The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia, by Frederick Courteney Selous

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SUNSHINE AND STORM IN RHODESIA

Frontispiece
Maholi
An old servant of the author's who came in with his master and mistress from Essexvale, on the outbreak of the rebellion, and has been with them ever since.

SUNSHINE AND STORM
IN
RHODESIA

BEING
A NARRATIVE OF EVENTS IN MATABELELAND

BOTH BEFORE AND DURING THE RECENT NATIVE INSURRECTION
UP TO THE DATE OF THE DISBANDMENT OF
THE BULAWAYO FIELD FORCE

BY

FREDERICK COURTENEY SELOUS
GOLD MEDALLIST OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
AUTHOR OF 'TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE,' ETC.

WITH MAP AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
ROWLAND WARD & Co., Limited
166 PICCADILLY, W.
1896

To My Wife
WHO DURING THE LAST FEW MONTHS
HAS AT ONCE BEEN
MY GREATEST ANXIETY AND MY GREATEST COMFORT
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

PREFACE

It was during the early days of the recent insurrection that I first thought of utilising my spare time by writing some account of what was taking place around me, and these rough notes, written at odd moments during the campaign, I intended to have sent to the Field for publication in that journal, in the form of a series of articles dealing entirely with my own personal experiences. After the disbandment of the Bulawayo Field Force, however, and my own resignation as an officer in that corps, finding that I had leisure to do so, I determined to amplify these notes, and give some account of every skirmish which had taken place between the Colonists and the natives in Matabeleland up to the date of the disbandment of the above-mentioned Force. To this I add a short account of my personal experiences in the country during the months immediately preceding the outbreak of the insurrection, and finding that I had then sufficient material to fill the covers of a small book, I abandoned my original idea of getting what I had written published in weekly numbers, and determined for the third time to launch a book—always about Africa—on the long-suffering British public.

What I have written as it were historically regarding the events which have lately taken place in Matabeleland may, I think, be received as a simple and unadorned statement of fact, for where I have had to go outside my own personal experiences, my information has always been obtained at first hand and checked by the corroborating accounts of others who were also eye-witnesses of the events described. As to any conclusions I may have arrived at from given facts, they may be right or they may be wrong, but at any rate I claim the right to express my opinions frankly and fearlessly as long as they are my honest convictions. It may be said that, as I am a friend of Mr. Cecil Rhodes and of Dr. Jameson, I ought not to have expressed the opinion that it was the removal of the police force from Matabeleland to the Transvaal which gave the natives their opportunity to revolt, since the expression of such an opinion may be held to reflect upon the administration of the Chartered Company. My reply is, that I have written a history, which, to have any value, must be truthful, and that as Dr. Jameson cannot lay claim to infallibility, he was, like other mortals, liable to err. When he left Matabeleland he never dreamt that the removal of the police force would have any more effect upon the Matabele than the disbandment of the police in Mashunaland in 1891 had had upon the natives in that country. This opinion, moreover, must have been shared by the great majority of the inhabitants of Matabeleland, since no remonstrance was made by any public man at the time that the police left Bulawayo. We now know that the removal of the white police force was a mistake; but it is easy to criticise after the event, and as at the time the mistake was made no one in Rhodesia was wise or prescient enough to foresee the possible effect it might have on the natives of Matabeleland, it would be the height of meanness and injustice to hold Dr. Jameson morally responsible for the present insurrection.

Judging from the knowledge which we now possess of the secret history of the rebellion, it appears that the leaders of the movement must long ago have determined to revolt whenever a favourable opportunity occurred, and a rebellion would therefore in all probability have taken place sooner or later; so perhaps it is as well to have had it and got over it at the same time as the rinderpest. The latter plague will have far more lasting effects than the native rising; but when the railway from the south reaches Bulawayo, the country will once again be able to make a fair start, for with the greater knowledge now possessed by the authorities of the native character, the outcome of which will be a complete reorganisation of the native administration, no farther insurrection ought to be possible. For the rest, it is very evident that the Matabele broke out in rebellion because they disliked their position as a conquered people, and imagined that they were strong enough to throw off the yoke of their conquerors. But I fail to see that the fact that they have rebelled is any more an indictment against the general principles of the government of the Chartered Company, than were the numerous rebellions which have taken place from time to time in the Cape Colony an indictment against the wisdom and justice of the Imperial Government.

Now that the rebellion has occurred, it will very possibly be said that it was brought about by systematic brutality to the natives on the part of the white men in the country. Such an allegation, however, cannot be supported by facts, for, as the records of the magistrates' court will prove, the present Government has done all that any other civilised Government could have done to protect the natives from ill-treatment at the hands of irresponsible individuals; and as a native commissioner thoroughly conversant with the Matabele language, and well in touch with the people, was stationed in each of the districts into which the country has been divided, it cannot be urged that the natives had no opportunity of making their grievances known. Grievances of course they had, the chief of which, doubtless, was the loss of their independence as a nation, and the fact that they found themselves treated as a conquered people lately engaged in hostilities, who had only been permitted to return to the country from which they had been driven at the time of the first war under certain conditions, one of which was that the indunas should, through the medium of the native commissioners, supply miners and farmers with native labour—all the able-bodied young men in the country being required to work for a certain number of months per annum at a fixed rate of pay. This rate of pay was fixed at 10s. a month with food; but as a matter of fact mining work was almost always paid much more highly, as much as 30s. a month with food being often given for unskilled labour, whilst the managers of mines made it their business to see that the boys in their Company's employ were well treated, and cruel treatment by individuals was, I do not hesitate to say, the exception to the rule. Owing to the excessive indolence of the people, however, there can be no doubt that the labour regulations were most irksome to them. The indunas grew more and more disinclined to exert their authority in the matter of inducing their people to work when applications were made to them, with the result that native policemen were sent to their kraals to insist on the labour regulations being carried out, and these policemen, I fear, sometimes exceeded their duties, and used their position to tyrannise over the people.

I remember well that when Umlugulu [1] visited me for the first time, after I had taken up my residence on Essexvale, [2] he complained bitterly of the high-handed manner in which the "Ama Policey Minyama," the "Black Police," behaved to him and his people. "I have no complaints to make," he said, "against the white policemen; but the black police, wa duba, wa duba sebele—they give me trouble; they really give me trouble." I myself complained to the acting Administrator, Mr. Duncan, concerning the inconsiderate manner in which it appeared to me that the labour regulations were sometimes carried out, and I was led to believe that the whole question of native administration would shortly be gone into by the Government, and all grievances remedied.

The cattle question I have dealt with in the course of my story. It was never sagaciously handled, and its mismanagement probably caused more discontent against the Chartered Company's rule amongst the pure-blooded Matabele, or Abenzantsi, than anything else, whilst the irritation excited by the regulation exacting a certain amount of paid labour yearly from every able-bodied man produced a feeling of bitterness and discontent throughout the other classes of the community, which made them ripe for rebellion when they were called to arms by the leaders of the insurrection. However, although no impartial critic can deny that the confiscation of so large a number of their cattle, and more especially the manner in which that confiscation was carried out, was impolitic if not ungenerous; whilst the manner in which the labour regulations were enforced was sometimes calculated to provoke serious discontent; yet neither of these causes, nor both combined, would, in my opinion, have been sufficient to induce the mass of the population to break out in rebellion had there not been amongst them many men who, having once belonged to the ruling class in the country, were so dissatisfied at their loss of position and power under the white man's rule, that they had determined to regain their independence as a nation, or to attempt to do so, on the first favourable opportunity which offered. The rebellion was not the spontaneous act of the mass of the people goaded to desperation by an insupportable tyranny. It was a drama into which they were surprised, and in many cases dragged against their better judgment, by a few leading spirits, who planned and carried out the first murders and utilised the Makalaka Umlimo, [3] as a prophet.

To show that neither the cattle nor the labour questions were the only causes of the rebellion, I may mention that on Mr. Arthur Rhodes' block of farms on the Impembisi river, extending to some 50,000 acres, there was a considerable native population which had been altogether exempted from the general labour regulations—although required to supply Mr. Arthur Rhodes himself with any labour necessary on the farm for agricultural purposes; whilst there had been distributed amongst them 1600 head of cattle, which they held, in addition to their own, on exactly the same terms on which they had been formerly accustomed to tend cattle for Lo Bengula. Now here was a population living, one would have thought, in a state of the most absolute contentment—for they were receiving the full benefit of the milk from a far larger number of cattle than they had ever had to look after in Lo Bengula's time; had been allowed to build their kraals wherever they thought fit, make use of whatever land they desired for cultivation, and in fact to lead their own life in their own way undisturbed by any one, for the number of boys who came voluntarily to ask for employment was far in excess of what was required for agricultural work on the estate. And yet, when the rebellion broke out, these people to a man (always excepting Captain Fynn's Delagoa Bay boy) joined the insurgents, and not only burnt down Mr. Arthur Rhodes' homestead and swept off all his cattle, but murdered Mr. Edwards the surveyor, who happened to be working in the neighbourhood; against whom they could have had no personal animus, as he was a complete stranger to them. Then, again, if any one had heard the natives living in the villages close round my homestead on Essexvale singing and dancing as they were wont to do on every moonlight night, he could not have maintained that they appeared to be weighed down by a sense of injustice and oppression, or, in fact, that they were anything but joyous and happy. It is very difficult to understand the workings of a Kafir's mind, as any one must admit who has lived long amongst natives, but the fact that the Matabele broke out into rebellion against the Government of the Chartered Company, appears to me to be no proof of any special iniquity per se on the part of that Government, since history has shown us, that wherever a savage race, entirely unaccustomed to order and restraint, has been conquered by a highly civilised people, who have forthwith essayed to govern that savage race as humanely as possible, but after all in their own interests rather than in the interests of the conquered people, a rebellion against the more intelligent ruling class has been the result; for the ways of the civilised man are not the ways of the savage, who, there can be no doubt, would rather put up with all the ills from which we consider we have freed him, than be subject to the restraints of a settled form of Government. Practically, he says "hang your Pax Britanica"; give me the good old times of superstition and bloodshed; then, even if I did not know the day nor the hour when I might be "smelt out" as a witch, and forthwith knocked on the head, at any rate I could have basked in the sun until my time came; and then, too, when the "impi" went forth, what glorious times I had, and how I revelled in blood and loot!

As to any general charges of systematic injustice and cruelty towards the natives, which may and will now be made by the personal enemies of Mr. Rhodes, against the Chartered Company, with the object of providing a justification for the brutal murders of European women and children which have been committed during the present rebellion, I would point out that such charges come rather late in the day, for the natives of Matabeleland had lived for over two years in an apparently fairly contented condition under the Government of the Company before the rebellion broke out, and during the whole of that time there were four missionaries belonging to the London Missionary Society, besides some people called "seventh-day adventists"—whatever that may mean, for I have not the least idea myself—all of whom were working amongst, and avowedly for the benefit of, the natives. Now, if systematic cruelty, injustice, and oppression of the Matabele by the Government of the Chartered Company had been going on constantly for over two years, it must have been very well known to all these men, and it was their duty not only to have protested against such gross misgovernment to the Company's Administrator in Bulawayo, but also to have reported such abuses to their Directors in England. No such allegations, however, were ever made prior to the rebellion, and should any be now brought forward they ought to be received with the very gravest suspicion. The fact, too, remains that although individual acts of brutality have occurred in Matabeleland—as they have done in every other country in the world—during the last two years, and although mistakes have been made, especially in dealing with the cattle and labour questions, yet, on the whole, the conditions under which the natives in that territory were living, were such that no one resident in the country, whether missionary or miner, imagined before the rebellion broke out that there could be any deep-seated discontent amongst them. That the government of the natives has been all that was desirable from their point of view I do not say, as it is my opinion that, when a black man's country has been conquered by Europeans, the laws by which that country will be subsequently governed will be made in the interests of the whites, and some of them will be very unpalatable to the conquered race, however just and equitable they may seem to their rulers. We Europeans make the mistake of thinking that, when we free a tribe of savages from what we consider a most oppressive and tyrannical form of government, substituting in its place an orderly rule, under which every man's life and property is protected and witch-doctors are not recognised, we ought to earn their gratitude; but the fact is we invariably fail to do so, as the present insurrection, as well as all the many rebellions by the natives of the Cape Colony against the rule of the Imperial Government has shown. Yet, as in the Cape Colony, so also will it be in Matabeleland. The savages will discover the uselessness of rebelling against the white man, and as time goes on will become more reconciled to the ways of their conquerors; that is, if their grievances are inquired into and as far as possible remedied, as I have every hope and belief that they will be as soon as the present rebellion has come to an end; for not until mutual confidence has again been restored between the whites and the blacks can Rhodesia prosper. From the black man's point of view the white man is probably not necessary as a factor in the prosperity of the country. He could get along very well without him. Unfortunately we cannot manage without the black man; he is absolutely necessary for the development of the country on the white man's lines. But a sulky, rebellious black man, only held in subjection by fear, is both a useless and dangerous personality, and, therefore, the dictates of policy will be at one with the promptings of humanity, in demanding that the natives of Matabeleland shall be governed both kindly and justly as well as firmly.

One word more. In the following pages I have given descriptions of many barbarous deeds which have lately been committed in Matabeleland. I have hidden nothing, but have told the naked truth, and related not only how white men, women, and children were lately murdered, and their senseless bodies afterwards cruelly mutilated by black men, but also how, subsequently, black men were shot down pitilessly by the whites, no mercy being shown or quarter given them by the outraged colonists. By those who seek it, matter will doubtless be found in some of my stories on which to found imputations against the colonists of Rhodesia, who will be held up to execration for the "slaughter" of "poor natives"; the insinuation being that the "poor natives" were ruthlessly killed, with little or no provocation, in order to gratify the lust for blood, which certain people in England appear to think takes possession of their countrymen whenever they set foot on African soil. But by the great mass of the English-speaking race I feel sure that the conduct of their kith and kin in Matabeleland during the late rebellion will not be too harshly judged. It will be remembered that they were the avengers of the women and children of their own colour, who had but lately been so mercilessly slain, and that, fighting as they were against hordes of savages eager to spill the life-blood of every white man in Rhodesia, savages in whose vocabulary no such words as pity or mercy are to be found, nothing else could be expected than that in the hour of victory no quarter should be given to the murderous foe. It is as unfair as it is ridiculous to talk of the "slaughter" of natives who, having come with arms in their hands, not only to kill you, but your wife and child also, find they have reckoned without their host, and are themselves discomfited and shot down by their would-be victims. Now, possibly, there might be found in England a philanthropist so meek and good that, were he suddenly confronted by a burglar who told him plainly that he meant to kill him and walk into his house, he would reply, although he carried a loaded revolver in his hand, "Kill me and walk on, for it would be against my creed and conscience to sully my hands with the slaughter of so fine a specimen of the human race as yourself." I do not say that so noble a character really exists within the four seas of Britain, but if he does, I suppose he ought to be looked for amongst the ranks of those who have been loudest in their condemnation of the British settlers in Rhodesia, and who thereby arrogate to themselves the possession of a nobility of nature to which ordinary mortals cannot hope to attain. For the sake of example, therefore, let us say that such a man does exist, and that he is none other than the editor of Truth, Mr. Henry Labouchere. Well, granted then that Mr. Labouchere—the man whom, for the sake of example, I have endowed with such a noble nature—would be prompted to sacrifice his own life rather than sully his soul with the killing of a burglar, would he go yet farther and still spare the robber's life if he knew that, after he himself had been killed, his wife and child would also be put to death? I cannot believe that he would, but imagine rather that he would shoot as straight as possible to prevent such a catastrophe, and I for one would wish that in such a special case his practice might be better than his usual preaching.

Now the settlers in Rhodesia, on those occasions when they have been accused of slaughtering the natives, have only taken the same course as I think would have been adopted by the great-souled philanthropist, whom I hope I am not wronging by imagining that he would steel his heart to take the life of a burglar, if for no other reason than to save the lives of those dear to him; and therefore I would ask my readers not to judge too harshly of the deeds of the colonists which I have recounted in the following pages, but to remember, when judging of their actions, the terrible provocation which they had received. It may be that I have here and there shown a very strong racial feeling against the black man; but it must be remembered that my story has been written in the midst of all the horrors of a native rebellion, that I have seen many gruesome sights, and have with my own hands collected together the broken skulls of murdered women and children—Dutch and English—in order to give them Christian burial. Thus I have sometimes written under the influence of strong emotions, making too little allowance possibly for the black man smarting under what he perhaps had some reason to consider the arrogance and injustice of his white conquerors. However, my opinions after all are of little value, being those of a single individual; but I trust that whoever may take the trouble to read my narrative will accept my facts, and believe that the account I have written of events which have lately occurred in Matabeleland is a true and unvarnished one.

THE AUTHOR.

Bulawayo, 21st August 1896.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I

I return to Matabeleland—Game plentiful near the Sewhoi-whoi river—An adventure with a leopard—Bulawayo reached—Prosperous outlook—We leave for Essexvale—Cattle-confiscation question—Its final settlement.

