CETYWAYO’S WAGON CROSSING THE INPOLOGI RIVER, ZULULAND.
The recollections of Isandhlwana, Zhlobane and Ulundi make one’s blood run cold; but terrible as this war was, the cruelty and wickedness of having brought it about, could time prove it to have been unnecessary, cannot compare, in my mind, with the cruelty and wickedness of the disastrous Zulu settlement by Sir Garnet Wolseley and the after neglect of the Zulu nation by the English government. It was “adding insult to injury” to place these people under petty chiefs, and the whole nation became demoralized. They would have respected their conquered king even if he had had to accede to all the demands of the ultimatum and to owe allegiance to the English government, and they could have accepted a conquering power more especially when that power was the marvelous English. This latter disposition is what they naturally would have expected. But to place them under petty chiefs was just to set them again at the old game of one chief “eating up” another until one became supreme. When at last Cetywayo was restored it was simple cruelty not to have established him firmly and protected him from all danger. