused, and a further communication will be made to Cetywayo when the Transvaal government has stated who, besides Umbelini, must be given up to be tried.
16. But beyond these matters which relate to certain offences committed by certain Zulu subjects against the British government, the attention of her Majesty’s Commissioner has of necessity been given to the state of government and the state of affairs in the Zulu country, as affecting both the conditions of the Zulu people and the peace and safety of the Queen’s dominions lying adjacent to Zululand, and of other tribes and peoples, the allies or friendly neighbors of the British government.
17. In the time of the late king Panda the relations of the British government and the Zulus had always been of a friendly nature. The English government and the Zulus were near neighbors, and all the Zulu nation can bear witness that the English government never did anything unfriendly, or showed in any way otherwise than most friendly and well disposed towards the Zulus. Panda, it is well known, was established in the chieftainship by the Dutch emigrant farmers, who defeated the Zulu king Dingaan. It was after this that the English came into Natal and established relations with Panda and the Zulu nation.
18. Panda’s reign was a more peaceful one than those of his predecessors, and his rule was milder and more tolerant. He encouraged trade. He allowed Christian missionaries to settle on the land, and set aside stations for them and gave them land, and there was good promise of an improvement in the condition of the Zulu people.
19. Unhappily, during the latter part of his reign, and when he became old, trouble came upon the land in consequence of the difference between Cetywayo and his brothers as to who should be successor to the king.
20. Panda had always behaved in a loyal and friendly manner to the British government, and when, on account of the continued excitement and uneasiness in the Zulu country, he asked the Natal government to interfere, the government sent Mr. Shepstone, the Secretary for Native Affairs, to recommend Panda to nominate a successor, and so remove the uncertainty on that point, and the cause of dispute among the brothers. The result was the nomination of the house of Cetywayo, which, settling the dispute of succession, gave quiet again to the Zulu country.
21. After the death of Panda, the sons of the late king, and the headmen of the Zulu nation, assembled and sent messengers to the government of Natal saying that the nation found itself wandering because of the death of the king. “There was no king,” they said, and the messengers brought from the nation four oxen, representing the “Head of the king” to the Natal government. They further asked that Mr. Shepstone, who had been present at the nomination of Cetywayo, might go and establish what was wanted, and, at the same time, breathe the spirit by which the nation should be governed. They said, moreover, it was the will of the nation that the new king should be the son of the British government.
22. The government of Natal had no wish to mix itself up with these arrangements of the Zulu people; but eventually it consented and sent Mr. Shepstone to take part in the installation. It was the wish of Cetywayo that this should be done—it was the wish of the whole Zulu nation. In consenting to this, the British government had no selfish object of any kind. It did not seek to obtain a single foot of land for itself, nor any advantage nor any privilege whatever. It wanted nothing for itself, and demanded nothing for itself. Its only motive in complying with the wish of the Zulu nation, and in taking part in the coronation of the new king, was that in doing so it might help to assure the peace of the Zulu country and promote in some degree the welfare of the Zulu people.
23. In taking part, therefore, the only conditions it made were in favor of the good government of the people. At a formal meeting held previous to the installation between Mr. Shepstone, Cetywayo and the headmen of the Zulu nation, several matters were discussed, chief among which were certain regulations or laws for the better government of the Zulu people, which were to be proclaimed on the occasion of the installation. Subsequently, on the day of the installation, the laws were formally proclaimed by Mr. Shepstone.
24. It was proclaimed:
1. That the indiscriminate shedding of blood should cease in the land.
2. That no Zulu should be condemned without open trial and the public examination of witnesses, for and against, and that he should have the right of appeal to the king.
3. That no Zulu’s life should be taken without the previous knowledge and consent of the king, after such trial has taken place, and the right of appeal had been allowed to be exercised.
4. That for common crimes, the loss of property, all or a portion, should be substituted for the punishment of death.
25. Now these laws were formally proclaimed by Mr. Shepstone, who represented the British government in Natal, and proclaimed with the formal consent of Cetywayo, of the chief men of the nation, and of the natives then assembled. It was not done as a mere idle ceremony or form: it was not done in secret but in public; it was not done in the dark, but in the open day; it was not done in solitude, but at the royal kraal, in the presence and the hearing of the king, the chiefs and the assembled people. They were laws for the good government of the Zulu people. The subject of them had been carefully and deliberately discussed beforehand between the British representatives and Cetywayo and his councillors, and agreed upon, and then afterwards, in the hearing and presence of the people, the laws had been solemnly affirmed.
26. These laws for the well-being of the Zulu people were the conditions required by the British government, in return for the countenance and support given by it to the new Zulu king, by the presence of its representative, and by his taking part in the king’s coronation; and once spoken as they were, they cannot be broken without compromising the dignity, the good faith, and the honor of the British government.
27. The British government now asks, How has it been in this matter? Have the promises then made been kept? Have the laws which were then proclaimed been observed? Let the Zulu king answer!
28. There is but one answer. The king and people know very well that the promises have not been kept. They know that these laws have not been observed, but that they have been broken time after time, and that they are almost daily broken in the Zulu country. They know very well that the lives of hundreds of Zulu people, men, women, old and young, have been taken since that day without any trial at all, that the indiscriminate shedding of blood has not ceased, and that the killing of Zulu people has gone on as if no promise had ever been made, and no law ever proclaimed.
29. Hence it is that all Zulus live in fear to lose their lives any day. No man knows when he may be suddenly set upon and killed, and all belonging to him destroyed or taken away.