When, in the end of December 1893, immediately after the close of the first Matabele War, I rode away from Bulawayo and set out on my journey to England, I thought it more than probable that I should never again revisit the land over which Lo Bengula had so lately held sway. Destiny, however, willed it otherwise. Perhaps I found that the definition of "enough" as "a little more than you've got," when applied to income, was a true one; or perhaps I thought the ways of civilisation somewhat irksome, and at times pined for "a breath of the veld" and one more look at the wild game in the wild country where I had already passed so many years of my life. At any rate, when I was asked by my old friend, Mr. Maurice Heany, to go out once more to Matabeleland to assist him in the management of a land and gold-mining company which he had recently floated, I gave the proposal my very serious consideration, and when I found that my wife was quite willing to face all the troubles and difficulties incidental to a life in a new country, I agreed to undertake the duties required of me for a period of two years.

We—my wife and I—left England for South Africa on 30th March 1895, but we did not reach Bulawayo until the end of the following August; as, after landing at Cape Town, we spent two months in the Cape Colony and the Orange Free State, and then taking ship round the coast to Beira, proceeded by river steamer to Fontesvilla, and thence by rail to Chimoio. Here my waggon was awaiting us, and in it we travelled slowly and comfortably for two months, keeping the main transport road—which I had myself laid out four years before—to Salisbury, but from there going across country to my old hunting camp on the Hanyani river; thence to Hartley Hills on the Umfuli, and from there along the old hunters' road to Bulawayo. On this portion of our route I found game very plentiful, especially sable antelopes, large herds of which beautiful animals I saw almost daily. Near the river Sewhoi-whoi I was able to take my wife quite close up to the largest herd of these antelopes that I have ever seen. As they cantered past us within a hundred yards I counted them roughly and made their number between seventy-five and eighty. Having plenty of meat at the waggon I had no need to shoot; so we just sat on our horses and admired them, though there was one cow with a beautiful curved pair of horns that tempted me sorely. On several occasions we saw the fresh spoor of lions, but we never either got a sight of the animals themselves or even heard one roar. At the Sebakwe river I saw the tracks of a herd of elephants that had passed only a few days before; and on this same day I met with rather a curious experience, which, although I am not writing an article on shooting incidents, I will take the liberty to relate.

Adventure with a Leopard.
"It was close to me before I could even swing my rifle over the horse's neck."

Early on the morning of the day in question I had left the waggon and ridden down to the river—the Sebakwe—intending to follow its course to the point at which the road crossed it. Having plenty of meat, I took no native attendants with me, and resolved not to shoot at anything but a small antelope, a wild pig, or some animal the greater part of which I could have carried behind my saddle. However, I saw no game at all, large or small, with the exception of one reed buck ram bounding through the long grass, and was approaching the ford across the river without having fired a shot, when I noticed what I took to be a jackal sitting on its haunches in the grass about a hundred and fifty yards to my right. The grass being rather long I could not make out very well what it was even from my horse's back, and when I had dismounted I could barely see that there was anything there at all. However, aiming rather low in the grass, I fired, and distinctly heard the bullet strike something with a loud thud. Remounting my horse, and marking by a small bush the spot near which the now invisible animal had been before I fired, I rode leisurely up to see what I had shot. I was carrying my rifle across the saddle in front of me, without having reloaded it, and on nearing the bush I had marked pulled up my horse and was looking about for a jackal lying dead on the ground. However I could not see one, and was wondering how such a small animal could have moved away after being hit by an expanding bullet, when a loud grunting noise made me look up, and I saw a leopard rushing towards me through the grass. As it only charged from a distance of fifteen yards, it was close to me before I could even swing my rifle over the horse's neck, and I made sure that it would spring upon him and bite and claw him badly before I could load and shoot. However, strange to say, it simply galloped past, almost, if not quite, brushing against my horse's fore-leg, and passing beneath my right stirrup. After going about thirty yards it stopped and sat down on its haunches. By this time I had another cartridge in my rifle; so I hastily dismounted and gave the leopard a shot behind the shoulder, killing it instantly. It proved to be a large female in good condition, with a beautifully-marked skin. The first bullet had struck it in the middle of the body, and going right through, had made a large hole on the further side, out of which a portion of the liver was protruding. This was of course sufficient to account for the animal's display of bad temper; but why it simply rushed past me without springing on to the horse, I don't quite know. Had my horse turned, possibly it would have done so; but being an animal of a very imperturbable temper he never moved, and his immobility may have disconcerted the leopard, and caused it not to act quite up to its original intention. After disembowelling it, I lifted it on to my horse, and carried it behind the saddle to the ford across the Sebakwe, where I found my waggon outspanned. This very mild adventure is the only incident of interest which I have to record as having occurred on our journey to Bulawayo, which we finally reached on 20th August.

When just twenty months previously I had left Matabeleland, there was no other Bulawayo save a ruined kraal, but lately wrecked and destroyed by the order of the unhappy Lo Bengula, who in despair at the defeat of his bravest regiments, had blown up his European house, burnt his chief town to ashes, and abandoning the land won by his father's assegais to the victorious troopers of the Chartered Company, fled away to die heart-broken in the forests to the north. Just across the stream which runs below the kraal stood the camp of the white invaders, a rough, hardy lot of men, whom some have called heroes and others filibusters; a confusion of titles equally applicable, I fancy, to the followers of Drake or Clive or any other body of men who have helped to make the British Empire what it is. The site of the new township had indeed been marked out, but not a house of any kind stood upon it. In the short interval, however, a European town had sprung up, containing many good, substantial buildings, whilst the bustle and movement in the dusty streets gave an air of life and vigour to the new Bulawayo, which is very commonly absent from the frontier towns of South Africa. In short, at this time—the autumn of 1895—everything was apparently couleur de rose in Matabeleland. Properties, whether farm lands, building sites in town, or mining claims, went up to very high values, whilst almost every one believed that within a year Bulawayo would contain a population of 5000 souls, and that the town itself would receive a plentiful supply of water from the reservoirs already in course of construction, and be lighted by the electric light. In fact, all was mirth and joy and hope in the future; for what was to hinder the ever-increasing prosperity of the country? Much good work had already been done on many of the reefs, and on the whole the promise was distinctly good. Then again, after a probation of eighteen months, the country had been pronounced favourably upon by Dutch and Colonial farmers, especially for cattle-ranching, whilst many predicted that much of the high veld would carry sheep.

Apparently no difficulties with the natives were to be apprehended, and certainly were not foreseen, as no one could have recognised the identity in the quiet submissive native carrying nothing but a stick, to the arrogant savage of old times who was seldom seen without his shield and assegais, and who was usually insolent and brutal in his manner to the white man. No one dreamt that within a very few months the country would be well-nigh overwhelmed in calamity; that that terrible scourge the rinderpest, which has swept like a destroying angel from Masailand through Central and Eastern Africa, almost annihilating in its course all bovine animals as well as all the various and beautiful species of antelopes, was creeping ever nearer to the Zambesi river, and was destined ere long to cross that boundary, and travelling ever southwards destroy tens of thousands of cattle in Matabeleland, thereby paralysing its transport service, and rendering the cost of living almost prohibitive in a country separated by 600 miles of wilderness from the nearest railway station. Still less, looking at the submissive behaviour of the natives, did any one picture to himself in the furthest recesses of his mind, the vision of homesteads burned to ashes throughout Matabeleland, and around them the corpses of their owners, among them many women and tender children, all brutally murdered, lying unburied in their blood. Yet were these dire disasters, with partial drought and plague of locusts superadded, soon to crush all joy out of Matabeleland.

In spite of its air of prosperity and the light-heartedness of its inhabitants, Bulawayo with its constant dust-storms, scarcity of water, and general burnt-up appearance, had but few attractions either for my wife or myself, and we made our arrangements to get away to our Company's property of Essexvale as soon as possible. On this property a rough two-roomed house of poles, plastered with mud and thatched with grass, had been got ready for us temporarily, pending the arrival of a wire-wove bungalow that had been sent out from England in sections, and which was to be erected on a site chosen by myself. On our way to Essexvale we spent a night with my old friends the missionaries at Hope Fountain, and I had a long talk over old times, and the present condition of the natives in Matabeleland. Mr. Helm told me that although doubtless the members of the royal family, and the men of position under the old regime, regretted the downfall of their king and the conquest of the country by the white man, yet the great mass of the people acknowledged that they were better off under the rule of the Chartered Company than they had been in Lo Bengula's time; for although individual white men were sometimes guilty of injustice and brutality towards individual natives, yet, speaking generally, the lives and property of the latter were now secure, and whatever they earned was their own, all of which blessings were unknown to them before the conquest of Matabeleland by the white man.

There was, however, one matter, Mr. Helm informed me, that was causing a great deal of discontent throughout the country. This was the periodical taking away of the cattle in small numbers by the Chartered Company, subsequent to the first confiscation immediately after the war. Probably if, after the subjugation of the country, the Chartered Company had at once taken all the cattle they ever intended to take, and given the natives the balance for their very own to do with as they liked, there never would have been any heart-burning over the cattle question at all. However, after the first confiscation, all the remaining cattle in the country—about 90,000—were branded with the Company's brand and left with the natives to look after. They were told that the Company would take more from time to time as they required them, but at the same time they were given to understand that only cattle which had belonged to the king would be confiscated, and none belonging to private owners interfered with. This promise was made under the belief that nearly all the cattle in Matabeleland had belonged to the king, and that the private owners had been but few in number. That this was a mistake I think there can be little doubt, as almost every man of any standing in Matabeleland had been a cattle-owner, some of the chief Indunas possessing large herds of private cattle. But when a native commissioner received an order from the Government to send to Bulawayo without delay a certain number of cattle from his district, he never could have done so had he listened to all the claims made to private ownership previous to the war, some of which were true, but others false; and he therefore had to use his own discretion in selecting the cattle necessary to make up the total required. In this way certain natives suffered wrong, more especially owners of perhaps only three or four cows, who in some cases lost their all, both in cattle and faith in the honesty and justice of the Government of the Chartered Company, which they deemed had broken the promise given to them, as indeed was the case, though the mistake was made inadvertently and through not considering the investigation of the whole question of sufficient importance to take any great trouble about.

"If," said Mr. Helm, "the Company would take, once for all, all the cattle they intend taking, and give the natives the remainder, it would restore their confidence, as they now believe that the cattle will be constantly taken away from them in small lots until there are none left to them. However," he continued, "the Company can do what it likes with them, and treat them generously or otherwise as it pleases, for they acknowledge themselves to be a conquered people, and will submit to any terms imposed upon them." This remark was made by a man who had lived in close intimacy with the natives of Matabeleland for twenty years, but as subsequent events show, it was far from the truth. Shortly after this conversation, the Government of the Chartered Company, acting on the advice I believe of the chief native commissioner, Mr. Herbert Taylor, decided to finally settle the cattle question. There were at this time about 70,000 head of cattle in the hands of the natives, and of this number the Government determined to take two-fifths, leaving the remaining three-fifths as the absolute property of the Matabele. A meeting was called at Bulawayo, at which all the chief Indunas in the country were present, and when the proposition was laid before them, they expressed themselves as thoroughly satisfied, and assured Mr. Taylor that their people would also be satisfied; and from my own subsequent observation, I believe that this final distribution of the cattle caused a general feeling of relief throughout the country, and, in the district in which I was living at any rate, the people seemed well contented with this settlement of the question, which left them for the most part fairly well off.

CHAPTER II

Our life at Essexvale—Tree-planting and farming—Friendly disposition of the natives—Umlugulu visits us—His anxiety to know the truth about Jameson's surrender—Rumours of coming disaster—The Umlimo's prophecy—Appearance of the rinderpest in Matabeleland—Mr. Jackson's distrust of the native police—Superstitions regarding the Umlimo—I am appointed cattle inspector—Spread of the rinderpest—Apprehensions of famine—Rumours of a disturbance with the natives—Murder of a native policeman by the Matabele.

Of our life on Essexvale I have but little of interest to relate. In September and October the weather became intensely hot, but our well-thatched house we found to be much cooler than any building in Bulawayo, to which seat of light and learning we paid but occasional visits. Our wire-wove house did not arrive in Matabeleland until late in November, just as the rainy season was setting in, and it was not until towards the end of the year that it was put together and stood ready to receive us, on the site I had chosen for it. This was a very picturesque position on the top of a cliff about eighty feet above the Ingnaima river. Here we lived happily and contentedly for three months, and were apparently on the most friendly terms with all the natives living near us. Our Company bought about 1200 head of cattle, and these I distributed amongst the natives living on Essexvale—an estate of nearly 200,000 acres—to herd for us in lots of from ten to thirty in number, which they were very glad to do for the sake of the milk. To all the headmen living immediately round the homestead I gave a larger proportion of milk cows, on the condition that they brought me daily half the milk.

The Author's Homestead on Essexvale, Matabeleland.
Destroyed by the natives in April 1896.

I was assisted in the management of the estate by a young German, Herr Blöcker, who had taken his diplomas in a German School of Forestry, as it was part of our Company's scheme to start a plantation of gum trees, the timber of which is valuable for mining purposes. We therefore cleared and ploughed up about forty acres of land, and planted out over 5000 trees raised from seed on a strip of eight acres near the house. The rest of the ploughed land we sowed with maize, reserving about an acre near the river for a vegetable garden. The ground round the house my wife laid out in flower-beds, and I had also beds prepared for the planting of orange and other fruit trees, which I had ordered from the Cape Colony; whilst several banana and grenadilla plants, which had been given us by the Rev. Mr. Helm, were already growing well. Altogether, in spite of the most unseasonable drought which prevailed during January, February, and March, our homestead commenced to look quite pretty, and another year's work would have made a nice place of it; whilst the view from our front door up the river, with our cattle and horses grazing on the banks, and ducks and geese swimming in the pools or sunning themselves on the sand, was always singularly homelike.

As I have said above, up to the day of the native insurrection, which broke out towards the end of March, all the natives on Essexvale appeared to be on the most friendly terms with us, and were always most civil and polite to my wife, who had grown to like them very much. We had done them many good turns, and I believe they liked us as individuals. Umlugulu, a relation of Lo Bengula's, and one of the principal men in that king's time, as well as a high priest of the ceremonies at the annual religious dance of the Inxwala, was living about fifteen miles away, and often came to see us. He was a very gentle-mannered savage, and always most courteous and polite in his bearing, and by us he was always treated with the consideration due to one who had held a high position and been a man of importance in Lo Bengula's time. It is now supposed, and I think with justice, that this man was one of the chief instigators of the rebellion; but if this is so, I have strong reasons for believing that he only finally made up his mind that the time had come for the attempt to be made to drive the white men out of the country when he learnt that the whole of the police force of Matabeleland, together with the artillery, munitions of war, etc., which had been taken down to the Transvaal by Dr. Jameson, had been captured by the Boers. My reason for thinking so is, that before he heard this news he asked me several times to take some unbranded cattle from him, and have them herded amongst my own, or bought from him at my own price. This request I could not grant, but advised him to go and tell Dr. Jameson the story he had told me, as to how these cattle came to be in his possession without the Company's brand on them. After he heard the news of Dr. Jameson's surrender, Umlugulu never said anything more about these cattle, but he often came to see me, and always questioned me very closely as to what had actually happened in the Transvaal. Although at that time I had no idea as to the lines on which I now think his mind was working, I gave him little or no information, the more so that I could see he was very anxious to get at the truth.

Towards the end of February, Mr. Jackson, the native commissioner in my district, who was living with a sub-inspector and a force of native police at a spot on one of the roads through Essexvale about twelve miles distant from our house, informed me that rumours of coming disaster to the white man, purporting to emanate from the "Umlimo" or god of the Makalakas, who dwells in a cave of the Matopo Hills, were being spread abroad amongst the people of Matabeleland. Shortly before this there had been a total eclipse of the moon. This the Umlimo told the natives meant that white man's blood was about to be spilt. Further than this, they were informed that Lo Bengula was not dead, but was now on his way back to Matabeleland with a large army from the north, whilst two other armies were coming to help him against the white man from the west and east. "Watch the coming moon," said the Umlimo, "and be ready." He also claimed to have sent the rinderpest, which had just reached the cattle in the north of Matabeleland—though of what advantage that scourge was to the natives I don't quite see—and promised that he would soon afflict the white men themselves with some equally terrible disease.

Now, although these rumours of a native rising were current in Matabeleland some time before the insurrection actually broke out, and were reported to the then acting chief native commissioner, Mr. Thomas, and to the heads of the Government, I do not think that they would have been warranted in taking any steps of a suppressive nature at this juncture; for there was absolutely nothing tangible to go upon, nor could any commission of inquiry have come to any other conclusion than that the natives had no intention of rebelling; for they were as quiet and submissive in their demeanour towards Europeans as they ever had been since the war, and there was absolutely no evidence of any secret arming amongst them; and the fact remains that, with one exception, all those Europeans in Matabeleland who had had a long experience of natives—that is, the native commissioners, missionaries, and a few old traders and hunters, amongst whom I must include myself—were unanimous in the opinion that no rebellion on the part of the Matabele was to be apprehended. I say there was one exception, as I have been told that Mr. Usher, an old trader long resident in Matabeleland, and who since the first war has been living altogether amongst the natives, has always maintained that the Matabele would one day rise against the white man.

