By order of the officer commanding, a trooper named Moodie put his pistol to the prisoner’s head and blew out his brains. A court-martial sat upon this officer in the course of the following year, and he was acquitted of all blame. The defence was that the man was so seriously injured that it was an act of humanity to put an end to him, and that the officer dared not trust him in the hands of the natives belonging to the English force, who were exasperated by the long defence he had made. But the prisoner was not mortally nor even dangerously wounded. He was able to walk and to speak, and had no wound upon him which need necessarily have caused his death. And as to the savage temper of the native force, there was no reason why the prisoner should be left in their charge at all, as there was a considerable white force present at the time.[18]
The result of the expedition against the Hlubi tribe was so little satisfactory that those in authority felt themselves obliged to look about for something else to do before taking the troops back to Pietermaritzburg. They found what they wanted ready to their hand. Next to Langalibalele’s location lay that of the well-to-do and quiet little tribe of Putini. “Government” had as yet found no fault with these people, and, secure in their own innocence, they had made no attempt to get out of the way of the force which had come to destroy their neighbours, but remained at home, herded their cattle, and planted their crops as usual. Unfortunately, however, some marriages had taken place between members of the two tribes, and when that of Langalibalele fled, the wives of several of his men took refuge in their fathers’ kraals in the next location. No further proof was required of the complicity of Putini with Langalibalele, or of the rebellious condition of the smaller tribe. Consequently it was at once, as the natives term it, “eaten up,” falling an easy prey owing to its unsuspecting state. The whole tribe—men, women, and children—were taken prisoners and carried down to Pietermaritzburg, their cattle and goods were confiscated, and their homes destroyed. Several of the Putini men were killed, but there was very little resistance, as they were wholly taken by surprise. The colony was charmed with this success, and the spoils of the Putini people were generally looked to to pay some of the expenses of the campaign. Whatever may have been the gain to the Government, by orders of which the cattle (the chief wealth of the tribe) were sold, it was not long shared by the individual colonists who purchased the animals. The pasture in that part of the country from which they had come is of a very different description from any to be found in the environs of Pietermaritzburg, and, in consequence of the change, the captured cattle died off rapidly almost as soon as they changed hands. But this was not all, for they had time, before they died, to spread amongst the original cattle of their new owners two terrible scourges, in the shape of “lung-sickness” and “red-water,” from which the midland districts had long been free. One practical result of the expedition of 1873 seems to be that neither meat, milk, nor butter have ever again been so cheap in the colony as they were before that date, the two latter articles being often unobtainable to this day.
The unhappy prisoners of both tribes were driven down like beasts to Pietermaritzburg, many of the weaker dying from want and exposure on the way. Although summer-time, it happened to be very wet, and therefore cold; our native force had been allowed to strip the unfortunates of all their possessions, even to their blankets and the leather petticoats of the women. The sufferings of these poor creatures—many of them with infants a few days old, or born on the march down—were very great. A scheme was at first laid, by those in authority, for “giving the women and children out” as servants for a term of years—that is to say, for making temporary slaves of them to the white colonists. This additional enormity was vetoed by the home Government, but the fact remains that its perpetration was actually contemplated by those entrusted with the government of the colony, and especially of the natives, and was hailed by the colonists as one of the advantages to accrue to them from the expedition of 1873. Several children were actually given out in the way referred to before the order to the contrary arrived from England, and a considerable time elapsed before they were all recovered by their relatives.
The unhappy women and children of the Langalibalele tribe were mere emaciated skeletons when they reached the various places where they were to live under surveillance. They seemed crushed with misery, utterly ignorant of the cause of their misfortunes, but silent and uncomplaining. Many of the women had lost children—few knew whether their male relatives were yet alive. On being questioned, they knew nothing of Mr. Shepstone, not even his name, which was always supposed to command the love and fear of natives throughout the length and breadth of the land. They did not know what the tribe had done to get into such trouble; they only knew that the soldiers had come, and that they had run away and hidden themselves; that some of them were dead, and the rest were ready to die too and have it all over. A considerable number of these poor creatures were permitted by Government to remain upon the Bishop’s land, where most of them gradually regained health and spirits, but retained always the longing for their own homes and people and their lost chief which characterises them still.[19]
CHAPTER III.
TRIAL OF LANGALIBALELE.
Meanwhile the fugitive chief had at last been captured by the treachery of a Basuto chief named Molappo, who enticed him into his hands, and then delivered him up to Mr. Griffiths, resident magistrate in that part of British Basutoland. When he and his party were first captured they had with them a horse laden with all the coin which the tribe had been able to get together during the last few days before the expedition started from Pietermaritzburg, and which they had collected to send down as a ransom for their chief. Their purpose was arrested by the news that the soldiers had actually started to attack them; when, feeling that all was lost, they fled, carrying the chief and his ransom with them. What became of the money, whether it became Molappo’s perquisite, or whether it formed part of the English spoil, has never been publicly known. But it can hardly be denied that the readiness of the people to pay away in ransom for their chief the whole wealth of the tribe earned by years of labour on the part of the working members, is in itself a proof that their tendencies were by no means rebellious.