30. How can these things be? Were the words which were spoken at the coronation mere empty words, meaning nothing? The Zulu king knows that it is not so, and that it cannot be so. The British government in Natal did not want, and it did not ask, to take any part in the installation of Panda’s successor. It wished well to the Zulu country and the Zulu people, but for itself it wished for nothing, it asked for nothing. It was Cetywayo himself, it was the Zulu nation assembled together, that sent to the government to ask it to take part. Even then the government did not desire to take any part in what was being done, but it consented to do so, asking nothing for itself, but asking certain conditions for the good of the Zulu people.
31. The conditions which it asked were conditions for the protection of the lives of the Zulu people, that they might not be condemned and slain without trial, without knowing what their offence was, without cause, and without chance of justice. These were the laws proclaimed.
32. The British government cannot, then, allow that the words which were once spoken on its part should be empty words, or that the promises which were made to it, and for which it became the mouthpiece and the guarantee to the whole Zulu nation, should be treated as if they were mere idleness and empty sound. But for five years they have been so treated, and now it can be no longer so.
33. The promises have not been kept, and how is it possible they can be kept so long as the present system of government is maintained by the king?
34. The present system of government is destroying the country. All the young men, all the able-bodied men of the country, are taken as soldiers. They are taken from their homes at an age when they are becoming useful to their parents, and are kept for several years in the compulsory service of the king. They are not allowed to marry, as the other men around them, as in Natal, as among the Amaswagi, as among the Amapondo. They cannot marry when they desire to do so, but they must await the permission of the king, and they are often kept for seven years without the permission to do so. They are not allowed to labor for themselves, or to plant, or to reap, or to live in quiet and in peace with their families and relatives. They are constantly summoned up to the king’s kraals, as if for war, although there is no enemy to fight with, and thus they come to fight among themselves, and blood is shed, and there is distress and moaning in the land; or they are sent out in parties to surround the kraals of those who have given offence to the king, or who are accused by private enemies, and who then, without trial and without a word, are killed, their kraals laid desolate, and their families, and all they have, carried off and destroyed.
35. Thus the army is made an instrument, not for the defence of the country but for the oppression of the people. All the best interests of the Zulu country and the happiness of the Zulu people are sacrificed in order that the king may keep up this large army. For what purpose is this army kept up? Is there an enemy? Where is the enemy? Cetywayo knows very well that there is no enemy, and that there is no occasion for this large army. In the days of Chaka or Dingaan it might be different, but now on all sides of the Zulu country is the territory of the British government, or of its allies and friendly neighbors. The king knows very well that the British government is a peaceful and friendly power, and that it wishes well to the Zulu people, and that it wishes them to live in peace and comfort. The king knows this well, for did not his father live to become an old man under the shelter of the British government, and has not Cetywayo himself grown up to manhood under the eye of the English?
36. With regard to the native neighboring tribes, the Basuto, Amapondo, the Amaswagi, and others, they are either the subjects or the allies or neighbors of the British government, and the Zulu king knows he has nothing to fear from them. They are, besides, peaceful people and not given to war and aggression.
37. For what purpose then does the Zulu king keep up this large army, which brings so much hardship and so much misery upon the Zulu people themselves? It can serve no good purpose. It can be made of no use, except it be used for the oppression of the Zulu people or for aggression upon British subjects or the allies and neighbors of the British government.
38. There is, therefore, no real need for the army. The present system is working the destruction of the Zulu people. The army was used against the very people of the country to which it belongs. It is the strength of the nation destroying the nation itself.
39. Let the natives say if this is not so? Besides, while the king keeps up this army, while he is continually calling it together, it is impossible for his neighbors to feel secure. They never know what may happen, and the British government is obliged to keep large numbers of the Queen’s troops in Natal and the Transvaal in order to protect British subjects against the dangers of a possible aggression by the Zulu king.
40. This state of things cannot last. It is dangerous to the peace of all the countries adjoining Zululand, and it is hurtful to the Zulu people themselves. The British government cannot allow it to continue. It has become absolutely necessary that some change should be made.
41. It is necessary that the military system which is at present kept up by the king should be done away with as a bad and hurtful one, and that he should instead adopt such military regulations as may be decided on after consultation with the great council of the Zulus, and with the representatives of the British government.
42. It is necessary that the Zulu army, as it is now, shall be disbanded, and that the men shall return to their homes.
43. Let the obligation on every able-bodied man to come out for the defence of his country, when it is needed, remain, but until then let it be that every man shall live, if he please, quietly at his own home.
44. Let every man then be free to remain at his home, and let him plant and sow, and reap and tend his cattle, and let him live in peace and with his family.
45. Let him not be called out for war or for fighting or for assembling in regiments, except with the permission of the great council of the nation assembled, and with the consent also of the British government.
46. Let every man, when he comes to man’s estate, be free to marry. Let him not wait for years before he gets permission to do this, for oftentimes the king forgets to give the permission, and the years pass on and the man becomes old. But let him be free to marry when he pleases, as it is in Natal.
47. So will the king have contented subjects.
48. Then with respect to the promises made at the coronation, let rules at once be laid down that any Zulu, man or woman, old or young, who is accused of any crime, be tried by properly appointed indunas before punishment, that no one may be punished without cause, and that the life of no one be taken until the offence of which he is accused be heard openly against him; and on answers given by him in self-defence, in order that those by whom he is tried may say whether he is guilty or not before he is punished: and if any one is declared guilty let him not be killed before the king has given his consent, and until the person declared guilty has been able to make an appeal to the king.