For myself, I had many conversations with Mr. Jackson on the subject, and we came to the conclusion, after talking with several intelligent natives regarding the rumours going about, that the Matabele were not likely to rebel until Lo Bengula appeared with his army. "However," said Mr. Jackson one evening, "it is very difficult to worm a secret out of a native, and if there should be an insurrection those are the devils we have to fear," pointing to his squad of native Matabele policemen, sitting about round their huts all armed with repeating Winchester rifles. At that time no one would have imagined that these native policemen—all fine, active-looking young fellows, and very smart at their drill—would have been likely to mutiny, since they were not only very well disciplined but most civil and obedient to their white officers; whilst, on the other hand, they were constantly at loggerheads with their compatriots, whom they had to bring to book for any transgression of the Chartered Company's laws, and more particularly for evasion of the regulations exacting a certain amount of labour annually at a fixed rate of pay from every able-bodied young man. However, as subsequent events have shown, Mr. Jackson was right in his prognostication, for when the rebellion did break out, about half the native police at once turned their rifles against their employers. The remainder were true to their salt, but had to be disarmed as a precautionary measure.

I will now before going further say a word concerning the "Umlimo" or god of the Makalakas, who has apparently played such an important part in the present rebellion, but who, I think, has in reality only been the instrument employed by the actual leaders of the insurrection to work upon the superstitions of the people, and mould them to their will. To the best of my belief, there exists amongst the Makalakas, as amongst all the tribes of allied race throughout South-Eastern Africa, an hereditary priesthood, confined to one family, though from time to time certain other young men are adopted by the high priest and initiated into the mysteries of his profession. These men in common with the actual sons of the high priest are known henceforth as children of the god. The head of the family lives in the Matopo Hills, and is known as the Umlimo, but as far as one can understand from the rather conflicting statements made concerning him by the natives, he is not actually the Umlimo, but a being possessed of all the ordinary attributes of man,—in fact a human being, with a spiritual nature superadded which enables him to commune with the unseen Deity that pervades space, and communicate the wishes or commands of the invisible spirit to the people. The temple of the Umlimo is a cave in the Matopo Hills, whither the people repair to consult him; and I believe that the voice which is heard in answer to their questions from the depths of the cave is supposed to emanate not from the human Umlimo or priest, but to be the actual utterance of the invisible god. The human Umlimo is kept wonderfully well posted up concerning everything that happens in Matabeleland, probably by the various members of his family, who live in different parts of the country, and who often visit him. He is thus often enabled to make very shrewd answers to the questions asked him, and to show himself conversant with matters which his interlocutors thought were known only to themselves; and in this way he has gained a great ascendency over the minds of the people.

If one asks who the Umlimo is, the answer is that he is a spirit or supernatural being of infinite wisdom, known to man only as a voice speaking from the depths of a cave. He is said to be able to speak all languages, as well as to be possessed of the faculty of roaring like a lion, crowing like a cock, barking like a dog, etc. On the other hand, the human Umlimo accepts or rather demands presents from those who visit his cave for the purpose of consulting the Deity, and possesses not only cattle, sheep, and goats, but also a large number of wives. The great mass of the Matabele people seem to me to have very vague ideas concerning the Umlimo; and sometimes I think that besides the priest in the Matopos through whom the voice of God is supposed to be heard, there are other priests, [4] or so-called Umlimos, in other parts of the country through whom they believe that the commands of the Almighty can be conveyed to them. At any rate, both prior to and during the present rebellion, utterances purporting to emanate from the "Umlimo" have been implicitly believed in, and the commands attributed to him obeyed with a blind fanaticism, that one would not have looked for in a people who always seem to be extremely matter of fact and practical in everyday life. It may seem strange that this "Umlimo," or god of the despised Makalakas, should be accepted as an oracle by the Matabele, but I know that Lo Bengula professed a strong belief in his magical powers, and from time to time consulted him. I believe, however, that the Umlimo was made use of for the purposes of the present rebellion by Umlugulu, and other members of the late king's family.

These men were naturally not content with their position under the white man's rule, and as ever since the war they had probably been rebels at heart, they only wanted an opportunity to call the people to arms. This opportunity they thought had come when they heard that the entire police force of Matabeleland, together with most of the big guns and munitions of war up till then stored in Bulawayo, had been captured by the Boers. For to them the police represented the fighting or military element amongst the white men, and they more or less despised all other classes, whom they usually saw going about altogether unarmed and defenceless. When the police were gone, therefore, they at once probably set about stirring up a rebellion, and got the Umlimo to play their game and work upon the superstitions of the people. This at any rate is my own opinion of the origin of the insurrection.

About the middle of March I was appointed cattle inspector for the district between the Umzingwani and Insiza rivers, and had to do a lot of riding about in my endeavours to assist the Government to arrest the spread of the rinderpest. However, one might as well have tried to stop a rising tide on the sea-shore, as prevent this dreadful disease from travelling steadily down the main roads, leaving nothing but rotting carcasses and ruined men behind it. Therefore, while still strictly prohibiting all movement of cattle from infected districts to parts of the country yet free from the terrible scourge, the Government declared the main roads open for traffic on Tuesday, 24th March, in order that as many waggon-loads of provisions as possible might be brought into Bulawayo, whilst any oxen were still left alive to pull them; for at this time the only calamities apprehended in Matabeleland were famine, and the complete dislocation of transport throughout the country owing to the terrible mortality amongst the cattle from rinderpest. These dangers indeed seemed so pressing that the Government was called upon by a deputation from the Chamber of Commerce to at once purchase 2000 mules, to be used for the importation of food-stuffs into Bulawayo, and their distribution from that centre to the various mining districts.

On Sunday, 22nd March, I reached Bulawayo late in the evening, after a very long day's ride inspecting cattle, and I then heard rumours of a disturbance having taken place between some of Mr. Jackson's native police and the inhabitants of a Matabele kraal near the north-western boundary of our Company's property of Essexvale. On the following day I got a fresh horse and rode twenty-five miles down the Tuli road to Dawson's store on the Umzingwani river—the limit of my beat in this direction—issuing passes to all the waggons I met with to proceed on their way up or down the road on the following morning. Arrived at the store, I there met my friend Mr. Jackson, the native commissioner, and Mr. Cooke, and learned from them that a native policeman had been murdered by the Matabele on the previous Friday night, and that the murderers had fled into the Matopo Hills, taking all their women and children as well as their cattle with them. My friends were only waiting for a detachment of native police, under two white inspectors, to follow up the murderers and endeavour to bring them to justice.

By permission of the Proprietors of "Black and White."
An Ant-heap in Matabeleland.

CHAPTER III

First overt act of rebellion—Natives borrow axes from Mrs. Selous—Where are the white police?—Native woman gives information of the murder of whites—Natives run off with the cattle—Murder of three miners—Inscrutability of the Kafir mind—Matabele raid on cattle.

Now this murder of a native policeman on the night of Friday, 20th March, was the first overt act of rebellion on the part of the Matabele against the Government of the British South Africa Company, and I will therefore relate exactly what occurred. On the evening of the aforementioned day, eight native policemen, acting on instructions of Mr. Jackson, arrived at the town of Umgorshlwini, situated in the hills near the Umzingwani river. Being accompanied by several boys carrying their blankets, etc., they formed quite a little party, and so camped outside the native town. They were sitting talking over their fires after the evening meal, when a number of Matabele came up, and ranging themselves in a line in front of them, commenced to dance. These men all carried knob-kerries, and were led by a man named Umzobo, [5] who had held a post of importance at Bulawayo in Lo Bengula's time. The so-called dancing of all Kafirs of Zulu race is not dancing in the European sense, but consists for the most part in stamping on the ground, swaying the body and gesticulating with sticks. The stamping is usually accompanied by a chant, the words of which are often improvised for the occasion, and the effect of the whole dance is decidedly stimulating, as I have often watched a stolid, stupid-looking Kafir work himself up to a state of high excitability by this means. On the present occasion Umzobo and his men very soon showed that they had come to dance before the representatives of the law with a purpose, that purpose being to pick a quarrel with them. They soon commenced to "jia," or point with their sticks; then one of them ran out of the line, and coming close up to the police, stooped forward, and drawing his left hand rapidly backwards and forwards across his throat, said: "You are killing us, you are killing us; why don't you cut our throats, and make an end of it?" Then another ran out, and repeating the formula, "you are killing us," pressed his finger on his temple, and said: "Why don't you shoot us? why don't you put the bullet in just here?" The expression, "you're killing us," so frequently used by Umzobo's men, meant "you're making life unpleasant to us by enforcing the Company's laws."

When these hostile demonstrations had gone on for some time, the sergeant in charge of the police told Umzobo that he had better take his men away, and tell them to go to sleep, as nobody wanted to fight with them; but his words were without effect, and the dancing was still going on, when one of the policemen saw a man creeping stealthily towards them round the back of the cattle kraal. At once suspecting mischief, he jumped up, and calling to his comrades "Look out, we're amongst enemies," rushed upon the crouching figure that at once stood up and revealed a Kafir armed with an assegai. Before he could make use of his weapon, however, the policeman caught him by the wrist, whilst another guardian of the law who had followed close behind seized his other arm. They at once disarmed the man, and were putting the handcuffs on him, when a shot was fired out of the cattle kraal, aimed of course at the police, but so badly aimed that instead of hitting one of them, it struck their prisoner in the back, killing him almost instantly. Indeed, he fell dead with the handcuff on one wrist. Immediately the shot was fired some of the police rushed into the kraal and almost succeeded in capturing the man who had fired, so nearly in fact that he dropped his rifle in his hurry to escape.

Umzobo and his men had now disappeared, and the police having collected together, were standing in the light of their camp fires uncertain what to do, when a volley was fired amongst them from the bush outside the kraal. None of the police were hit, but one of their blanket-carriers was shot through the head and killed on the spot. Not knowing the number of their unseen enemies, the representatives of the law then thought it advisable to beat a retreat. They reached Mr. Jackson's camp at 1 A.M. on Saturday, handing him the captured rifle, and reporting the loss of two of their boys; for besides the one whom they knew to be dead, another small boy some ten or twelve years of age was missing. This boy Mr. Jackson found lying dead half under the kraal fence, when he visited Umgorshlwini with all the police he could muster on the morning after the disturbance. The town was then deserted, and Mr. Jackson thinks that this small boy must have been discovered trying to hide under the fence after the police had left. He had been murdered in a most brutal way, his skull having been smashed to atoms with knob-kerries.

But the murder of these two police boys and the accidental killing of one of Umzobo's men was not the only deed of blood which occurred on this Friday night. Amongst Umzobo's men was one Ganyana. After the retreat of the police this man went alone to the kraal of a nephew of Lo Bengula—Umfondisi, the son of Lo Magazi—and waking him up, told him what had happened. According to the report of a stranger who was sleeping in Umfondisi's kraal that night, Ganyana was very much excited and called out, "Come, Umfondisi; why are you sleeping? don't you know we're fighting? we've killed some policemen, come; blood is running and men are lying dead; come with me and let us do some more killing." Umfondisi was nothing loth, and arming himself with an assegai went off with Ganyana to a neighbouring kraal, the headman of which they at once awakened in order to tell him the news. At this kraal there happened to be one of Mr. Jackson's native policemen. He was asleep in a hut when Ganyana and Umfondisi arrived, but the loud and excited conversation that was being carried on awoke him, and he got up and came out of the hut, asking as he did so what all the noise was about. "Who are you?" said Ganyana. "I am so and so, one of Mr. Jackson's policemen," was the answer. "What!" responded Ganyana; "do you tell me that you are one of the witches who are always troubling us?" and running up to him he shot him, and as he fell down mortally wounded, Umfondisi, the king's nephew, plunged his assegai into him.

When on Monday evening, 23rd March, I heard from Mr. Jackson what had happened on the previous Friday night, I imagined that the disturbance was merely the outcome of local discontent, and little thought that this attack on native policemen was but the prelude to the most terrible massacre of Europeans that has ever yet taken place in a native rising in South Africa; and more than this, that even whilst I listened to the story, white men, women, and children lay freshly murdered not many miles away. On the following morning, Tuesday, 24th March, I rode through the hills to my own place, passing Umgorshlwini on the way. Riding round the kraal I found bloodstains where the three men had been killed, but the bodies had been taken away and buried by the order of Mr. Jackson. The kraal itself, together with many smaller ones in its vicinity, was absolutely deserted, and a splendid crop of corn left standing in the valley below.

Having been absent since the previous Sunday morning, I was still all unsuspicious of danger, but knowing now all that actually happened during that time within a short distance of my house, I shudder to think of what might have occurred there during my absence; for my wife had been quite alone in the house with two little native girls; Mr. Blöcker, my German assistant, and a young Scotchman, Mr. Notman, occupying huts some distance away.

I reached home about mid-day, and found everything going on as usual. My wife told me that during the morning several men—all of whom I knew well—had come over to see her from the chief village of the district—Intuntini—which had been a big military kraal before the war. These men were all true-blooded Matabele, and several of them were in charge of cattle belonging to my Company. They all wished to borrow axes from her, to be used for the purpose of strengthening their cattle kraals, they said, but I know now that they wanted them as weapons of offence, as many of the murders were committed with axes. As we were accustomed to assist the natives in any small matter of this kind, she let them have all the axes that could be spared, and allowed them to sharpen them on the grindstone. About sundown some of these same men brought the usual evening's milk, and my wife and I chatted with them for some time. We spoke about the recent murders on the Umzingwani, and the conduct of Umzobo and Umfondisi, and my wife asked me to say that she thought they had acted very foolishly, as the white men would punish them. At this they laughed, and one of them said significantly, "How can the white men punish them? where are the white police? there are none left in the country."

Soon after these men had left us, George, a colonial Kafir in my employ, came and said he wished to speak to me, and on my going aside with him informed me that his wife—a Matabele woman—had just heard from another native woman that white men had been murdered on the previous day by the Matabele, on the further side of the Malungwani range, amongst them a native commissioner, who, it was said, had had his throat cut by his own black police. On hearing this disagreeable news, which I did not doubt was substantially true, I began to think that we were going to have a native rising after all. However, I did not consider that we were in any danger, except from natives coming from a distance, as I could not believe that any of the people living close round us would be keen to murder either my wife or myself or any one living with us, as we had benefited them in many ways, and had certainly never given them any cause to dislike our presence amongst them. I, of course, said nothing to my wife as to what I had heard, but I told Mr. Blöcker and the young Scotchman to keep their rifles handy in case of accidents. I had, too, some very good watch-dogs that I knew would give me warning if any Kafirs came near the house, and I kept awake all night with my rifle and a belt full of cartridges alongside of me. But the night passed off quite quietly.

Why no attempt was made to murder us on that Tuesday night will always remain a mystery to me. I should like to think that because we had always treated them kindly and considerately, our immediate neighbours shrank from killing us; but after all that has happened I find it very difficult to believe this. They may have come with the intention of killing us on the Tuesday morning, but finding me absent, and Mr. Blöcker with a rifle in his hands—for when they arrived at the homestead he was just going off to shoot a cow whose hip had been dislocated in branding—may not have thought the opportunity a good one. My wife noticed that they seemed very excited, and they also seemed very anxious to know when I would return.

All things considered, I am afraid we owe them little, as if they did not attempt to murder us they at any rate gave us no warning, and went off on the Tuesday night with all the cattle I had entrusted to their care, and in all likelihood assisted in the murder of Messrs. Foster, Eagleson, and Anderson, all three of whom were carrying on mining work on Essexvale; Foster's camp being within four miles of my home.

The events of the last three months have taught me at least this, that it is impossible for a European to understand the workings of a native's mind; and, speaking personally, after having spent over twenty years of my life amongst the Kafirs, I now see that I know nothing about them, and recognise that I am quite incompetent to express an opinion as to the line of conduct they would be likely to adopt under any given circumstances.

On the following morning I got up early, and after seeing the Kafirs make a start on the work on which I was then engaged—which was the preparation of a piece of ground round the house for a plantation of fruit trees—I went up to George's hut and told him to try and get some farther particulars, through his wife, as to the murders said to have been committed on the previous Monday. Then I strolled back to the house and worked at one thing and another till breakfast time, and was just going indoors to sit down to that meal, when I saw George running down from his hut to our house, followed by a Kafir boy. As he came near he shouted out to the horse-herd who was standing by the stable, "Bring the horses, bring the horses; make haste!"

I knew then there was something wrong, and half thought that an attack was imminent, and having my wife's safety to provide for, was much relieved when George told me that no pressing danger threatened, but that armed Kafirs had driven off some of my Company's cattle. The boy who accompanied George belonged to a small kraal, to the members of which I had given some twenty or thirty head of cattle to look after for our Company, they getting full benefit of all the milk, a great boon to them, as they possessed no cattle of their own. He had been sent by the headman to inform me that just at daylight a number of Matabele from the kraal of Gwibu, a nephew of Lo Bengula, had opened the cattle kraal and driven off all the cattle, threatening the life of any one who interfered with them. These men, he said, were all armed either with guns or shields and assegais, and wore white ox-tails round their left arms and necks. Whilst I was still speaking, another messenger arrived to tell me that all the Intuntini people had left in the night, taking all their cattle with them, the greater part of which belonged to my Company. I now knew that we were face to face with a native rising, but I thought—what was indeed the fact—that this rising had been fomented by members of the late king's family, and was confined so far to the Abenzantsi, or Matabele of pure Zulu descent, and I cherished the hope that if energetic measures were at once adopted by the Government, the more numerous and useful section of the nation, of Makalaka and Mashuna descent, might be kept quiet and the rebellion speedily suppressed.

