The withdrawal of the armed forces from the country for the Transvaal raid gave them their opportunity.
The Matabele have no regular religion beyond a reverence for the souls of ancestors, and for an oracle–deity adopted from the Mashonas, whom they call the M’limo. The M’limo is an invisible god, who has three priests about the country, one in the north–east beyond Inyati, one in the south in the Matopo hills, and one south–west near Mangwe. The pure–bred Matabele, as well as the aboriginal natives, the Makalakas and the Maholis, all go to consult these priests of the M’limo as oracles, and place a blind belief in all they say. In addition to the three high priests, there are four warrior–chiefs of the M’limo. These men working in with the priests brought about the outbreak of rebellion. Three of these warrior–indunas are Matabele, the fourth—Uwini—heads the Makalakas.
Choosing well their opportunity, when, as they thought, all the white fighting men had left the country, and none but women, children, and dotards were left behind, they spread the message through the land—with that speed which only native messages can take. They called on all the tribes to arm themselves, and to assemble on a certain moon round three sides of Buluwayo. The town was to be rushed in the night, and the whites to be slaughtered without quarter to any. The road to Mangwe was to be left conspicuously open, so that any whites who might escape their notice would take the hint and fly from the country. Buluwayo was not to be destroyed, as it would serve again as the royal kraal for Lobengula, who had returned to life again. After the slaughter at Buluwayo the army would break up into smaller impis, and go about the land to kill all outlying farmers and to loot their farms. The M’limo further promised that the white men’s bullets would, in their flight, be changed to water, and their cannon–shells would similarly turn into eggs.
The plan was not a bad one, but in one important particular it miscarried, and so lost to the Kafirs the very good chance they had of wiping out the white men.
About 24th March the outbreak began—but prematurely. In their eagerness for blood some bands of rebels, acting contrary to their instructions, worked their wicked will on outlying settlers and prospectors before attempting the night surprise on Buluwayo. That was their mistake—it gave the alarm to the whites in town and enabled them to prepare their defence in good time.
Among the Insiza Hills, some thirty–five miles east of Buluwayo, on that fateful day, seven white men with their coloured servants were butchered at Edkins Store, and at the Nellie Reef Maddocks a miner was murdered, while a few miles farther on a peaceable farming family were brutally done to death. The white–haired old grandfather, the mother, two grown–up girls, a boy, and three little yellow–haired children—all bashed and mangled.
At another place a bride, just out from the peace and civilisation of home, had her happy dream suddenly wrecked by a rush of savages into the farmstead. Her husband was struck down, but she managed to escape to the next farm, some four miles distant—only to find its occupants already fled. Ignorant of the country and of the people, the poor girl gathered together what tinned food she could carry, and, making her way to the river, she made herself a grassy nest among the rocks, where she hoped to escape detection. For a few terrible days and nights she existed there, till the Matabele came upon her tracks, and shortly stoned her to death—another added to their tale of over a hundred and fifty victims within a week.
The only comfort is that their gruesome fate saved many other lives, for the news spread fast, and as more reports from every side came in of murdered whites, those in Buluwayo realised that the rising was a general one, and merciless. They promptly took their measures for defence.
The laagers were formed, as I have described, to accommodate the seven hundred women and children in the place; while the eight hundred men were organised in troops, and armed and horsed in an incredibly short space of time.