49. Thus it was promised it should be at the time of the coronation, but the promises have not been kept.
50. But in future it will be necessary that the promises be kept, for the British government holds itself bound to see that this is so; and in order that they may be kept, and that the laws regarding them may be duly carried out, the Queen’s High Commissioner, on behalf of the British government, will appoint an officer as his deputy to reside in the Zulu country, or on its immediate borders, who will be the eyes and ears and mouth of the British government towards the Zulu king and the great council of the nation.
51. What words the king or the council of the nation may desire to say to the British government can then be said through this officer, and also what words the British government may desire to say to the king and the great council can be said through him, so that all misunderstanding and questions that arise between the two countries, or between the subjects of the two countries, may be dealt with and settled through this one officer speaking with the king and the great council.
52. This officer will see that the rules regarding the trials of all Zulus before punishment are kept, and that no man is killed without trial, but that all men may have an opportunity of answering the accusations brought against them, and if need be of appealing to the king.
53. He will see also that the arrangements to be made regarding the army are carried out; that no one is called out for war without necessity; that all men are allowed to live at their homes in peace; and that every young man is free to marry. So will it be well with the Zulu people.
54. The late king Panda allowed several European missionaries to settle in Zululand. Cetywayo also allowed them to stay in the country, but during the last two years some of the natives living on the mission stations were killed without trial, or form of trial, and others were terrified, and thus the missionaries have, most of them, been obliged to abandon their stations; and the High Commissioner desires that all those missionaries who, until the last year, lived in the Zulu country and occupied stations, as also the natives belonging to the stations, be allowed to return and occupy their stations. He desires also that all missionaries be allowed to teach, as in Panda’s time, and that no Zulu shall be punished for listening to them. If any Zulu wishes, of his own choice, to listen to the missionary he is free to do so. If any native living on a mission station does wrong, he will be liable to punishment, but he must be tried first.
55. If any case of dispute occurs in which any of the missionaries, or in which any European is concerned, such dispute should be heard by the king in public and in the presence of the British resident; and no sentence of expulsion from Zululand shall be carried out until it has been communicated by the king to the Resident, and until it has been approved by the Resident.
56. These are the words of her Majesty’s High Commissioner, which the Lieutenant Governor of Natal sends to the Zulu king and the chief men of the nation, and for the whole Zulu nation,
57. These are the conditions which her Majesty’s High Commissioner, in the name of the British government, considers necessary for the establishment of a satisfactory state of things in the Zulu country, and for the peace and safety of the adjoining countries. Let, therefore, the king and the chief men of the nation consider them, and let them give their answer regarding them within thirty days from the day on which this communication is made to the Zulu representatives, in order that her Majesty’s High Commissioner may then know if the king and the great council agree to the words which are here given, and will give effect to these conditions, which are necessary both for the peace and safety of the Queen’s subjects and allies and also for the safety and welfare of the Zulu people, to which the Queen’s government wishes well.
(Signed)
Henry Bulwer,
Lieutenant Governor.
John Dunn’s Letter. To the Aborigines Protection Society
I beg to write, for the information of your honorable Society, and state that I am an Englishman by birth, and have been a resident of the Zulu country, and living among the Zulus, for the last twenty years, and I can confidently say that there is no white man in this part of South Africa so fitted to judge of their feelings towards the English race as I am.
I would not now address your honorable Society if it were not that I have noticed a very strong, wrong and arbitrary feeling gaining ground against the Zulu nation on the side of the white population in this part of South Africa. A strong feeling of color and jealousy I cannot understand, unless it is on account of the independency of the Zulu race, a feeling taken up without any just cause, and that feeling is now on the verge of breaking out on the pretext of a false claim of land boundary; a claim pretended to being upheld for the Dutch Boers, who are no friends of the English race, and are well known in this part of South Africa for their encroaching propensities on any land belonging to the natives of this country, to evade English laws, on the pretext of getting permission to graze cattle, on the grass becoming scarce on their own farms, and afterwards claiming the land. A claim in which the Natal government have always upheld the Zulus, and now, since the annexation of the Transvaal (in 1877), the head of the government there, who professed to side with the Zulus while he was in Natal, has now turned round and claimed for the Dutch a country thickly inhabited by the Zulus.
I write this for the information of your honorable Society, in the hope that you will try and put a stop to proceedings which will, if carried out, be the cause of bloodshed in an unjust cause, as I can assure you nothing but the grossest act of encroachment and oppression will cause the Zulus to take up arms against the English race, who wish to live at peace with them, not being ripe enough for civilization or civilized laws.
The standard rule that is gone by against the black races in this part of South Africa is the Amaxosa, or Cape Frontier Kafir, who is not to be compared to the Zulu; nothing but forced Christianity or civilization will spoil the Zulus, and the class of foreign missionaries we have in the country does more injury than good to them. Let them say what they like in their reports to the societies, they make no converts to their faith, besides the pretended ones or vagabonds, who imagine that by being clothed and under the garb of Christianity they will be exempt from all king’s service and laws of the country, and be allowed to roam about and do as they please.
The Zulu nation, judiciously dealt with, would remain a firm ally and friend to the English, and it would be a shame for any false notions of power on the English side to take advantage of such power, and destroy the Zulu race, which would undoubtedly be the case if they were overthrown; they would then become a lot of bold rogues, and eventually give much trouble.
One of the most unfair features in the case is this, that the head of the Transvaal government (Sir T. Shepstone) has always advised Cetywayo to remain quiet, and not to go to war with the Boers in disputing the boundary, promising him to see him righted, when, if it had been left to the Zulus and Boers themselves, I am sure the Boers would have got the worst of it. He now turns round and is prepared to fight himself, when he knows he is only too well backed up by England for the Dutch, England not knowing the real facts.
The Zulus acknowledge no individual title to land, permission only being given to squat, the land being looked on as belonging to the squatter only so long as he occupies it.
But before sending the above letter, I thought I would consult Mr. H. Escombe, and he advised me not to send the letter, as he had no doubt it was the intention of the English government to disarm all the native tribes in South Africa, and that I would only be making a fool of myself, or words to that effect, but at the same time advising me to wait the arrival of Mr. I. Sanderson, who was editor of the Natal Colonist, a colonial newspaper, now defunct, and who was expected out from England shortly. I acted on Mr. Escombe’s advice, and on the arrival of Mr. Sanderson had a conversation with him, and gave him the letter. He pretended to think well of my proposal, but before he had time to carry it out, affairs, as regards Zulu matters, came to a crisis, and Mr. Sanderson died shortly afterwards, and so ended this matter.
Appendix to Gold Fields Chapter
The following resumé of the opinions of Dr. Schenk, a geologist who has paid several professional visits and has lately made researches at the gold fields, an account of which, I believe, he purposes shortly to publish in Germany, is taken from the letter of a correspondent in the Pretoria Volkstem under date February, 1887, and will be perused with considerable interest by geologists.
The Barberton formation, the doctor said, consisted of very old and in most instances highly metamorphosed rocks, composed of slate and sandstone, with interposed eruptive rocks of greenstone (diorite, serpentine, etc.). These rocks are highly erected, dipping invariably at great angles, often perpendicular, and run from east to west. In this formation the gold-bearing veins or reefs are situated, and these with few exceptions run in the same direction (this is, for instance, the case with the reefs at Moodie’s and with the Sheba, etc.), nearly always accompanying the eruptive rocks. The gold, in the doctor’s opinion, came from the interior of the earth with the eruptive rocks to the surface, and was therefore concentrated in these reefs, which consist of quartz, and often contain iron along with the gold. This formation probably corresponds in age with the Silurian formation of Europe, and is found also in Swaziland, Zoutpansberg, and the recently discovered gold fields of the Tugela. There is no young formation overlying these rocks at Barberton, but in the Drakensberg and at Witwatersrand a younger formation lies unconformably over the older rocks. This the doctor concluded to be of Devonian age. It consists of large beds of sandstone, with here and there slate and greenstone. This younger formation had subsequently been folded in the same way as the Barberton rocks, though not so highly erected. The Barberton formation, he is inclined to think, proceeds beneath this formation in a westerly direction to Witwatersrand and thence to Bechuanaland. Regarding the presence of the before-mentioned younger formation, he considered it was due to the overflowing of this part of the country by the sea, which by wearing away the higher portions of the mountains, and destroying their rock, including the gold-bearing reefs, formed a more level plain and covered it with the destroyed masses of the old formation. This new formation, therefore, was simply a re-deposit of the old one under a different appearance. The sandstone schists abounding at Witwatersrand were no doubt formed of the softer rocks, while the conglomerate resulted from the destruction of the hard reefs before alluded to; these probably having been reduced, by the action of the water, to sand and pebbles, which afterwards became cemented into a solid mass. The conglomerate of Witwatersrand, Dr. Schenk further observed, is imbedded in the sandstone, to form a series of large belts, the extremities of which are at the surface. His reasons for coming to this conclusion were that at Witwatersrand the conglomerate dipped to the south, while between Heidelberg and the Vaal (southward of the Rand) it dipped to the north, or in an exactly opposite direction, and between these places it lay more horizontally, thus affording grounds for supposing that the conglomerate at one place is connected with that at the other. The doctor, in conclusion, remarked that the Witwatersrand conglomerate was a most peculiar formation, and that he had never before seen anything of the kind. It did not, in his opinion, run into a reef, as many old diggers and others seem to suppose; but the reefs from which it originated, and which he judged to be the continuation of the Barberton reefs running through this place, he considers to be somewhere in the vicinity of the conglomerate, but at a considerable depth from the surface.
“Over the Free State line,
Whatever is yours is mine.
If I’ve a stone
Its all my own,
No ‘John Fry’119 shall make me groan
Over the Free State line.
I’ll never have cause to pine,
The I. D. B. is happy and free,
Over the Free State line.”
Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter.
Notes
1. A brandy of great strength, never matured, and frequently adulterated with most noxious substances by unscrupulous canteen-keepers and illicit liquor dealers.
2. “South African Mission Fields.”—Carlyle, Nesbet & Co. 1878.
3. “Boers and Bantu.”—By George McCall Theal.
4. “Lives of R. and M. Moffat.” 1885.
5. Dr. Lindley told me that he was reduced to such straits during this tedious land journey that, on one occasion, all he had left to support life for a whole week was a few handsful of sugar eaten from time to time.
6. “John McCarter. Dertien Jaren Herder en Leeraar in die Kerk.” Amsterdam, Höveker & Zoon.
7. “Commentaries on Native Laws, Customs and Usages, with some Remarks on Interpretation and Annexation.”—By John Courtenay Chasman Chadwick, J. P., Attorney at Law, Maritzburg, Vanse, Slatter & Co.
8. Umtagati, one highly criminal, a murderer, poisoner.
9. Isiropo, unchaste, not a virgin.
10. Circuit Court D’Urban, before his Lordship, Justice Phillips, Feb. 12th, 1867. Trial of Nokahlela, Gumaudi, Matyobani, Umguquini, Pambili, Umgabuka and Kongota.
11. The chief native adviser.
12. According to the Statesman of India, no Chinese soldier in Tonquin during the late war lost an opportunity to eat the flesh of a fallen French foe—believing that human flesh, especially that of foreign warriors, is the best possible stimulant for a man’s courage.
13. Again, Hibbert, in his “Lectures on Religion in Mexico and Peru,” asserts that cannibalism was once universal in our race, arguing that all primitive sacrifices were originally suggested by the idea that the Divine Being had the same tastes and proclivities as we ourselves. The Rev. W. R. Blackett, M. A., in relation to this, says: “This is a remarkable bouleversement of reasoning. It might perhaps be safer to argue that, as human sacrifices have been universal and cannibalism has not, the aim of sacrifice could not be merely to gratify supposed human tastes in the deities to whom they were offered.”
14. According to Mr. Surveyor A. Moor, the top of the falls above the level of the administrator’s residence, which is seventeen miles (horizontal) distant, is 5,643 feet, and the height of the falls themselves 1,862.5 feet.
15. The cypress trees in the cathedral grounds in Maritzburg are grown from seed collected in this pass by Captain Allison, and presented by him to the dean and chapter.
16. The acting resident magistrate at D’Urban and coolie immigration agent.
17. Remittent fever of a virulent and exceptionally fatal type had been prevalent in Mauritius for a considerable period some year or two previously.
18. Many of my readers will be familiar with the unhappy dissensions which used to exist in the Church of England in South Africa. These partly arose out of Bishop Colenso’s (Bishop of Natal) orthodoxy being impugned, and partly from the ritualistic practices the opposite section indulged in. The particulars of the dispute, which for years occupied the attention of the gentlemen of the long robe, are too long and perplexing for me to enter into. Suffice it to say that, though beyond all doubt both parties were convinced they had right on their side, yet to lovers of the good old Church the dissensions were much to be regretted. Bishop Colenso, however, in the long run gained the day.
19. The Anglican Sisterhood of St. Michael and All Angels.
20. Since enlarged.
21. Kafir pox, a varicelloid disease, believed to attack only natives, also known as “Watcht en beitje” pock (Dutch, “wait a bit”), as it delayed them on their road.
22. An Act to legalize gambling by this means came before the legislative council this year (1887) but was rejected. The arguments “for and against” were very funny. One Dutch legislator, when the subject was under debate, brought forward as a clinching argument that “when Jonah was on board a vessel on his way to Nineveh it was decided by a totalisator that he should be thrown overboard,” while another (who had a large open Bible before him) referred to the Revelations, where, he said, it was pointed out that “roovers, woekeraars, and spelers,” could not enter the kingdom of heaven. He said God’s Holy Word did not justify gambling, and where could they get a better authority than the Bible? The name “totalisator” was in itself so big a word to pronounce that he often wondered that people’s tongues did not twist in pronouncing it (loud laughter).
23. It may be interesting to my readers to mention that “Vaal” means dun or mud color, the tint of the river, especially noticeable during flushes, when so much clay from the banks is held in suspension, though at no period has the stream the crystal clearness of the Isis or the Cam. The inhabitants of the banks are facetiously nicknamed Vaal penses, in meaning much the same as “yellow bellies,” the designation applied with rustic humor to the dwellers on the fens in Lincolnshire by the agricultural population of the surrounding districts.
24. August 1886. Since then many more amalgamations of companies have taken place.
25. The recent extension of the railway to Kimberley has of course much reduced the price of fuel, though it is even at this day so high that the home manufacturers or householders would shudder to contemplate paying half the price.
26. Vulgarly called carbon by the diggers.
27. Diamondiferous soil.
28. This was written before the discovery of the Cape diamond fields.
29. The French and Central companies of the Kimberley mine have sunk shafts comparatively recently about 620 feet deep (in 1886), and are still in this rock. It is of various textures and colors, and contains agates, jasper, calcite, iron pyrites and various other minerals.
30. Resembling charcoal in its mineral condition.
31. This waste ground accumulated in vast masses or heaps, one of these being known by the Scriptural name of Mount Ararat.
32. These boys were known by the oddest of names. One unfortunate native, arrested for some trivial offense, when asked his name in the Charge Office replied “Go to h——!” and gave the same when interrogated the second time, on which the sergeant in charge knocked him down, but regretted doing so when he found that that was really the name which had been bestowed on him by his master. Only a few months since another native arraigned gave his name as “B——y fool.” On being asked by the magistrate who gave him that name, he replied that he chose it himself.
33. Instead of “whims,” in which the horses trot round in a circle, some of the diggers used “whips” in which the horses trot backward and forward.
34. Much of the debris of the early days pays handsomely to rewash with the present improved machinery, and licenses authorizing such washing are issued by the chief of the detective department. It is believed that the privilege has been frequently abused and made a cloak for the illicit traffic in diamonds.
35. The De Beers’ Mining Co. of De Beers’ Mine, Limited.
36. Dutch for stones.
37. The public press repeatedly drew attention to the “poison” that was retailed to the natives, and I well remember the following sarcastic lines that were published about this time:
“The best of all methods, so others maintain,
To free them from ignorance’ yoke,
And enable them civilized freedom to gain,
Is simply to give them ‘Cape Smoke;’118
When mixed with tobacco, red pepper and lime,
With dagga and vitriol, too,
The draught is delicious, enchanting, sublime—
Why, it even would civilize you!”
38. Slang Jewish expression for an illicit or stolen diamond.
39. A noted detective officer.
40. A very much overrated mine, five miles from Kimberley, rushed on the last Sunday in April, 1876.
41. In the session of 1885 the diamond trade act was extended, with but trifling alterations, to the entire of Cape Colony, which in spite of all the efforts of unscrupulous men, who are themselves well known to be in the trade, still remains in force.