CHAPTER IV

Precautions against native attack—Conference with the neighbouring headmen—I take my wife into Bulawayo—Insurrection reported general—Armed forces sent to disturbed districts—Return to Essexvale with small mounted force—Short supply of horses and rifles—My views of the Kafir rising—The progress of the insurrection at Essexvale and the neighbourhood—Wholesale murders.

The first thing to be done was to take my wife into Bulawayo, and then return at once with a body of armed men to Essexvale, in order to make a display of force which might deter those natives, who were still sitting quiet watching events, from joining the rebels; for I knew that the general idea was, that there being now no longer any police force in the country, the Government was practically powerless to cope with an organised rebellion. I therefore had all our horses saddled up immediately to be ready for emergencies, and in order to guard against surprise placed George as a vidette on the top of a rise behind the house, from which a good view of the surrounding country was obtainable. Then, whilst we were having breakfast, I sent messengers to summon all the headmen of the kraals in the immediate vicinity of the homestead. These men, I may say, were all in possession of cattle belonging to my Company, and as none of them were pure-blooded Matabele, I imagined they would have no sympathy with the insurgents.

They all answered my summons, accompanied by many of their people, and before leaving I spoke to them, and did my best to impress upon them the folly of rebelling against the white man. They professed themselves in perfect accord with all I said; averred that they were quite content to live with me as their "inkosi," [6] and protested that they had nothing to hope for from the overthrow of the white man by the Matabele. In conclusion, I told them that I was going into Bulawayo to place my wife in a position of safety, but that I would return immediately with an armed force and endeavour to recover some of the cattle stolen by Gwibu and the rest of the Matabele. Mr. Blöcker wished to remain at the homestead until my return, but this I would not allow, as I did not care to leave a white man all by himself; and besides I required him to help me in getting some men together. George—the colonial Kafir—however, stopped behind, as he considered himself quite safe with Umsetchi's people,—Umsetchi being the headman of several little kraals close to the house, with the inhabitants of which we had always been on the most friendly terms.

Our ride into Bulawayo was altogether uneventful, as our road lay almost entirely through uninhabited country, and did not cross the line that the rebel natives of the district would have been likely to take on their way to the fastnesses of the Malungwani Hills. As, however, it was a scorching hot day it was a very trying experience for my wife.

Just before reaching town we met Mr. Claude Grenfell, who, with Messrs. Norton and Edmonds, was on his way out to Essexvale with a cart and horses to bring in my wife, and from them we learned that the insurrection was becoming general all over the country, and that forces had already been raised and sent out to relieve miners and settlers in the outlying districts. The Hon. Maurice Gifford had left the previous day for the Insiza, whilst Messrs. Napier and Spreckley were just on the point of starting for other disturbed parts of the country.

After handing over my wife to the kind care of her good friend Mrs. Spreckley, I at once set to work to get together a mounted force with which to return immediately to Essexvale, and thanks to the energetic assistance of Mr. Blöcker and Mr. Norton I was able to leave Bulawayo again at eight o'clock the same evening with thirty-six mounted men. I had wished to raise a force of 100 men, but found it impossible to do so, nearly all the horses and rifles in the possession of the Government having been given out to equip the forces already sent out before my arrival in town. There were men enough left, and good men too, ready to go with me anywhere, but the Government could only supply six horses—and not good ones at that—and twenty rifles. However, I managed to raise thirty private horses, and some private rifles, and got away about two hours after sundown with a compact little force of thirty-six mounted men.

The moon was now getting near the full, and by its light we pushed on, and at 2 A.M. on Thursday, 26th March, were back at my homestead, which is just twenty-three miles distant from Bulawayo. Here I found everything as I had left it, George having installed himself with some of Umsetchi's men in the stable, which being built very solidly of stone, they might easily have held against any ordinary attack.

I had left Essexvale a few hours before, without any very bitter feeling against the Kafirs, for after all, looking at things from their point of view, if they thought they could succeed in shaking off the white man's rule, and retaking all the cattle that once were theirs or their king's, and all those brought into the country since the war as well, why shouldn't they try the chances of rebellion? I knew they would have to fight to accomplish their ends, and it was for them to consider whether the game was worth the candle or not. At that time, however, I was far from realising what had happened, and was inclined to judge the Kafirs very leniently. But my visit to Bulawayo had changed my sentiments entirely, and the accounts which I had there heard of the cruel and treacherous murders that had been perpetrated on defenceless women and children, besides at once destroying whatever sympathy I may have at first felt for the rebels, had not only filled me with indignation, but had excited a desire for vengeance, which could only be satisfied by a personal and active participation in the killing of the murderers. I don't defend such feelings, nor deny that they are vile and brutal when viewed from a high moral standpoint; only I would say to the highly moral critic, Be charitable if you have not yourself lived through similar experiences; be not too harsh in your judgment of your fellow-man, for you probably know not your own nature, nor are you capable of analysing passions which can only be understood by those Europeans who have lived through a native rising, in which women and children of their race have been barbarously murdered by savages; by beings whom, in their hearts, they despise; as rightly or wrongly they consider that they belong to a lower type of the human family than themselves.

I offer no opinion upon this sentiment, but I say that it undoubtedly exists, and must always aggravate the savagery of a conflict between the two races; whilst the murder of white women and children, by natives, seems to the colonist not merely a crime, but a sacrilege, and calls forth all the latent ferocity of the more civilised race. For, kind and considerate though any European may be under ordinary circumstances to the savages amongst whom he happens to be living, yet deep down in his heart, whether he be a miner or a missionary, is the conviction that the black man belongs to a lower type of humanity than the white; and if this is a mistaken conviction, ask the negrophilist who professes to think so, whether he would give his daughter in marriage to a negro, and if not, why not?

At any rate the lovers and admirers of the Matabele would do well to caution their protégés not to commence another insurrection by the murder of white women and children, for should they do so, they will once more have cause to rue a war of retaliation, that will be waged with all the merciless ferocity which must inevitably follow upon such a course; as, although the murder of Europeans by savages may commend itself to certain arm-chair philosophers in England, who can see no good in a colonist, nor any harm in a savage, yet the colonists themselves cannot look upon such matters from the same point of view, and will take such steps to prevent the recurrence of any farther ebullitions of temper, as were taken by the United States troops after the massacres of Minnesota, or by the British troops at Secunderabad and other places in suppressing the Indian Mutiny.

Before resuming my personal narrative, I will give a short account of what had already taken place in the progress of the insurrection on Essexvale itself, and in those parts of the Insiza and Filibusi districts which border upon Essexvale.

There is reason to believe that the outbreak of the rebellion, commencing as it did with the murder of a native policeman on Friday, 20th March, was somewhat premature, and thus there was an interval of nearly three days between the date of this murder and the day when the first white men were killed by the natives. From the Umzingwani, the flame of rebellion spread through the Filibusi and Insiza districts, to the Tchangani and Inyati, and thence to the mining camps in the neighbourhood of the Gwelo and Ingwenia rivers, and indeed throughout the country wherever white men, women, and children could be taken by surprise and murdered either singly or in small parties; and so quickly was this cruel work accomplished, that although it was only on 23rd March that the first Europeans were murdered, there is reason to believe that by the evening of the 30th not a white man was left alive in the outlying districts of Matabeleland. Between these two dates many people escaped or were brought in to Bulawayo by relief parties, but a large number were cruelly and treacherously murdered.

CHAPTER V

Massacre of the whites near Edkins' store—Evidence of a survivor—Mutilation and attempt to destroy identity—Murder of the Cunningham family—Herbert Pomeroy Fynn's sworn statement—Murder of Mr. Maddocks—Laager formed at Cumming's store—Hon. Maurice Gifford proceeds to the relief of the whites at Cumming's store—Derelict waggon—Murder of Dr. and Mrs. Langford—Relief of laager at Cumming's store—Repulse of Matabele attack—Retreat to Bulawayo—Hon. Maurice Gifford's letters.

Not far from the once large military kraal of Gorshlwayo, near the southern border of Essexvale, was a trading station known as Edkins' store. In the neighbourhood were several mining camps and the residence of a native commissioner, and it is here probably that the first murders of Europeans were committed during the present native rising.

At any rate some time on Monday, 23rd March, [7] seven white men, two colonial boys and a coolie cook were murdered there. Among the murdered men was Mr. Bentley, the native commissioner, who was shot or stabbed from behind, whilst sitting in his hut writing—the date above the last words he ever wrote being 23rd March. Mr. Edkins and three other white men, together with their two colonial servants and the coolie cook, were killed in and round the store, whilst Messrs. Ivers and Ottens were killed, the former near the Celtic mining camp, and the latter about half-way between the camp and the store, from which it was distant about a mile and a half. The corpses of these poor fellows were found by Colonel Spreckley's relief party four days subsequent to the massacre. A colonial native was also discovered still living, though terribly injured. He had evidently been left for dead by the Matabele, and besides the wounds which they had inflicted on him in order to kill him, they had slit his mouth open from ear to ear. It was not thought that this man could possibly live, but his wounds were dressed, and food given him, and, wonderful to relate, he eventually made his way to Bulawayo, where, thanks to the skilful treatment and kind nursing he received in the hospital there, he in time recovered from his injuries.

He was able to give evidence concerning the murders, which he said were committed suddenly and without warning by native policemen, aided by natives from the surrounding kraals under two brothers of Lo Bengula, Maschlaschlin and Umfaizella, who, with Umlugulu, Gwibu, Umfondisi, and other members of the king's family, were the chief instigators of the rebellion; and this being so, no peace can be made that will satisfy the colonists until all the members of the late king's family, as well as every Induna and every native policeman who it can be proved took part in the murders which marked the outbreak of the rebellion, have been either hanged or shot.

This may seem a big order to some people—who, however, do not probably contemplate residing on a lonely farm in Rhodesia—but it is necessary for the future safety of the country.

The bodies of Ottens and Bentley had been mutilated, and dry grass had been heaped up and burnt over the faces of all the dead, possibly with the idea of destroying their identity.

Almost simultaneously with the murders at Edkins' store, or at any rate on the same day, the massacre of the whites was commenced in the Insiza district, the first sufferers being probably the Cunningham family, who were living on a farm near the Insiza river. These poor people seem to have been attacked early in the afternoon, as when their homestead was visited on the following day by Messrs. Liebert and Fynn, the remains of the mid-day meal were still on the table, whilst old Mr. Cunningham seemed to have been murdered whilst reclining on a couch reading a newspaper. Here is the sworn deposition of Mr. Fynn, the assistant native commissioner for the Insiza district, as to the finding of the bodies.

Herbert Pomeroy Fynn's sworn statement:—

"I am an assistant native commissioner for the Insiza district. I accompanied last witness—Mr. Liebert—and Orpen to Cunningham's farm on Tuesday morning, 24th March. On arrival there I saw eight dead bodies lying on the ground about twenty yards from the homestead. We made a cursory examination and saw that the deceased persons had been murdered by means of knob-kerries and battle-axes, or similar weapons. The ground was covered with native footprints, and there were broken knob-kerries lying about. I identified among the dead bodies those of Mr. Cunningham senior, Mrs. Cunningham, two Miss Cunninghams, Master Cunningham, and three children whom I identified as the grandchildren of Mr. Cunningham senior. The deceased persons appeared to have been killed inside the house and afterwards dragged out and thrown outside in the position in which we found them. From the fact that all the native kraals in the vicinity were quite deserted, I have absolutely no doubt that the persons who killed the deceased were Matabele natives. Young Cunningham, aged about fourteen years, was still alive when we arrived, but unconscious, and died immediately after our arrival."

Such is the bald account of the discovery of the battered and bloody remains of this unfortunate family, which, alas! was not the only one suddenly blotted out of existence, root and branch, during the first terrible days of the Matabele rebellion. The hideous barbarity of these murders, and the feeling of intense exasperation they would be likely to excite amongst the surviving settlers, seem to have been somewhat underrated in England; whilst for obvious reasons they have been carefully kept out of sight by those dishonest speakers who recently endeavoured to excite public opinion against the white population of Rhodesia. You can respect an honest enemy even if you can't like him; but when a fanatic endeavours to support either his or her theories by the suppression of truth, he or she becomes contemptible.

But we are thankful for the sympathy of that most determined enemy of everything Rhodesian—except the noble savages who therein dwell—Mr. Labouchere, who has professed himself "sorry for the women and children who have been killed." Sorry—only sorry! Wonderful indeed is the calm serenity of soul that enables that noble nature to view all mundane affairs from the same cold, passionless plane, whether it be the cruel murder of an English settler's wife and family in Rhodesia, or an accident to the wheel of a friend's bicycle in Hyde Park! But the men who have looked upon the corpses of the murdered ones, who have seen the shattered skulls of their countrywomen, the long grey locks of the aged and the sunny curls of the girls and little children all alike dabbled in their blood, are something more than sorry; indignation mingles with their sorrow, and they are determined to exact such punishment for the crimes committed, as shall preclude as far as possible their recurrence in the future.

At a distance of a few miles from the Cunninghams' farm was a mining property belonging to the Nellie Reef Development Company, where work was being carried on under the superintendence of Mr. Thomas Maddocks, the manager of the Nellie Reef Mine. At about a quarter to six on the evening of Monday, 23rd March, that is probably some four hours after the murder of the Cunningham family, Mr. Maddocks and two miners, Messrs. Hocking and Hosking, were sitting smoking outside their huts just before dinner, when some fifteen natives came up armed with knob-kerries and battle-axes. The man who appeared to be their leader spoke to Mr. Maddocks and said that he and his companions had been sent by Mr. Fynn, the native commissioner, to work, and on being asked if he had a letter from that gentleman, called to some more natives who were standing not far off. What followed I will tell in the words of Mr. John Hosking, who, in his sworn statement regarding the death of Mr. Maddocks, deposes as follows:—

"The call was answered by a shout of 'Tchaia,' 'strike.' A number of natives joined those who were with us, and the leader then struck deceased on the head with a knob-kerry. I immediately retired into my hut for my revolver. When I came back three natives were hitting Hocking with kerries and axes. I fired a shot and dropped one man, and just as I had fired my second shot, I received a blow on the head causing the mark I now show. Hocking then managed to get into the hut, whereupon the natives cleared off; Hocking and I then went to Maddocks, but found him dead. We retired into an iron store, at which the natives fired a shot. The bullet passed inside through the iron, which caused us to retire again to the hut." By this time it was growing dusk, so the two wounded miners, fearing that the natives would soon return and fire the hut, crept out, and getting into the long grass, made their escape to Cumming's store, three miles from Maddocks' camp, where about twenty men had already collected, many of whom, however, were unarmed. A laager was at once formed, and Mr. Cumming and another rode into Bulawayo for assistance. They first, however, warned several miners and farmers living in the neighbourhood, that the natives had risen, thus saving the lives of these people, as they all got safely to the laager and ultimately escaped to Bulawayo, whereas but for this timely warning they would most certainly have been murdered.

Mr. Cumming and his companion reached Bulawayo on Tuesday morning, and at once reported themselves to Mr. Duncan, the Administrator.

From a photograph by J. Edwards, Hyde Park Corner.
HON. MAURICE GIFFORD, C.M.G.

At this time no organised force existed in the country, with the exception of the few men of the Matabele Mounted Police under Captain Southey; and there were only some 370 rifles in the Government stores. However, no difficulty was experienced in getting men together who were ready to proceed at once to the relief of their countrymen and countrywomen; and, as I have already narrated, three small corps under experienced leaders were despatched to various outlying districts within a few hours of the time when the first alarm was given. The Hon. Maurice Gifford, as energetic as he is brave, got off that same evening with about forty men, including Captain Southey and twelve of his Mounted Police; his object being the relief of the men who had laagered up at Cumming's store. The first sign of the rising seen by this party was near Woodford's store, about fourteen miles beyond Thaba Induna, or twenty-six from Bulawayo. Here an abandoned waggon was found standing in the road, the sixteen donkeys that had been harnessed to it lying all of a heap dead. They had for the most part been stabbed to death with assegais, but some had been shot. Nothing on the waggon had been touched, though it was loaded with flour, whisky, etc. No trace of those who had been in charge of the waggon could be discovered, but it has been subsequently ascertained that they were murdered in the bush some little distance away. They were colonial boys taking down a load of stores to the Insiza district. Soon after this derelict waggon had been passed, three colonial boys were met making their way to Bulawayo, one armed with a rifle and another with a revolver. They reported to Mr. Gifford that the rising was general in the Insiza district, and said that a Dr. and Mrs. Langford had been killed on the previous day—Wednesday, 25th March—near Rixon's farm; but that Mr. Rixon, the Blicks, and others in the district had escaped to the laager at Cumming's store. They also told Mr. Gifford that they had seen several troops of cattle being driven by armed Matabele towards the Malungwani and Matopo Hills. On meeting Mr. Gifford these "boys" turned back and accompanied him to the Insiza, and did good service in the subsequent fight, in which one of them was wounded.

