"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.