42. Some idea of the extent to which this organized system of robbery is carried on may be formed, when I tell my readers that since the passing of the diamond trade act in 1882 up to Dec. 31st, 1885, 19,272 carats of diamonds, valued at £37,829 have been recovered by the detective department.
44. The Gold Law No. 6, passed July 30, 1885. Clause 78 reads as follows: “78. Any person purchasing, trading or receiving rough gold or uncut precious stones from colored persons, either on a proclaimed public field, or elsewhere within the limits of the South African Republic, shall be fined a sum not exceeding £1,000 and imprisonment for a period of not more than five years, with or without hard labor, beside the forfeiture of such rough precious metal or uncut precious stones to the State.”
45. See further particulars at end of chapter.
46. As an instance of what risks they will run I may mention that in November, 1886, on a post-mortem being made on a native who died under suspicious circumstances at Du Toit’s Pan a sixty carat rough diamond was found in his stomach.
47. I should not omit here to mention that this clique which arrogates to itself the name of the “Mercantile Community” is powerful enough to send their representatives not only to parliament, but to the town council.
48. Three of these cases have occurred in which conviction followed, and the offenders received sentences varying from five to ten years’ imprisonment.
49. I must here warn my readers against falling into the mistake of supposing that I attribute the depression of trade now existing to the absence of the enterprising and formerly ubiquitous illicit, many causes having conduced to bring about the present stagnation.
50. While I am given to understand that this female searcher acted with some brutality on this occasion, I have not the slightest doubt that such violence was quite unauthorized by the authorities.
51. Jail.
52. The celebrated street in Paris during the rage of Law’s Mississippi scheme.
53. The South African Exploration Company did this in the early part of this year, and recovered £696 and interest at the rate of 6 per cent, from the defendant.
54. A great change has again taken place. The Rose Innes has been incorporated with the Central, and the shares of the latter company in the spring of 1886 were selling at about £160, though nine or ten months previously they were down as low as £20, and no demand even at that.
55. The soundness of the investment of money in our Diamond Mining scrip under the diminished cost of working, owing to the extension of the railway, the increased care taken in the searching department, and consequently increased yield of diamonds, has been lately much taken advantage of by European capitalists, and at the present time I have never, for years, known the Fields in a more prosperous condition.
56. A favorite Boer expression when abandoning an expedition.
57. Lieut. Governor Southey in a long dispatch dated Kimberley, April 11th, 1874, in reply to a dispatch from Sir Henry Barkly of March 11th, the same year, and which was written after Langalibalele had attempted to escape from Natal, said in clause
“15. The alterations and changes made by the Cape government, and with which I am desired to co-operate, are made avowedly at the instance of the Natal government; and you have furnished me with an extract from one of that government’s communications upon the subject. I should have been glad to have been permitted to peruse the whole of the letter, as I have reason to believe that they attribute their late troubles, in a large degree, to the facility with which natives can obtain guns in this province, instead of, as in my opinion they should do, attributing them to their own mismanagement and mistaken policy.
“16. It is not true that (as the colonial secretary of Natal erroneously alleges) arms and ammunition at the diamond fields pass more readily from the diggers to the natives than specie; the natives receive their wages invariably in specie, they are paid weekly, and the usual rate of pay is ten shillings for the week. Those who obtain guns purchase them as a rule just before leaving for their homes, and only after producing the permits to purchase which the law requires. Comparatively speaking, but few Natal or Basuto natives come here; the great bulk of our native laborers come from the interior northward of the South African Republic, and considerably beyond the legitimate boundaries of that state, and their guns are not acquired for war purposes, but for purposes connected with legitimate and beneficial trade.
“17. I cannot concur in the opinion of the lieutenant governor of Natal that the acquisition of arms by the natives of the interior, who come here and work in the mines, is fraught with danger to the peace of South Africa, and I am unable to see why we should cherish a friendly feeling with the neighboring republics any more than with the various native tribes. I should consider it very undesirable to purchase the friendly feeling of those republics at the expense of injustice or oppression toward her Majesty’s own subjects or unfriendly acts toward the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. I may here state that the native tribes of the interior have ever evinced the greatest possible friendliness toward us, and English travelers, English traders and English missionaries have invariably been received and treated with all respect by them, while on the other hand the governments of the republics have on several occasions been charged with unfriendliness toward us, in official documents addressed to them by her Majesty’s representatives in South Africa. I believe we shall best exhibit our friendliness toward the republics by setting them an example of justice and toleration, and that we should act an unfriendly part if we pandered to their prejudices or supported them in oppressing the native population.”
58. I have even seen the rebels drilling in the market square with their rifles, at four in the afternoon, ordered to “Right about face,” “Present arms,” so that their rifles would point straight at the government offices.
59. I recollect at the time calling upon Mr. Froude, who was a guest at Government House.
60. Who at once ran away to escape the punishment he deserved.
61. As far as Major Lanyon was personally concerned, future events proved that it had not mattered to him whether the bill passed or not.
62. See chapter 25.
63. And, as my readers will have noticed, of the Griqualand West legislative council as well.
64. To Englishmen this act contained a curious clause. No person within the province could sell or barter to any native (except under certain provisos) any liquor of an intoxicating nature, and my readers can at once realize the difficulty of logically reconciling the anomaly of allowing a man a voice in the government of his country and precluding him from the right of purchasing a glass of beer.