On Thursday night the relief party reached Cumming's store, where they found about thirty men in laager. Of these, however, a large proportion were unarmed, so that Mr. Gifford had only about fifty rifles at his command altogether. The night passed off quietly, but at about 5 A.M., just before daylight on Friday morning, a most determined attack was made on the position by a large party of Matabele, who did not finally retreat until they had suffered heavy loss from the steady fire of the white men. The natives came on with the utmost fearlessness, as may be inferred from the fact that one was killed with his hands on the window-sill of the store, whilst six others lay dead close round; and it was afterwards ascertained that their total loss was twenty-five.

On the side of the whites, Sergt.-Major O'Leary of the Matabele Mounted Police was killed, as well as an educated American negro, a servant of Mr. Wrey's, whilst six white men were wounded. As soon as the attack had been completely beaten off, the waggons were inspanned, and the beleaguered white men broke up their laager and commenced their retreat to Bulawayo.

The first portion of the road to be travelled led amongst broken wooded hills, through which it was expected they would have to fight their way; but although the Matabele once gathered on the top of a neighbouring hill, and seemed about to attack, they did not do so, and thus allowed the whites to get out into the open country, where they were comparatively safe, without further molestation.

I think it will not be out of place to here reproduce, with the kind permission of Mr. Maurice Gifford, two letters written by him on the night after the fight, of which I happen to have copies, as they cannot fail, I think, to interest my readers.

To A. H. F. Duncan, Esq.,
Bulawayo.
14 miles from Lee's Store,
10.5 P.M.

Dear Sir—We have relieved Insiza, and brought away thirty-six men and one woman. At 5 A.M. this morning were attacked and enemy repulsed. Details of same will be given you by bearer. We have at present six wounded, and the woman with a child. One of the wounded is a serious case. Suggest the following for your consideration and for our assistance. Send out two large American spiders with mules to bring them in. Leave it to your judgment to say whether you consider escort necessary. Suggest fifteen men. We can then bring in the remainder of the party. I am sending two men who have brought me dispatches this morning from Napier to advise him of the serious nature of this rising; but again leave it to your judgment whether you consider it advisable to send him advice from your end, taking into consideration the possibility of these two men not being able to reach him. If a doctor can come with the spiders, so much the better; also suggest making arrangements for beds for wounded. Advise me as to your knowledge of any possible attacks from natives en route from here to Bulawayo. Written by moonlight. We are all well and cheery, and hope to have a drink with you to-morrow night at 9 P.M.—Yours faithfully,

Maurice R. Gifford.

Written at the Camp where Thackeray and friend left you,
10.30 P.M.

Dear Napier—Your dispatch duly received. Just a line from me to let you know that the Kafirs mean business this time. We were attacked this morning at one hour before sunrise by about three hundred natives, who came on in the most fanatical and plucky style—the old Zulu rush. Three natives were shot alongside the walls of our barricade. I mention this to you to put you on your guard, as you must have many new chums with you, and to advise great caution to prevent night surprises. We never thought an attack probable, but fortunately were well prepared. This, in my opinion, will prove a more serious business than the old war, and I am sure that prompt action is necessary.—Yours,

M. R. Gifford.

CHAPTER VI

Difficulties of the colonists much underrated—The Matabele campaign of 1893—Military spirit scotched, not killed—Estimated native losses—Disarmament of Matabele incomplete—Natives well supplied with arms and ammunition—Defections amongst the native police.

As will be seen from the last sentence of Mr. Gifford's letter to Colonel Napier, even at this early stage of the insurrection he predicted that it would prove a more serious business than the first war, and that this prediction has been fully justified will never I think be gainsaid by any man who has taken part in both campaigns. As, however, the difficulties experienced by the colonists in coping with the present rebellion have been very much underrated in certain quarters, and invidious comparisons instituted between Dr. Jameson's victorious march on Bulawayo in 1893 and the conduct of the present campaign, I will take the liberty of giving my own opinion on the subject; which is that the essential differences in the circumstances under which the two campaigns were conducted render it impossible to institute any comparison between them. In 1893 Dr. Jameson marched from Mashunaland to Bulawayo with a compact force of 670 white men, 400 of whom were mounted, a small number of native allies, and a strong party of artillery consisting of 5 Maxim guns, 2 seven-pounders, 1 Gardner gun, and 1 Hotchkiss. Choosing its own line, and under the guidance of Nyenyezi —a Matabele of high position, whose whole family to the number of seventy had lately been put to death by the order of Lo Bengula, and who was himself a proscribed fugitive—this force kept in the open country as much as possible, but were obliged to pass through some broken wooded country in the neighbourhood of the Tchangani river. Here, at 4 A.M. on the morning of the 25th of October, it was attacked for the first time by the eastern division of the Matabele army, computed at some 5000 strong, though it is improbable that all the regiments composing this division were actually engaged, as all the fighting seems to have been done by the the Insukamini regiment, aided by small detachments of the Inhlati and Umquicho.

The attack failed, the Matabele being beaten off from the laager with heavy loss, whilst the column marched on towards Bulawayo, and was not again attacked until after the Impembisi had been crossed.

At a point a few miles beyond this river the laager was again attacked on 1st November, this time in perfectly open ground, and in the middle of the day. The attack was made by the Imbezu and Ingubu regiments, computed by Sir John Willoughby to number together about 1700 men; some 5000 more of other regiments who were hanging round never having come into action at all. In this engagement these two regiments suffered very heavily from the fire of the Maxim guns, although, as they have both reformed and taken a prominent part in the present rebellion, they were certainly not annihilated. On hearing of the defeat of the Imbezu and Ingubu, one or other of which regiments he usually kept near him as a sort of bodyguard, Lo Bengula fled from Bulawayo, after first burning the kraal and blowing up his European house; but before doing so he recalled his son-in-law, Gambo, from the Mangwe Pass, thus leaving it open for the unopposed advance of the southern column under Colonel Gould Adams, who with the 400 men under his command was thus enabled to effect a junction with Dr. Jameson on 15th November. Gambo had been in command of all the regiments composing the Eegapa and the Umschlopay, the two largest military divisions of the four into which the country was divided, numbering together at least 8000 men. Excepting, however, a small detachment which attacked Colonel Gould Adams at the Singuesi river, none of the men composing this force took any part in the first Matabele war, although it numbered in its ranks some of the king's best regiments, such as the Inyama Nghlovu and M'schlaschlanglela. Neither were the men under Sikombo, Umlugulu, and many other influential Indunas living to the south-east of Bulawayo, ever engaged in the first war, as although they were all mustered and were close to Bulawayo at the time of the defeat of their compatriots at the Impembisi, they seem to have lost heart when they heard of the disastrous result of that fight, immediately followed as it was by the flight of their king, and so retired to the Matopo Hills, and subsequently surrendered without fighting.

The death of Lo Bengula probably closed the campaign, for but for this event his pursuit to the lower Tchangani, resulting as it did in the death of Major Wilson and all his brave companions, would scarcely have had any other effect than to show the Matabele that although white men were invincible when defending a laager with Maxim guns, they were by no means so when only armed with rifles, if they could be outnumbered and surrounded in difficult country.

But the death of their king left them like a swarm of bees bereft of their queen. Their councils were divided; their military arrogance crushed out of them by the heavy defeats their best regiments had sustained at the Tchangani, the Impembisi, and in a minor degree at the Singuesi. Short of food, and living like wild beasts in the rocks and forests, with all the bitter discomfort which such a life entails even on savages during the rainy season in a sub-tropical country, they saw their women and children sicken and die day by day, until their only hope of life seemed to lie in a speedy return to the high and healthy plateau from which they had fled. But there lay the laagers of the white men strongly defended with cannon and Maxim guns. From such positions they could not hope to drive them, nor without a leader or any cohesion between the numberless little parties into which they were divided did they dare to try conclusions with the mounted patrols which scoured the open country. What wonder then that when liberal terms of peace were offered them, first one Induna with all his people, and then another and another, surrendered, until in a short time the whole nation had freely and frankly submitted itself to the white man's rule? Such is a brief account of the conquest of Matabeleland in 1893, which was practically settled by two battles, in which the Matabele attacked the white men in laager and were in each case driven off with heavy loss by the fire of the Maxim guns.

The brilliancy of the exploit, resulting as it did in the overthrow of one of the most cruel and barbarous despotisms that has ever existed even in barbarous Africa, and in the throwing open to European enterprise of a rich and fertile territory, blessed with a climate in which white men can live and thrive, will ever be remembered as one of the most brilliant episodes in the history of British colonisation in South Africa; and no one, in this country at any rate, would wish to detract one iota from the honour due to all those who took part in Dr. Jameson's historic march to Bulawayo in 1893. It was admirable both in the boldness of its conception and the steady and unflinching resolution with which it was carried out.

All I wish to point out is that in 1893 the fighting power and the military spirit of the Matabele nation was only scotched, not killed; for more than half the regiments which had formed the king's army at the time of the war did not lose a single man during the hostilities, never having been engaged in any of the fights; whilst the only regiments which lost really heavily were the Insukamini, the Imbezu, and the Ingubu. It is difficult to state with any degree of exactitude the number of men lost by the Matabele in 1893, but personally I find it difficult to believe that their loss in men killed or who died from wounds can have exceeded 1000—that is, 200 at the Tchangani, 500 at the Impembisi, 100 at the Inguesi, and 200 killed during the fighting on the lower Tchangani. Be it remembered by those who consider this too low an estimate, that if more than 500 Matabele were killed at the Impembisi fight, it would mean over 30 per cent of the entire force engaged, as the strength of the Imbezu and Ingubu together did not exceed 1700, whilst the number of the survivors who have been and still are taking part in the present rebellion is by no means inconsiderable. As regards the loss inflicted on the Matabele by Major Wilson and his brave companions during their last desperate stand on the lower Tchangani, we have nothing to go upon, except what natives who were there can tell us, and I think there is reason to believe that their loss there was not actually so heavy as at one time it was supposed to be, as they were always able to fire on the whites from behind the shelter of trees. Apart, however, from the direct loss sustained in the various fights, the Matabele must have suffered heavily from the ravages of sickness caused by exposure and want of food after the fighting had ceased. The greatest sufferers were naturally the women and children, the able-bodied men having been better able to withstand the unaccustomed hardships. Altogether, I think that if to the 1000, which is my estimate of those killed in battle, or who died from the effects of their wounds, another 1000 is added for the able-bodied men who died of sickness afterwards, the aggregate will be a very liberal allowance for the total losses sustained by the Matabele in fighting men during, and in consequence of, the war of 1893.

However, to avoid all cavilling let us add another 1000 to this number, making 3000 altogether. Subtract these 3000 from the entire fighting strength of the nation before the war, which has never been estimated at less than 20,000, and it leaves a residue of 17,000 able-bodied men. This total may be a thousand or two out one way or the other; but, whatever the fighting strength of the nation may be, every man composing it throughout the length and breadth of the land is now in arms against the white men, with the exception of some of Gambo's people and a few others, numbering in all under 1000 men, about whom I shall say a few words later on.

But, it has been said, however many Matabele may have rebelled against the Government, they cannot be very dangerous foes, since the whole nation was disarmed after the first war. This is an error. After the war of 1893 a considerable number of guns were certainly given up, but that the total handed in and destroyed was but a small proportion of what they had possessed before the war no one who knew anything about the matter ever doubted. Besides muzzle-loading guns of every description, the Matabele were formerly in possession of at least 2000 breech-loading rifles, principally Martini-Henrys, a certain number of which were captured from them during the war or surrendered after hostilities were over. As no count seems ever to have been kept of the number of these rifles captured or handed in, no exact figure can be given. General report says 150 to 300, whilst the highest number I have ever heard ventured was "between 400 and 500."

Even taking the highest number to be correct, considering that a considerable number of Martini-Henry rifles have been illicitly sold to the Matabele during the last two years, that nearly 100 breech-loading rifles were taken over to the enemy by the rebel police, whilst many more were captured from murdered men during the first days of the rebellion, it cannot be denied that they have regained more than they lost, so that in the matter of breech-loading arms they entered upon the present insurrection with a larger supply than they possessed in 1893, whilst, as I have said before, however many muzzle-loading guns they may have surrendered, they kept back a great many which they are now using. As regards ammunition, I, for one, certainly thought when the present rebellion broke out that their supply would soon run short, but it has not yet done so, and, moreover, it seems to be fairly distributed through the whole nation, as every impi with which we have yet been engaged has shown itself to be well supplied, especially with Martini-Henry cartridges.

Thus we now see that after the first conquest of Matabeleland a very large proportion of the former military strength of the country was still available, and that although this large number of able-bodied savages were apparently without arms, their weapons were only hidden for the time being. Where the large supply of ammunition which they have proved themselves to be possessed of came from, I cannot say. Probably large quantities were buried with the rifles after the first war, and this store has been constantly added to by theft and illicit purchase ever since.

However, over two years of most submissive behaviour, unbroken by any attempt whatever to rebel against the authority of the Chartered Company, lulled every white man in the country into a feeling of security which events have not justified.

A native police force was raised, which was apparently working admirably up to the time of the rebellion; and even then, it is but fair to say, almost all the police who had been first enrolled, and who had done more than a year's service, held themselves aloof from the rebels, the great majority of defections occurring amongst those who had been but lately enrolled and amongst whom there was therefore little or no esprit de corps.

CHAPTER VII

Effect of removing the police force—Witch-doctors' influence—Originators of the insurrection—Gambo detained at Bulawayo—The Imbezu regiment—Unpreparedness of the Colonists at the outbreak—The Rhodesia Horse—Horses in possession of the Government—Rifles, guns, and ammunition in Government stores—Want of community of action of the Matabele—The Umlimo's mistake—Critical position at Bulawayo—Neglect of the Matabele to block the roads—Force in Bulawayo at the outbreak—The Africander Corps.

In spite of their submissive behaviour, it seems probable that all the members of the late king's family and many of the chief Indunas were only biding their time, and waiting for an opportunity to try the chances of a rebellion against the white man.

This opportunity did not present itself as long as there was a strong police force in the country, but once that police force was removed, I think the malcontents began to act.

That the plague of locusts with which Matabeleland has been afflicted ever since 1890, the first year of the occupation of Mashunaland by Europeans; the partial drought of the last two years; and, finally, the outbreak of the rinderpest, would all be ascribed to the evil influence of the white man, and made use of by the witch-doctors to incite the mass of the people to join the insurgents, is doubtless true; but that the insurrection can be fairly ascribed to the bitterness caused by these visitations alone, I very much doubt, for it is remarkable that throughout the Umzingwani, Filibusi, and Insiza districts, where all the first murders of white men were committed, the rainfall had been plentiful, and the locusts had done but little damage, so that, as I can personally bear witness, the crops throughout these portions of the country were exceptionally good, whilst as the rinderpest had not yet approached this part of Matabeleland, the people living in these districts could have known little or nothing about it. In its inception, the insurrection was, in my opinion, a rebellion against the white man's rule by the Matabele of Zulu origin alone, and I am convinced that, in the district where I was living at least, the other section of the tribe were at first not in the secret; however, the greater part of these soon joined, some unwillingly and under threats from their former masters, but most of them readily enough, believing, as they did, that with the assistance of the Umlimo they would be able to completely root out the white man, and revel once more in loot and wholesale murder. And a merry time they had of it, if it was but a short one, to be followed by a heavy retribution.

When the first news of the rising reached Bulawayo, Gambo was in the town on a visit to the chief native commissioner, by whom he was very wisely detained as a prisoner. Whether, if he had been at large, he would have joined the rebels or not, it is difficult to say. Since the war, he has lost control over the greater part of the people who formerly composed the Eegapa military division, and many of these have joined the ranks of the insurgents, but all Gambo's own people, under his head Induna, Marzwe, have remained loyal to the Government. Umjan, once the Induna of the Imbezu regiment, and now quite an old man, has also refrained from taking part in the present hostilities, although he is one of the few whose cattle were shot by order of the Government because they were infected with the rinderpest. He came in to Bulawayo soon after the outbreak of the rebellion with his wives and immediate attendants, and is now living quietly near the town. His sons, however, have joined the rebels, whilst the men whom he formerly commanded—the Imbezu—reformed themselves into a regiment, and have been fighting since the outbreak of the insurrection.

Besides Gambo's men, a few hundreds of Matabele Maholi (men of Makalaka and Mashuna descent) living on my Company's property of Essexvale, on Colonel Napier's land and round the Hope Fountain mission station, have thought it advisable to stand by the Government, and have, therefore, come in to live near Bulawayo for protection. But putting aside these few hundreds of natives who have not joined in the rebellion, the fact remains that at least nine-tenths, I think I might safely say nineteen-twentieths, of the Matabele nation are now in arms against the whites.

And, now, let us see how the colonists were prepared to meet the onset of these hordes of savages. When the rising first broke out, with the exception of the native police, there was no organised force in Matabeleland worth speaking of; and as one-half of the native police at once went over to the enemy, and the remainder had to be disarmed, for fear lest they should follow suit, it may be said that there was no police force at all. Of the old Mounted Police there only remained forty-eight officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, in the whole of Matabeleland, under Inspector Southey. Of these, twenty-two were stationed in Bulawayo, and the rest distributed over the country at the police stations of Gwelo, Selukwe, Belingwe, Inyati, Mangwe, Tuli, Matopos, Umzingwani, and Iron Mine Hill. When the rebellion broke out only twelve of these men were available at Bulawayo for immediate service, and these, under Inspector Southey, accompanied Mr. Gifford to the Insiza. The Rhodesia Horse, a volunteer force which had been raised and equipped the previous year, had also practically ceased to exist as an effective force fit for use at a moment's notice, for although there were some six hundred men in Matabeleland who had enrolled themselves as members of this corps, they were scattered all over the country at the outbreak of the rebellion. Some of these were murdered, whilst others had to take refuge in the laagers of Belingwe and Gwelo. However, about five hundred were soon mustered in Bulawayo, but the services of the majority could not be utilised except to defend the town, owing to the want of horses, since, so great had been the ravages of the fatal horse-sickness during the rainy season then just coming to an end, that when Colonel Napier, the senior officer of the Rhodesia Horse, called on the Government for seventy horses for immediate use on 23rd March, he could only be supplied with sixty-two.

The actual number of horses in the possession of the Government throughout Matabeleland on the day when the first tidings of the outbreak of the insurrection reached Bulawayo is as follows:—

Of the 117 horses that had been issued to Volunteers, a good many never returned to Bulawayo, as they either died of horse-sickness or were taken to Gwelo or Belingwe, so that in the first days of the rebellion the Government could not command the services of more than 100 horses; but no expense was spared to procure more, and very soon all the private horses in Bulawayo were bought up, whilst others were sent up from the Transvaal, so that by the end of April there were nearly 450 horses in the Government stables, the large majority of which were fit for active service.

The number of rifles belonging to the Government throughout the country on 25th March was as follows:—

Making a total of 580 rifles all told.

Besides these, however, there were about eighty old Martini-Henry rifles in the Government stores, but these were nearly all unserviceable at the outbreak of the rebellion, though the armourer has since been able to get most of them into working order. Of ammunition there was a good supply, viz. 1,500,000 rounds.

In the way of artillery there was in Bulawayo when the insurrection broke out one 303 Maxim gun in good order, and a second so much out of repair as to be useless; two 2.5 screw guns in good order, but with only seventeen rounds of ammunition for the two; one Hotchkiss gun and limber, one Gatling, one Gardner, one Nordenfeldt—all in good order—and one seven-pounder, useless except at Bulawayo owing to carriage having been destroyed by white ants. In addition to this ordnance there arrived in Bulawayo from Macloutsie, on the very day on which Mr. Maddocks was murdered, two old Maxims and two seven-pounders. These, however, were unserviceable at the time, one of the seven-pounders being without a carriage and the two Maxims being also out of repair. The armourer here has now, however, I believe, put them all in working order.

Taking these figures as correct—and they are absolutely beyond question—it cannot, I think, be said that the colonists in Matabeleland were very well prepared to cope with a sudden and unexpected rising of at least 10,000 natives, about one-fifth of whom were armed with breech-loading rifles and well supplied with ammunition, whilst many more were in possession of muzzle-loading guns; and when it is remembered that at the time of the outbreak the food supply was very low in Bulawayo, owing to the ravages of the rinderpest, it must be acknowledged that the position was at one time a very serious one, which a little more intelligence on the part of the Matabele might have rendered absolutely disastrous.

But all through they have behaved in an incomprehensible manner, their leaders apparently never having arranged any settled plan of campaign, the consequence being that there has never been any understanding or community of action between the various hordes into which the nation is now divided. All through there appears to have been a general belief amongst them that they would receive supernatural aid from the "Umlimo," or god, but this belief must be getting a little thin now, and they would have done far better had they worked together under one intelligent general.

Why, when the rebellion first broke out, they never attempted to block the main road to Mangwe will ever remain a mystery. No one doubts that they might have done so, nor that, if they had placed a couple of thousand men in the Shashani Pass, we could not have raised a sufficient force on this side to dislodge them and open the road; for it must be remembered that as there were over six hundred women and children in Bulawayo a large force was always necessary to protect them. Possibly there is some truth in the report that the road to Mangwe has been purposely left open by command of the Umlimo in order to give the white men the opportunity of escaping from the country. That this was an error of judgment, if it is a fact, is very clear, as in the critical time but few men left the country, and such as did could be well spared, as they were of no use as defenders of the women and children, and were only consuming valuable food. On the other hand, owing to the road having been left open, stores of arms and food and horses were constantly being brought in.

It certainly seems very strange that no attempt has ever been made to stop waggons and coaches on this road, when it is remembered that at one time Government House—which is less than three miles from the centre of Bulawayo—was practically in the hands of the rebels, sometimes in the daytime and always at nights for a period of about ten days, their impis during that time lying in a semicircle to the west and north of the town, and being sometimes within two miles of it.

Yet although two Dutchmen, living in their waggon standing near the boundary of the town commonage, about four and a half miles along the road from Bulawayo, were murdered, no waggon or coach moving along the road was ever interfered with, nor was the Government House burnt, the reason for this being, it is said, because the Umlimo told the people that when Bulawayo had been destroyed, and all the white men in the country killed, they would find Lo Bengula sitting there, ready to rule them once more; for, be it said, Government House has been built in the centre of the old kraal of Bulawayo, just where the king's house once stood.

For over a month, an impi, supposed to be at least a thousand strong, was camped just within the Matopo Hills, not ten miles from the nearest point on the road to Mangwe, and no one doubts that at any moment a portion of this impi might have moved over to the road by night, and, by shooting a mule or two, have had a coachload of white men at its mercy; and God help the unfortunate white man who has nothing else to trust to but the mercy of the Matabele!

Of course there were forts along the road, and patrols rode daily between the forts, but even so I maintain that much damage might have been done if the natives had determined at any moment to block the road. Now, however, that the impi of which I have been speaking has been driven from its position by the forces under Major-General Sir Frederick Carrington, it is not likely that the safety of the road will ever again be threatened.

And, now, let me hark back to the early days of the rebellion. I think I have shown by figures that on the outbreak of the insurrection the country was not over well supplied with either horses or arms, nor was there any superfluity of men, and the smallness of the number will, I think, astonish some critics of the present campaign in England. Turning to the Matabele Times of 6th April last, I find it stated under the heading "The Native Rising up to Date," "A census was taken of all those who had been in the laager on Friday night as they made their exit on Saturday morning, or remained on the waggons. The count was carefully made, and showed that the refugees numbered 632 women and children, and 915 men, making a total of 1547"; and further on we read—"A general parade was held yesterday of the men now in town who have enrolled themselves in the Bulawayo Field Force. They fell in at ten o'clock, the scouts, under Captain Grey, in front making a splendid display of the class of men whom the hostile natives will not seek to tackle twice. The men on foot looked like business, and went through their movements with sufficient precision. The Africander Corps now consists of three companies, numbering 76, 64, and 73, with 6 on the staff. The total number on parade was over 500, of whom about 300 were fully armed, and about 100 were engineers and artillerymen. To this number have to be added the 169 out under the Hon. M. Gifford and Captain Dawson, and the 100 men gone down to Gwanda under Captain Brand and Captain Van Niekerk. The total efficient force now available for the reconquest of Matabeleland may be put down at 700, nearer 800."

From these figures it will be seen that at the outbreak of the rebellion there were under 1000 men in Bulawayo, some 200 of whom were unfit for active service. The remainder of the male population of the country were shut up in the laagers at Gwelo, Belingwe, and Mangwe, and therefore unavailable for offensive operations against the Matabele; whilst of the 800 fighting men in Bulawayo, it was necessary to have at least 400 always in town to protect the women and children, and 130 were drafted off to man the forts on the Mangwe road, leaving less than 300 available for active operations against the enemy. This force was, however, augmented by about 150 Cape boys, chiefly Amaxosa Kafirs and Zulus. These boys were got together and formed into a regiment by Mr. Johan Colenbrander, and they have done most excellent service during the present campaign, being man for man both braver and better armed than the Matabele.

Thus, all things considered, I do not think the colonists have done so badly. With small patrols they first succeeded in bringing in many scattered whites from the outlying districts, and then after a series of engagements, always fought on ground of the enemy's own choosing, succeeded in driving them from the immediate neighbourhood of Bulawayo, and forcing them to take refuge in the forests and hills, from which they will be finally driven by the forces now in the country under the command of Major-General Sir Frederick Carrington.

It is worthy of remark that whilst in the first war the Matabele attacked strong positions defended by artillery and Maxim guns, thereby suffering very heavy loss themselves but killing very few white men, in the present war all the fighting has been amongst broken ground, and in country more or less covered with bush, and all the killing has been done with rifles; for in the first war the natives learnt the futility of attacking fortified positions, and now only fight in the bush in skirmishing order, giving but little opportunity for the effective use of machine guns; so that, although a good many rounds have been fired from Maxims at long ranges, only a very small amount of execution has been done by them.

CHAPTER VIII

Cattle stolen by Matabele—I recover the cattle and burn down Matabele kraal—Start in pursuit of cattle-thieves—Surprise a raiding party and recover two bands of cattle—Reflections on the situation.

I will now again take up the thread of my own personal experiences. As will be remembered, I reached my homestead at 2 A.M. on Thursday, 26th March, and found everything as I had left it seventeen hours before. A mule cart carrying food supplies for my men was to have followed immediately behind us, but the men in charge lost the road, and the provisions did not turn up till late the next day.

On the following morning, just at daybreak, a native named Inshlupo, who had been in charge of a herd of over thirty head of cattle belonging to my Company, turned up and informed me that on the previous evening the headman of a small Matabele kraal, situated in the broken ground just below the Malungwani Hills, had paid him a visit, accompanied by several armed men, and taken off all the cattle.

On the receipt of this news I had the horses saddled up at once, as, it being still so early, I had little doubt that, if no time was lost, we should find the stolen cattle still in the kraal to which they had been taken the previous evening. Before moving, however, I said a few words to my men, telling them that my object in visiting Essexvale and other parts of the country with an armed force was twofold, namely, to endeavour by prompt action to strike terror into the hearts of some of the rebels before they had time to concentrate, and at the same time to reassure those who were content with the white man's rule, but who, in the absence of any display of power on the part of the Government, might be led to believe that their only chance of safety from the vengeance of the Matabele lay in taking part with them in the rebellion. In conclusion, I told them that any Kafirs we might find with arms in their hands, who had left their kraals and gone off into the hills with stolen cattle, ought to be shot without question and without mercy, as they were every one of them more or less responsible for the cruel murders of white men that had already been committed.

Under the guidance of Inshlupo we reached the neighbourhood of the kraal where I hoped to find my Company's cattle before the sun was an hour higher. Here I halted my men, and sent half of them round under the shelter of the bush to a certain point where they were to show themselves, that being the signal for a simultaneous advance as rapidly as possible on the kraal from both sides. However, although we found all the cattle still in the kraal, there were no men there, and in fact no one but a Matabele woman, the wife of the headman, and several children. The woman would offer no explanation of the undeniable fact that my Company's cattle were in her husband's kraal, and would give no information concerning his whereabouts, so, after driving out the stolen cattle, I had the whole place burnt, first allowing the woman to remove all her private effects. When this had been done, I sent the recaptured cattle back to the homestead, in charge of two of Inshlupo's boys, and then proceeded straight into the Malungwani Hills, in the hope of coming across some of the rebels who had gone off with the first lot of my Company's cattle that had been stolen on the previous Tuesday night.

As we proceeded, the hills became thickly wooded, and in the valleys between them we found the spoor of a good many cattle that had passed during the last two days, although we saw no fresh tracks.

About nine o'clock I gave the order to off-saddle in a little grassy hollow, after first placing sentries all round to guard against any sudden attack, for we were now, of course, in the enemy's country. After an hour's rest the horses were just being caught when one of the sentries reported that a herd of cattle was being driven up a valley at the foot of a high ridge to our left. I at once went up to have a look myself, but by this time the cattle were out of sight. However, I carefully examined the ground, and saw that by following another valley running parallel to the one in which the cattle had been seen, and then ascending the steep ridge at its head, we should in all probability drop right on to the rebels in charge of them.

And this is exactly what happened, as upon cresting the ridge we found that both Kafirs and cattle were immediately below us. Some of the former were driving the cattle, but most of them were in the bush ahead. We at once opened fire on them, which they made no attempt to return. Indeed, taken by surprise as they were, and having so much the worse of the position, and, moreover, not being in any force, they could scarcely be expected to do anything else but run for it. And run they did, throwing down almost everything they were carrying, and abandoning the cattle. I saw one man throw a gun away, probably fearing lest he should be caught with it in his possession, but most of them were, I think, only armed with assegais. We chased them up and down several hills, and expended a lot of ammunition on them, but did them I am afraid very little damage, as the hills were all thickly wooded, and our horses were not able to climb up and down them any faster than the light-footed savages we were pursuing. In the second valley we found another herd of cattle, but could see no Kafirs near them, and I think they must have heard the firing, and run off before we came in sight. Altogether we captured over 150 head of cattle, every one of which had been taken from white men, a large number having Mr. Colenbrander's brand on them.

I have stated plainly that we fired on these Kafirs at sight, and that although they offered no resistance, but ran away as hard as they could, we chased them and kept on firing at them as long as we could see them, and this action may possibly be cited as an example of the brutality and inhumanity of the Englishmen in Rhodesia. The fact that the Kafirs whom we sought to destroy—with as little compunction as though they were a pack of wild dogs—were taking part in a rebellion which had just been inaugurated by a series of the foulest murders it is possible to conceive, and the ultimate object of which was evidently to stamp out the white man throughout the land, will, of course, be entirely lost sight of or quietly ignored. In fact, I should not be at all surprised to see it stated that the rebellion was caused by the inhuman behaviour of the white men in Rhodesia, who, it will be said, were in the habit of shooting down the poor, meek, inoffensive Matabele.

The Kafirs upon whom we fired were, of course, caught red-handed, driving off a herd of cattle, every animal in which had been taken from a white man, and we afterwards learnt that they were the very men who had stopped Mr. Meikle's waggon two days before on the Insiza road (some eight or ten miles distant), murdered the colonial boys in charge of it, and assegaied the sixteen donkeys harnessed to it.

For breaking out into rebellion against the white man's rule, and for taking all the cattle in the country, I should have borne them no great animosity, especially as the great majority of these cattle had once belonged to their king or to them personally. Being a representative of the race that had conquered them, I should, of course, have lent the services of my rifle to help to quell the rebellion no matter what form it had taken; but had it not been accompanied by the cruel murders of white women and children, I should not have been animated by the same vengeful feelings as now possessed me, as well as every other white man in Matabeleland.

"But," the kind-hearted, untravelled humanitarian may say, "such incidents are the necessary accompaniments of a native rebellion against Europeans, and ought not therefore to excite any greater surprise or indignation in your colonist than they do in myself; and, moreover, given that you admit that, looking at things from their point of view, the Matabele were justified in rebelling against the white man's rule, go further and acknowledge that the white men were wrong in ever attempting the colonisation of any of the territories between the Limpopo and the Zambesi, since it was the occupation of Mashunaland in 1890 that led to the various disagreements between Lo Bengula and the Chartered Company which culminated in the invasion and conquest of Matabeleland in 1893."

To this proposition I would answer that the whole question of the colonisation by Europeans of countries previously inhabited by savage tribes must be looked upon from a broad point of view, and be judged by its final results as compared with the primitive conditions it has superseded. Two hundred years ago, the Eastern States of North America were inhabited by savage tribes who, by incessant internecine war and the practice of many abominable customs, constantly deluged the whole land with blood. Now the noble red man has disappeared from those territories—has been exterminated by the more intelligent white man—and in place of a cruel, hopeless savagery there has arisen a civilisation whose ideals are surely higher than those of the displaced barbarism. In like manner, before Van Kiebek landed at the Cape of Good Hope, the whole of South Africa was in the hands of savages, a people, be it noted, who were not living in Arcadian simplicity, a peaceful happy race amongst whom crime and misery were unknown quantities, but on the contrary, who were a prey to cruel superstitions, involving a constant sacrifice of innocent life, and who were, moreover, continually exposed to all the horrors of intertribal wars. Now an orderly civilisation has been established over a large area of this once completely savage country, and no one but an ignorant fanatic would, I think, assert that its present condition is not preferable from a humanitarian point of view to its former barbarism. Well, the present state of Matabeleland is one of transition. Its past history—and this fact ought not to be ignored by the impartial critic of what is happening there to-day—has been one of ceaseless cruelty and bloodshed. But in time a civilisation will have been built up in that blood-stained land, as orderly and humane as that which has been established—in place of a parallel barbarism—in the older States of South Africa.

Yet, just as in the establishment of the white man's supremacy in the Cape Colony, the aboriginal black races have either been displaced or reduced to a state of submission to the white man's rule at the cost of much blood and injustice to the black man, so also will it be in Matabeleland, and so must it ever be in any country where the European comes into contact with native races, and where at the same time the climate is such that the more highly organised and intelligent race can live and thrive, as it can do in Matabeleland; whilst the presence of valuable minerals or anything else that excites the greed of the stronger race will naturally hasten the process. Therefore Matabeleland is doomed by what seems a law of nature to be ruled by the white man, and the black man must go, or conform to the white man's laws, or die in resisting them. It seems a hard and cruel fate for the black man, but it is a destiny which the broadest philanthropy cannot avert, whilst the British colonist is but the irresponsible atom employed in carrying out a preordained law—the law which has ruled upon this planet ever since, in the far-off misty depths of time, organic life was first evolved upon the earth—the inexorable law which Darwin has aptly termed the "Survival of the Fittest."