65. An expression applied to Griqualand West by the Hon. I. X. Merriman, a Cape colonial politician.
66. Curiously enough the sixteen petitions, signed by 1,218 persons, presented to the Volksraad praying for this law were couched in precisely the same terms; they all complained of the same nuisance, and each alleged that on the same day the same decision had been arrived at in the different places from which the petitions came, although in many of these districts not a single coolie or Arab was living. This law, as the Volkstem (the principal newspaper in the Transvaal) says, is not only “ineffectual, but pernicious and condemnable.” See copy of law in appendix.
67. This is the motive generally attributed to the late Sir Pomeroy Colley in making the ascent of Majuba during the absence of Sir Evelyn Wood.
68. In Great Britain the coal measures have an extent only of 11,859 square miles, in France of 1,719, and in Spain of 3,408.
69. In July, 1886, the Kimberley papers gave publicity to a rumor that a ring had been formed by the proprietors of collieries in England, alarmed at the growth of the coal mining industry in Natal, to undersell for an indefinite period, and by these means strangle competition.
70. Majuba is 6,000 feet above the sea and 3,000 feet above Mount Prospect.
71. Our total losses at Majuba were 6 officers killed, 9 wounded and 6 prisoners; non-commissioned officers and men, 86 killed, 125 wounded, 53 prisoners.
72. The official reasons, or rather the official excuses, for the loss of the day, are a transparent gloss, intended to hide gross mismanagement on the one hand and a panic-stricken retreat on the other. They are the following, extracted from the Gazette: (1) The slopes below the brow of the plateau were too steep to be searched by our fire, and cover existed up to the brow; (2) the rocky ridge we occupied in second line, though the best we had time to hold, did not cover more than fifty yards to its front, as the plateau rolled continuously to the brow; (2a) the men were too exhausted to intrench, and hardly fit to fight; (3) when the Boers gained the last ridge ours had to descend almost impassable slopes, and many were shot in doing so.
73. Boer commandment at Bronker’s Spruit.
74. Sixty-six officers and men killed sixty seven wounded, and nine missing.
75. Mrs. Charles Garnett.—A Visit to the Leper Hospital of Bergen.—“Sunday Magazine,” May 1886.
76. In the last session of the Natal legislative council the vote for Langibalele’s support was reduced from £500 per annum to £50. He has now returned, but has only to thank the financial state of Natal for his “ticket of leave!”
77. See Appendix.
78. He showed that the “record” of the trial, which lasted four days, was simply an ex-parte statement of evidence taken from witnesses, called by the crown, examined by the crown prosecutor and cross-examined by nobody! Not a single witness was called for the defence, the prisoner having been kept in solitary confinement from the time of his arrival (Dec. 31st), and not allowed to speak to any one, white or black, who might try to find witnesses for him.
79. Native term for wiping out their enemies.
80. Warriors not being allowed to marry until they had drawn blood on the battlefield.
81. “John Dunn, Cetywayo and the Three Generals.” 1886. Natal Printing and Publishing Co. Pietermaritzburg, Natal.
82. Since writing the above England has decided to annex what remains of Zululand.
83. For petition see appendix.
84. At this time there was daily issued here and at Mafeting 3,930 full rations.
85. Since burnt by the rebels.
86. The petition, which was signed by Jonathan Molappo, Mokhethi Moshesh, Iladiyane Mosheshoe and 896 others, I brought away with me and presented to the Cape legislative assembly on March 21st, 1882. In the appendix will be found a copy of the petition itself.
87. The political resident at that period.
88. A few months previously the Sprigg ministry had been defeated, session of 1881.
89. Since the time I was in Basutoland Colonel Clark, who, during the Transvaal war, after Captain Falls’ death, surrendered the court-house at Potchefstroom, when it was set fire to by the Boers, has been appointed agent in Basutoland. This imperial appointment was made early in 1884 when the colonial government was relieved of its responsibility in that country by the home government.
Since Colonel Clark has been in Basutoland the amount paid in taxes has greatly increased, for whereas at first the receipts were at the rate of £450 a year only, they now, Masupha having agreed also to pay hut tax, exceed £5,000 per annum. But from the best authority I learn that Colonel Clark’s power, although he is personally liked by the Basutos, is merely nominal, and they would even now be too wide-awake to pay taxes, if they were not afraid of the confiscation, or in other words of the robbery, of their cattle by their chiefs, and if they did not fear the personal vengeance which would result on their resisting; they prefer, therefore, to buy the semblance of British authority at the rate of £1 a year per hut, rather than have their cattle stolen without any redress whatever.
90. The average Sunday attendance at St. Cyprian’s is now 500 at morning and 700 at evening service; the congregation having more than doubled within the last five years, though the population of Kimberley has certainly diminished. This fact must be subject of great gratification to the clergy of this church. The new church at Beaconsfield (Du Toit’s Pan), named All Saints, is a very handsome stone and brick structure, and the lately consecrated bishop laid the foundation stone of a new church (St. Alban’s) at De Beer’s, about the end of September 1883. There is also a small church (St. Augustine’s) situated at the west end of Kimberley, the present incumbent of which is the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Lyttleton.
91. A magnificent monument to the late Mr. Ornstein, subscribed to by members of all denominations on the Diamond Fields, was consecrated in October, 1886.
92. The South African native has no religion, worships no God, and his only idea of spiritual life is that his soul, when he dies, takes up its abode in a snake, and that the spirits of his ancestors have the power of working good or evil, or of causing sickness and death.
93. A fractured diamond.
94. This gentleman’s forte was Roman Dutch law. During his residence on the Diamond Fields he acquired the soubriquet of “Emphytensis” in consequence of his efforts to establish the practical identity of a certain Roman leasehold tenure of that name, and the quit-tenure of the Cape Colony, thus attempting to establish the rights of the Crown to all diamond and precious stones. His endeavors were, however, without avail, and he was laughed at for his pains.