Now there may be those who maintain that the aboriginal savagery of the Red Indians in the Eastern States of North America, or of the Kafirs in the Cape Colony, was a preferable state of things to the imperfect civilisations which have superseded them. To such I have no reply. "Chacun à son goût." Only I would ask them to endeavour to make themselves as well acquainted as possible with the subject under discussion, either by actual travel or by reading, and I would beg them not to accept too readily the assertions constantly made without any regard to truth or honesty by the newspaper opponents of British colonisation, which are broadly to the effect that no savagery exists in Africa except that practised on the blacks by Europeans.

CHAPTER IX

Return to Essexvale—Cattle left at Essexvale in charge of the natives—Essexvale burnt down by Matabele and all the cattle carried off—Start for Jackson's station—Desertion of the native police—The Makalaka—False rumours—Start for Spiro's stores—Colonial boys report the district quiet—Decide to return to Bulawayo through the Matopo Hills.

When on the afternoon of Thursday, 26th March, we got back to my homestead with the recaptured cattle, both men and horses were tired out, as the heat had been intense, and the former had had no food since early dawn. However, the cart carrying provisions having arrived, the men were soon able to get a good meal, whilst the horses were turned into a twenty-five acre patch of maize, which, although it had been sadly destroyed as a crop by the locusts, still afforded an abundance of sweet succulent food for stock. In order to allow the horses time to recover from the effects of their hard day's work in the hills, I resolved to let them feed and rest until the cool of the afternoon of the following day, and then make a night march over to Mr. Jackson's police station at Makupikupeni, where I hoped to be able to get some news as to the whereabouts of Colonel Spreckley's patrol, with which I was anxious to effect a junction. I should have sent the recaptured cattle at once in to Bulawayo, had it not been for the rinderpest scourge which would have rendered such a course worse than useless, since every one of them would have died within a week. The only other plan open to me was to commit them to the care of the natives living immediately round my homestead, who, at this time at any rate, did not seem at all inclined to take part in the rebellion.

As there were now at least 500 head of cattle collected together in a small area, I fully recognised the danger there would be lest so rich a bait should attract a Matabele raiding party as soon as it became known that there was no one left to defend them. However, no other course was open to me, so the cattle were left on the off chance that they would not fall into the hands of the rebels.

Some ten days later the not unexpected came to pass. Inxnozan, an old Matabele warrior, whom I knew well, and whose manly independent bearing I had always admired, descended upon my homestead with a following of some 300 men, burnt down my house and stables and all adjoining storehouses and huts, and either carried off or destroyed everything they contained. Then they collected all the cattle in the neighbourhood, all of which belonged to my Company by right of purchase or capture, and went off. All the Kafirs who up to this time had been living quietly in their kraals looking after my cattle went away into the hills after Inxnozan's visit, and as they have never sent me any message, I do not know whether they have joined the rebels or have only taken refuge in the hills until the war is over. At any rate I shall do all I can to protect them, as they must have been placed in a very difficult position—fearing the enmity of the rebels on the one hand, if they refused to join them, and the vengeance of the white man on the other for suspected complicity in some of the outrages that had taken place in the district if they remained at their kraals.

On the Friday afternoon we made a start for Mr. Jackson's police station, passing the remains of the once large military kraal of Intuntini, and still the largest in the district. Such as it was, we set it alight, and as it was situated on the shoulder of a hill the burning huts must have been plainly visible to the people who had so lately deserted it, from almost any point in the Malungwani range, to which they had probably retired.

Shortly after midnight we reached the police station, which we found entirely deserted, though all the huts were still standing. A closer inspection showed that these huts had been very hastily evacuated by the native police to whom they had belonged, as they were still full of their personal effects, such as coats, hats, blankets, etc. In one of the huts we found a broken Winchester rifle, and in one of the coats a purse containing a few shillings in silver, about the last thing a Kafir would willingly leave behind him. We afterwards learned that Colonel Spreckley's patrol had reached the police station—which was situated on the main road to the Filibusi district from Bulawayo—late at night on the previous Wednesday. At this time there were seven native policemen with a sergeant in the huts. These men, hearing the horsemen approaching, immediately fled, taking nothing with them but their arms and ammunition, and went over to the rebels. That they must have previously made up their minds to desert, is, I think, certain, otherwise there was no reason why they should have left the station of which they were in charge on the approach of the white men. In one of the huts we found several bags of maize, and so were able to give all our horses a good feed.

On the following morning I paid a visit to several kraals in the neighbourhood, the inhabitants of which were in charge of cattle belonging to my Company. These people I found in their villages. They were subsequently attacked by the rebels, who carried off a large proportion of the cattle in their charge. They however escaped with the remainder, which they brought in to Bulawayo, where they very soon all died of rinderpest. These Kafirs are amongst the few who out of the entire nation have stood by the Government and rendered active assistance to the white men during the present crisis. They are Matabele Maholi of Makalaka descent, as I think are all the "friendlies," with the exception of a small leavening amongst them of "Abenzantsi" or Matabele of pure Zulu blood, and I think I am correct in stating that there is not a single Maholi of any other descent who is not in arms with the pure-blooded Matabele against the Government.

The Makalaka proper, a numerous people living on the western border of Matabeleland, have—except possibly with some individual exceptions—held themselves resolutely aloof from any participation in the present rebellion, just as they took no part in the war of 1893. They are an industrious, peaceable people, and have found the rule of the Chartered Company if not perfect, at any rate a vast improvement on the oppressive tyranny under which they lived in the good old days of Lo Bengula.

At Makupikupeni we heard a rumour, which happily proved to be entirely false, though at the time it disturbed my peace of mind very much, to the effect that the ninety native police who had accompanied Mr. Jackson and his companions into the Matopo Hills, on the trail of Umzobo and Umfondisi, had mutinied and murdered their officers, Mr. Jackson having been bound to a tree, and then having had his throat cut. We also heard that Colonel Spreckley had buried the white men who were murdered at Edkins' store, and then crossed over to the Tuli road and returned to Bulawayo.

This being so, I determined to make for Spiro's store, situated just on the edge of the Matopo Hills on the main road from Bulawayo to the Transvaal, and about twelve miles distant from the Makupikupeni police station, as I was in hopes of there hearing something authentic concerning the fate of my friend Mr. Jackson and his companions. I knew the way across country to the store well enough myself, but had I not done so, I had a good guide with me in the person of one Mazhlabanyan, a Matabele—not of Zulu blood, but of Makalaka descent—who had joined me that morning. This man had known me in former years when he was an elephant-hunter in the employ of the late Mr. Thomas, and on hearing that I was residing on Essexvale, had come with his wives and family to live near me, and I had given him a nice little herd of cattle—amongst them some good milk cows—to look after for our Company, for which he was very grateful. He fought in the war of 1893 against the whites and was with the Imbezu at the battle of the Impembisi, on which occasion he was the recipient of a bullet through the shoulder.

During the present troubles, however, he has stood by the Government, and joined the rest of the "friendlies." Shortly before sundown we reached Spiro's store, which we found had been deserted by its occupants not many hours prior to our arrival. The colonial boys in charge of the coach mules were still at their post, and reported everything quiet in the district as far as they knew, nor could they give any information concerning Mr. Jackson.

Since mid-day the weather, which had been intensely dry and hot for some time past, had changed suddenly, the sky became overcast and a light rain commenced to fall. Luckily, however, there proved to be sufficient accommodation in the out-buildings and beneath the broad verandah which surrounded the store for all my men, and we were thus spared the disagreeable necessity of sleeping out on the wet ground and beneath a rainy sky.

The next day—Sunday, 29th March—broke fine, but cool and cloudy, a very pleasant change after the excessive heat we had recently experienced. The question now arose as to whether any other course was open to me but to return at once to Bulawayo by the Tuli road. To my left lay the rugged mass of broken granite hills called the Matopos, within whose recesses it was believed by many people at Bulawayo that the Matabele had already massed in large numbers. Now I fully realised that had this been the case, it would have been madness to take so small a force as that at my disposal into so difficult a country. As, however, I had very good reasons for believing that as yet no large number of Matabele had assembled in this part of the country, I was anxious to make a reconnaissance through them in order to see what the difficulties of the country really were.

Before starting I paraded my men and told them what I wished to do, stating that in my opinion, although we should have some very rough country to get over, and should have to walk and lead our horses most of the way, we should not meet any large force of hostile Kafirs, or indeed be likely to fire a shot at all unless we met some of the revolted police who had murdered Jackson—for at this time I believed that he had really been murdered. However, I told them that I did not wish any one to go with me who did not care to do so, which was unnecessary, as no one was willing to be left behind.

CHAPTER X

Through the Matopo Hills—Skirmish with the rebels—A narrow escape—Capture a band of cattle—Retire with wounded—Fidelity of Mazhlabanyan—Reach Dawson's store—Arrive at Bulawayo.

It was about seven o'clock when we entered the first gorge leading in amongst the foothills, which were here well wooded. Mr. Blöcker, who is an excellent walker and a very good shot, I told off to scout on foot a short distance ahead of us, whilst Messrs. Simms and Fletcher, two Cape Colonists and both steady, reliable men, scouted on the left and right flanks respectively.

After we had proceeded for about an hour through very broken and, for the most part, thickly wooded country, we emerged upon a huge bare granite rock. Here Mr. Simms rejoined us and reported that as he was scouting on the left flank, upon emerging from a patch of bush, he had come suddenly upon four Kafirs, one carrying a gun whilst the rest were armed with assegais. These men quickly moved out of sight, fearing to attack Simms lest there should prove to be more white men behind him, whilst he on his side did not care to fire on them, as he did not know how many more natives there might be close at hand.

By permission of the Proprietors of "Black and White."
View in the Matopo Hills.

Beyond us there now lay a large open grassy valley enclosed on every side by rocky granite hills. In its broadest part this valley was over a mile in width, but at its top end it gradually narrowed into a rocky gorge, which apparently led on to some higher ground beyond the farthest hills we could see. Much of the valley was under cultivation, and a splendid crop of corn was standing, still unreaped, in the fields. Mazhlabanyan told me that these cornfields belonged to Banyubi, a tribe allied to the Makalakas, and who are the aboriginal inhabitants of the district. After carefully looking over the country on ahead, I decided to keep straight up the valley, and make my way to the higher ground by the gorge I have spoken of. When we were half-way through the open valley, Kafirs began to shout to one another amongst the hills to our left, and presently we saw some, but they were a long way off and we could not make out whether they were armed or not. I now gave orders that any Kafir who approached us must be fired on if he was armed, but not unless.

We had just entered the neck of the gorge and were finding a good deal of difficulty in getting our horses through a stream that was too deep to ford and could only be crossed on flat slippery stones, when some shots were fired at us from a rocky kopje about 300 yards to our left rear. However, as the Kafirs who had fired were hidden behind rocks, we could see nothing of them, nor did we catch a glimpse of the enemy until we had all crossed the stream. We then saw a few natives amongst the wooded hills directly ahead of us, and at once commenced a skirmishing fight with them. They were in no great numbers, and they retired before us without firing many shots or giving us much of a chance at them. In this way we had advanced slowly but steadily in extended order for about 300 yards through rocks and bush when we suddenly came upon a kraal filled with cattle, at the foot of a mass of bare castellated rocks. From these rocks we drove the enemy, without any loss on our side, though many of us were fired at at very close quarters, but, as has so often been remarked, Kafirs always make wretched shooting if at all hustled. Personally I had one little piece of luck. A Kafir had fired either at me or Mr. Blöcker—we were close together—from behind a buttress of rock, and as I knew that his rifle was therefore empty, and hoped he had been alone, I ran up the flat slope of rock on which I was standing, thinking to get a good shot at him round the corner of the rock. When I got there, however, I did not see the man who had fired at me, but found another Kafir waiting for me with his rifle at his shoulder. He was on a lower level than the rock slab on which I was standing, and must have heard me approaching as he was evidently on the lookout for me to show myself. I was carrying my own rifle at the ready, but had to get it up to my shoulder before I could fire. There was no time to get a sight, so, looking at him, I raised my rifle as quickly as possible and fired, and at almost the same moment he fired at me. The result was mutually disappointing, as we both missed our mark. How I managed to make so bad a shot I don't know, as the Kafir was not more than fifteen yards from me. However, had I waited for the few seconds necessary to get the sight on him, he might very likely have shot me first, whilst my quick snap-shot very probably disconcerted him and made him miss. Immediately he had fired, he dodged behind a rock, and I did not get another chance at him.

We now took possession of the rocks above the cattle kraal, and got a few good shots at a lot of Kafirs running away amongst the trees to the left. Having placed several men as sentinels on the highest boulders, I went down to look at the cattle, considering it very bad luck having ever come across them, as I did not like to leave them and then continue my reconnaissance, nor did I think it would be possible to drive them out of the hills to the Tuli road without any Kafirs on foot to help. I first thought of shooting the lot, but as there were over a hundred, could not spare the ammunition that would have been required for the purpose. I therefore determined to try and drive them out of the hills and take them to Bulawayo.

With a great deal of trouble we got them down to the broken ground above the stream, but farther than this we could not drive them, as they scattered in all directions, but would not go down the rocks. Over and over again we rounded them up and tried to force them to go the way we wanted them to take, but without success, and I was once more thinking of shooting them all when some shots were fired at us from the broken ground to our left front. By a mistake the sentinels had left their posts on the top of the rocks and rejoined the rest of our party, and the Kafirs, now heavily reinforced, had got back to positions amongst the wooded cliffs above us without being observed. I at once sent Mr. Blöcker and a few men who were good shots to take up a position beyond the stream, from which they could check the enemy's fire, whilst the rest of the men were crossing. I myself with Mr. Claude Grenfell and a few more men protected the rear. However, before we got down into the open ground, we had four horses killed and two men wounded, Mr. Stracey and Mr. Munzberg. How it was that more men were not hit, I don't know, as the bullets were pinging about pretty freely. Everyone, I think, although I spread the men out as much as possible, had some narrow shaves, and my Sergeant-Major got two bullets through his gaiter, and one through his trousers between his legs, yet he was not touched.

Not knowing how many Kafirs we had to deal with, nor whether some of them would not try to get round in front of us, I now sent Mr. Blöcker on with half the troop and the wounded men to take up a position on ahead, on our line of retreat; whilst Mr. Grenfell and I with the rest of the men remained behind to keep the Kafirs from coming out of the broken ground behind us. However, having lost a few of their number, they showed no disposition to leave the shelter of the rocks, so we retired slowly and off-saddled on an open spot just beyond the hills.

The Kafirs with whom we had been engaged had been for the most part, I think, members of the native police force, as I had seen several myself who were wearing the white knickerbocker trousers of the police uniform. They all, too, seemed to be young men, and were shooting with Winchester rifles; and did not shoot badly either—that is for natives. It was most fortunate that neither of the two men hit was mortally wounded, as if they had been we should have found it very difficult to carry them. Mr. Stracey was shot through the knee, though fortunately the bone was not much shattered, so he not only did not lose his leg, but will eventually, the doctor promises, have as good a limb as ever. Mr. Munzberg, a young German, was hit in the small of the back, and had a wonderful escape, as the bullet struck a kind of chain belt he was wearing round his waist. It went through this, but being much flattened out lost its velocity, and only inflicted a deep flesh wound.

In some ways the Kafirs may be said to have had the best of this encounter, as we left them in possession of the field. However, whilst we lost no men, we left a few of our opponents ready for burial, and our retreat, although it was a retreat, was of the slowest and most orderly character. Our horses were simply a nuisance to us amongst the granite boulders, and we could have done much better without them. Indeed, I saw enough this day to assure me that all subsequent fighting in the Matopos would have to be done on foot.

During the firing old Mazhlabanyan had behaved with great coolness. At first, when we were driving the Kafirs from the rocks above the cattle kraal, he had remained below holding my horse, but after recrossing the stream, I told him to go on with Mr. Blöcker. Finding that I did not immediately follow, the old fellow seems to have got very nervous about my safety, as after asking Mr. Blöcker a great many times where his master was, he came back to look. However, old Jack will be comfortably settled on my Company's land when these troublous times are over, and when the rinderpest has died out, and fresh cattle can be brought into the country, his fidelity will not be forgotten. After an hour's rest we again saddled up, and made straight across country to Dawson's store, at the Umzingwani ford on the Tuli road, twenty-five miles from Bulawayo. Here we were able to obtain a stretcher on which to carry Mr. Stracey, Mr. Munzberg still being able to ride.

As there could now be no doubt that there were hostile Kafirs at no great distance, I advised Mr. Boyce, who was in charge of the store, to lock up everything and accompany us to Bulawayo, which he did.

We started at sundown, all of us taking it in turns to carry our wounded comrade, and reached the post station, twelve miles from Bulawayo, soon after midnight. Here we passed a wretched night in the mule stable, as we were all wet through, a soaking rain having come on about an hour previously, which lasted for the rest of the night.

I sent two men on at once to Bulawayo, asking that a cart and a doctor might be sent out for the wounded men in the morning. The cart was sent, but no doctor could be spared. However, by mid-day we reached Bulawayo, and the wounded men were soon made comfortable in the hospital.

CHAPTER XI

O'Connor's wonderful escape—The importance of the Native Question in Rhodesia.

In the course of conversation, during our journey to Bulawayo, Mr. Boyce, the manager of Mr. Dawson's store on the Umzingwani, told me that, on the night before our arrival there, a miner named O'Connor had reached the store in a dreadful condition, having been terribly beaten about the head by Kafirs, from whose tender mercies he had escaped on 24th March. This poor fellow had been sent in to the hospital on the morning of the day on which we readied the store, and as his escape was a most remarkable one, I will tell it as I heard it from the man's own lips.

O'Connor, it appears, was engaged in mining work together with two other miners named Ivers and Ottens, on a reef called the Celtic, situated some mile and a half from Edkins' store.

On the morning of Tuesday, 24th March, after their early cup of coffee, the three miners were discussing matters in general, and more particularly the fact that during the last few days thirteen of their boys had run away for no apparent reason, unless it were that they had gone off to take part in a beer drink at the neighbouring kraal of Gorshlwayo. About seven o'clock they had an early breakfast, and shortly afterwards Ottens went off to see the Native Commissioner, Mr. Bentley, who was living at the police camp not far from Edkins' store. Then Ivers went away to see how the work was progressing at one of the shafts on the Celtic reef, leaving O'Connor alone. He, after kneading a loaf of bread and placing it in the sun to rise, went into his hut, and sitting down on his bed, threw his hat on a chair beside him, and lit his pipe. He had been sitting smoking some few minutes, when he was suddenly startled by the loud and angry barking of Ottens' dogs, Captain and Snowball, just outside his hut. "The angry condition of the dogs was so unusual," said O'Connor, "that I give you my word I thought there was a lion in the camp." Jumping up, he ran to the door of the hut, only to find a Kafir standing just on one side of the entrance with a musket pointed towards him in his hands. "For an instant," said O'Connor, "I was paralysed, and retreated back into the hut, the door of which was immediately afterwards blocked by a crowd of Kafirs all armed with heavy knob-kerries. Then, seeing that they had come to murder me, I became mad, and rushed in amongst them. I succeeded in wresting two knob-kerries from them, and with these I fought desperately, always making my way towards the mouth of No. 1 shaft, which was something over 100 yards from my hut. I was repeatedly knocked down, and heavy blows were continually rained upon me, but, now on my knees, again on my feet, and sometimes rolling, I got to the mouth of the shaft with the remains of two broken sticks in my hands."

During this desperate struggle, O'Connor remembers hearing the Kafirs, who were attacking him with sticks, continually calling to the one with the gun, u injani wena ai posa—"why don't you shoot?"—and says that this man actually fired at him more than once, holding his gun at his hip, and always missing him. Just as he fell at the mouth of the shaft he was fired at for the last time. Then O'Connor rolled down the shaft "like a football," as he expressed it.

This was what is called an "incline shaft," going down for 136 feet at an angle of about 45 degrees. From the bottom of the incline shaft a tunnel had been driven into the reef 170 feet in length. Arrived at the bottom of the shaft, the hapless miner was at once attacked by his own boys—ten in number—who had been working in the tunnel. These devils fell upon him with hammers and drills, O'Connor defending himself as best he could with stones, and finally driving them all, as he thought, up the shaft.

After the terrible punishment he had received, which included thirteen scalp wounds—one of which had broken the outer table of the skull above the left temple—heavy blows with a hammer on each cheek-bone, and bruises and contusions all over the body, it may be wondered how O'Connor managed to retain his senses. But the fact remains that he did, and, thanks to a good old Irish head, still lives to tell the tale of the sufferings he endured, which, however, were not yet over by any means.

Believing that all his assailants had left the mine, he bethought him of a place of refuge, at a spot some half-way up the incline, where a vertical shaft had been cut into it. Here the shafts cut through some old workings, which formed a recess, into which O'Connor crept. Just as he was about to avail himself of this hiding-place, a Kafir, who, during the last fight, must have run back down the tunnel, rushed past him up the incline shaft. This man must have told the rest of the would-be murderers where the white man was hiding, and they did not leave him long in peace, for shortly afterwards several Kafirs came down the shaft, some with lighted candles, and four with guns. Two of these men carried muzzle-loaders, whilst the other two were armed with breech-loading rifles. The latter O'Connor recognised by the light of the candles as "boys" who had been working for himself and his companions. Their names were "Candle," and "Makupeni," and they had been in the employ of the miners for nearly eighteen months, and as they were both good shots they had often been sent out with the only two rifles in camp to shoot game for the sake of the meat. Latterly, so implicit was the trust reposed in them by their masters that the rifles had been left entirely in their possession, but now they were among the first to volunteer their services to put an end to their employer in his sore extremity.

When O'Connor recognised his own trusted servants amongst his assailants he spoke to them, asking what harm he had done them, and why they wished to kill him, to which they answered, "We're going to kill you and all the white men in the country." However, although their would-be victim could see them, they could not see him, and seemed afraid to advance their heads into the recess where he lay—as they would have had to do in order to shoot him—for fear probably of being hit with a lump of quartz, which, even though it had been gold-bearing, might have made a nasty mark on their skulls.

During this time the Kafirs at the top of the shaft kept continually calling out to those below with the guns, "What are you doing; why don't you shoot the white man?" but still the cowardly murderers lacked the courage to creep into the recess and finish their victim. Suddenly there was a commotion at the top of the mine, and shouts of "Amakiwa, Amakiwa"—"white men, white men,"—and the four men with guns, together with those who were holding the candles, ran up the shaft, leaving the white man once more alone.

This cry of "white men" must have been a false alarm, as all the Europeans at the neighbouring police station and at Edkins' store were murdered without offering any resistance, having been taken completely by surprise. However, it gave O'Connor a few minutes' respite and enabled him to gain the shelter of another hiding-place where he thought he would be more secure from the guns of his enemies. This was a spot about half-way down the tunnel, where some loose ground had fallen in and rendered a certain amount of timbering necessary. Here, behind some boulders, O'Connor took refuge, but his enemies having recovered from their alarm and again come down the mine with candles, soon found out, probably by his tracks, where he had hidden. And now the fruits of education were brought to the aid of native devilry to compass his destruction, for some of his own boys threw two charges of dynamite with short fuses into his hiding-place. Then the Kafirs all ran out of the mine, nor did they return, thinking probably that they had blown the white man to pieces. Having only seen the wonderful effects of dynamite when employed for blasting rocks and exploded at the bottom of a hole drilled deep into solid stone, they did not know that a loose charge exploded on the surface of the ground would have comparatively little effect. However O'Connor, except that he was nearly suffocated by the fumes of the dynamite, remained uninjured in the shelter of the boulder behind which he lay. Shortly after the explosions he thinks he must have become unconscious and remained so for many hours. When he came to himself, hearing no sound that betokened the proximity of his enemies, he crept from his hiding-place, and made his way to the mouth of the tunnel, and then ascended the incline shaft.

It was a bright moonlight night, and from the position of the moon he judged that it was about eight o'clock. A glance showed him that his camp had been destroyed and all the huts burnt down, but he could see no Kafirs about. He then made his way to an old mining camp about one and a half miles distant, called Nelson's Camp, from which he could look down on the police station, which he still hoped to find in the possession of white men. In the brilliant moonlight he saw the huts still standing; but there was no life or movement perceptible, and no lights or fires burning, and he therefore felt assured that the whites had either been murdered or left the camp. Then he went down to the stream which ran between the police camp and Edkins' store, and as he expressed it "wallowed in it like a pig."

After having quenched his thirst and washed the blood from his wounds he carefully approached Edkins' store, which he found had been burnt down, whilst the smell of murder was in the air, and the deathlike stillness was unbroken by even the bark of a dog. Then, indeed, the unfortunate man recognised to the full all the terrors of his dreadful position. All hope of succour from his immediate neighbours was gone; they had all been killed or forced to flee for their lives, whilst he stood alone amongst a nation of murderers. But his stout Irish heart never quailed, and weakened as he was by loss of blood he set out to the north-west, towards Bulawayo.

Leaving the Matabele kraal of Gorshlwayo as far as possible to his left, he at length reached the Insiza river some four miles from the camp he had left. By this time he was completely exhausted, and lay down in the reeds on the river's edge. Here he remained hidden all that night and the next day. On Wednesday night he again tried to get on towards Bulawayo, but by this time he was becoming more or less light headed, and unable to steer a good course, nor does he know exactly where he wandered. He lay hidden by day, and only moved at night, nor was it until Saturday night at about eleven o'clock, more than 110 hours after he had been attacked by the Kafirs, that he found his way to Mr. Dawson's store on the Umzingwani river.

All this time he had had no food. On approaching the store he found two men standing outside—Messrs. Schultz and Judge—whom he knew well, but who had looked upon him as dead. As he approached them in the moonlight, hatless, his face and head covered with wounds, he thinks they took him for an apparition come to call the white men to avenge his murder, for they fell back as if they had seen a ghost, and he said, "What, don't you know me—Joe O'Connor?" Then as they rushed up and seized him by the hands, he fell down senseless and they carried him to the store. Mr. Judge at once rode in to Bulawayo to try and get a doctor to come out and dress his wounds.

The following morning he was sent on by waggon from the Umzingwani store, and was met half-way by Mr. Lyons, the dispenser at the hospital, who, as no doctor could be spared, had volunteered to go to the wounded man's assistance. On Sunday afternoon he reached Bulawayo, where he lay a long time in hospital. All that medical skill and kindly nursing could do for him was done, and he eventually recovered from the dreadful injuries he had received; but the terrible experiences he has passed through have turned his hair partially grey, he being a young man of only twenty-six years of age. He has, too, to mourn the loss of his brother and cousin, both of whom were murdered by the Matabele.

O'Connor's Arrival at the Store.
"As he approached them in the moonlight, hatless, his face and head covered with wounds, he thinks they took him for an apparition come to call the white men to avenge his murder."

I was present in Colonel Napier's office, when a Zambesi boy, who had been working for them, gave evidence as to the manner in which they had been killed. He said, "I saw them killed with my eyes; they were killed by their own boys. O'Connor's brother was drawn up from the bottom of the shaft in which he was working by two men, who held the windlass still when his head came above the level of the ground, whilst others beat his brains out with knob-kerries; the other man—O'Connor's cousin—was stabbed to death with assegais." I have made many inquiries concerning O'Connor, and find that he bears the character of being a hard-working man, whilst he was known to the Native Commissioner of his district as one who always got on well with the natives.

From some remarks which he made, however, subsequent to the relation of his trying experiences, I judge that he has now abandoned any latent intention he may ever have had of becoming a member of the Aborigines Protection Society, nor do I think that the funds of that admirable institution are likely to be added to by any donation from Mr. O'Connor.

The worst feature in the foregoing history of the attempted murder of O'Connor and the actual murder and mutilation of his two companions, Messrs. Ivers and Ottens, is the participation in the crimes by two trusted servants who had been in the employ of the murdered men for so long a time as eighteen months, since the very fact that these boys had worked for so many months for the same white men shows conclusively that they must have been kindly treated by them, for no Kafir will remain long in the service of a master who ill-treats him.

Now I am not so unreasonable as to think that the natures of the Matabele natives ought to be judged of by the unamiable qualities shown by two individuals; indeed I know that as a set-off, even during the present rebellion, the lives of some few white men have been saved by the fidelity of natives in their employ. But unfortunately the evil deeds get more noised abroad, and they add to the bitterness of the exasperation felt by the whites against the blacks; for it seems inevitable that during an insurrection such as the present, the average nature of the native will be judged of by the average European on the spot, according to the worst atrocities that have been committed, and such an instance of treachery as I have related will harden the kindest heart and produce a feeling of distrust in the whole race that can never be eradicated from the mind. In many, too—and these by no means the most brutal or worst educated in the community—such acts, coupled with the indiscriminate murder of women and children, produce a conviction that beings who are capable of such deeds, who can lick your hand and fawn upon you for eighteen months and then one day turn and murder you, and afterwards perhaps mutilate your senseless corpse, are not men and brothers, but monsters in human shape, that ought to be shot down mercilessly like wild dogs or hyaenas, until they are reduced to a state of abject submission to the white man's rule.

In time, however, let us hope that the cruel deeds of the last few months will be forgotten, and the fierce passions they have evoked on both sides gradually smoulder out and die from the lack of fresh fuel. Henceforth it will, I trust, be recognised by the authorities that the native question in Rhodesia is one of the very first importance, and that it is also one which demands the most careful handling in order to ensure the future peace and prosperity of the country. When this rebellion is quelled and the natives have once more submitted themselves to the white man's rule, they must know exactly the terms on which their submission has been accepted; and they must also understand precisely what will be required of them in the shape of hut-tax, labour, etc. Then if they are treated kindly and justly, as well as firmly, they ought not to have any valid reason for again rebelling against the government of their white conquerors; but lest they should ever be inclined to make such an attempt without any valid reason, they must now be so thoroughly and completely disarmed as to render any such action futile.

CHAPTER XII

Laager formed at Bulawayo—Matabele scare—Colonel Spreckley's valuable services—Meet Mr. Jackson—Disarmament of native police—Account of the insurrection—Mr. Grey's narrow escape—Returns to Bulawayo to give warning of the rising—Fortunate escape of a hunting party—Wholesale murders—Grey's Scouts.

THE LAAGER IN THE MARKET SQUARE, BULAWAYO, APRIL 1896.

On our return to Bulawayo, we found that a very strong laager had been formed in the large square round the Market Buildings. Within this laager the whole population of the town, with few exceptions, slept every night; the women and children within the buildings, whilst the men manned the waggons in readiness to resist any sudden attack.

The Bulawayo laager was probably the strongest ever constructed in South Africa, and the whole Matabele nation, I think, would never have taken it by assault. But if 2000 of them, or even a smaller number, had made a night attack upon the town before the laager had been formed, I think it more than probable that the entire white population would have been massacred. It appears that there was a terrible scare on the very night on which I had left the town for Essexvale, viz. Wednesday, 25th March. This scare was absolutely groundless and seems to have been caused by a drunken man galloping about calling out "The Matabele are here; the Matabele are here."

My wife was resting in Mrs. Spreckley's house at the time, being much fatigued by her long ride in the hot sun from Essexvale. However, she and her kind hostess, as well as all the other ladies living on the suburban stands, were hurried over to the new Club-house, nearly a mile distant, in the centre of the town. Here the large number of women and children in Bulawayo, many of them hastily summoned from their beds, and most of them terribly frightened, passed a miserable night all huddled up together, but getting neither rest nor sleep, as they were constantly kept on the qui vive by fresh rumours, all equally groundless, as happily at this time there was no force of hostile natives within twenty miles of Bulawayo. On the following day the laager was formed, and by the time I got back to town Colonel Spreckley and Mr. Scott (the town major) had, after an immense amount of hard work, got everything into good order.

These two gentlemen deserve the utmost credit not only for getting the laager into good order, but also for keeping it in that condition for the next two months. Major Scott was indefatigable in looking after the sanitary arrangements, whilst Colonel Spreckley, by his genial good nature, backed by great common sense and strength of character, kept all the various human elements shut up in that confined space not only in good order but in good humour. Nobody in Bulawayo, I think, could have performed the very difficult duties required from the chief officer in charge of the laager so ably as Colonel Spreckley during the first two months of the insurrection, and his conduct was all the more admirable because he was carrying out a very arduous and harassing duty against his inclination, or rather burning desire, to be out of town at the head of a patrol doing active work against the insurgents.

COLONEL J. A. SPRECKLEY.

Soon after my arrival in town, I was delighted to meet the Native Commissioner of my district, Mr. Jackson, whom I had never thought to see again. He and his white companions had received warning of the rising from his sub-inspector, and were also cautioned lest there should be a plot on foot for their murder by the native police. At this time, however, the ninety men they had with them, each of whom was armed with a Winchester rifle and seventy rounds of ammunition, did not know that the rebellion had commenced, and they managed to bring them all in to Bulawayo without any trouble, where they were at once disarmed.

Now by this time it had become evident that the insurrection had become general throughout the length and breadth of Matabeleland, and I will give a brief account of what had happened so far as is known.

I have already related that Mr. Cumming and another man brought the first news of the murders of white men in the Insiza district to Bulawayo. On reaching Lee's store, twenty-four miles from the town, they found that their horses were completely knocked up, and they could thus only have proceeded on foot, had not Mr. Claude Grenfell just happened to be passing the store with a cart and horses on his way from Gwelo to Bulawayo.

On hearing the alarming news Mr. Grenfell took Mr. Cumming on with him at once to headquarters, his companion, Mr. Edmunds, giving up his seat to him, and walking. Before reaching Lee's store, Mr. Grenfell had met Mr. George Grey, travelling alone in a Cape cart with a coloured boy, on his way to inspect some of his mining properties near the Tchangani river, and when the news of the murders in the Insiza district became known, much anxiety was naturally felt concerning Mr. Grey's safety, as well as that of all other Europeans who were living at a distance from Bulawayo in mining camps or on lonely farms.

Early on Thursday morning, however, Mr. Grey returned to town, having escaped death by the merest chance, as he must only just have escaped falling into the hands of more than one party of murderers.