95. A noted hostelry near the court-house.
96. This is exemplified in the names by which white people of any importance are known among them. For instance, a pompous friend of mine, now an important government official in Natal, was known by the natives as “Totovian” (Intotoviane) after a most offensively odoriferous grasshopper with which he waged incessant war. But the most biting example of native sarcasm, I think, consisted in the name applied by them to a florin (2s. piece) that of “Scotchman.” This conveyed, in one word, their appreciation of the Scotch cheese-paring tendency; as they were shrewd enough to observe, that in cases where an Englishman would give half a crown, his Highland neighbor would give only two shillings.
97. Shakespere.—Henry VI., Part ii., Act iv., Scene 2.
98. This class of scoundrel gave Christiana the fictitious appearance of a population, but this is more fully explained in the chapter on Diamond Legislation.
99. I.e., thirty-six miles, for so are distances reckoned in South Africa.
100. These I describe in the account of another journey to the Transvaal.
101. This beautiful building has since been completed.
102. Literally, a dram of liquor—meaning a trifle.
103. In pondering over the state of matters then existing it was impossible for me not to picture in my mind the change time had wrought! A few short years before, I had seen and listened to Thomas Francois Burgers, full of eager anticipation of the future before him, speak most hopefully of the Transvaal, at a banquet given in his honor at Kimberley, as he passed through to assume the “dictatorship” of that republic. And when, in touching upon some observation I had made in proposing the toast of “the press,” he had emphasized the fact that “the pen was mightier than the sword.” And now, his expectations unrealized, his fond hopes withered, his ambition blighted, broken-down in health and spirits, it was not to be wondered at that he made no strenuous opposition to the advent of British rule.
104. Sir Theophilus Shepstone arrived in Pretoria with his twenty-five policemen in January, 1877. He announced to President Burgers that unless he could make arrangements that would be satisfactory to the Imperial government with regard to the government of the Transvaal he was authorized to annex it as a portion of Her Majesty’s dominions. President Burgers called a special session of the Volksraad, and proposed a new constitution, but that did not meet with the approval of the British Commissioner, and on the 12th of April, 1877, as I have mentioned before, the country was proclaimed British territory, and Sir T. Shepstone assumed the administration of affairs. He continued to hold that position until the 18th of December, 1878, when he left for Zululand in consequence of the threatening aspect of native affairs there. The government was administered for a time by the senior military officer before the arrival of Colonel Lanyon. Sir T. Shepstone never returned.
105. Mr. Christian Maasdorp, now nominated to a seat on the Eastern District’s bench, but who then held the commission as Attorney General, resigned “when he found it impossible (vide Transvaal Advertiser, November 20th, 1885) to countenance the chicane and tyranny of the Lanyon administration.”
106. Sir Garnet Wolseley was assisted by an executive council consisting of Colonel Lanyon, administrator, Colonel Harrison, commanding H. M. troops, Mr. Melmoth Osborne, Colonial Secretary, Mr. C. G. Maasdorp, Attorney General, and Mr. H. C. Shepstone, Secretary for native affairs. There were also three non-official members, viz., Messrs. J. Marais, J. C. Holtshausen, and J. S. Joubert, who with the members of the government composed the Executive Council under the Constitution promulgated on November 8th, 1879. A legislative assembly was at the same time called into being by the Wolseley constitution, and the under-mentioned gentlemen were nominated: viz., Messrs. J. R. White, O. W. A. Forsman, J. A. Esterhuizen, A. H. Stander and J. H. Nel. The last session of the legislative assembly concluded very shortly before the war broke out, which put an end to the constitution and British authority at one fell swoop.
107. “To our homes.”
108. Convention of Pretoria, Article 23: If not released before the taking effect of this Convention, Sekukuni, and those of his followers who have been imprisoned with him, will be forthwith released, and the boundaries of his location will be defined by the Native Location Commission in the manner indicated in the last preceding article.
109. The first Sekukuni war broke out in October, 1876, the treaty of peace being signed February 5th, 1877. The second Sekukuni war, begun under the Shepstone administration in March, 1878, resulted in the complete destruction (under Sir G. Wolseley) of the tribe, and the capture of the chief, who was held a prisoner of war, as I have mentioned, until the convention of Pretoria was signed in August, 1881. The Mapoch (Niabel) and Mampoer war commenced near the end of 1882 and was about ten months in duration. Mapoch surrendered 12th of July, 1883, to General Joubert, who had conducted the operations against both chiefs.
110. The Government is wakening to this fact and is beginning to take active measures.
111. I regret to learn that this gentleman, who was much esteemed in Barberton, is recently dead.
112. One of the latest analyses gives Welsh coal 81.0 carbon, 6.40 ash; Transvaal 77.20 carbon, 7.20 ash.
113. The truth of my prognostications has, I am sorry to say, become to a certain extent verified even before my ink is dry.
114. In the appointment of a British Resident care will have to be exercised that no one interested in the gold speculations of the country be nominated.
115. The census returns of the entire population in 1864, twenty-three years ago, was 1098.
116. In the concession granted in 1873 to Moodie for a railway from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria, a grant also was made him of 850 farms of 6,000 acres each, in case he should be successful. Curiously enough these were the very farms on which the present Kaap gold fields are situated.
117. This was brought forward very prominently in the report of the select committee on Railway to Delagoa Bay, appointed by resolution of the House of Assembly, 5th of April, 1880, C. K. White, chairman.
118. Cape Brandy.
119. Chief detective officer at the South African Diamond Fields.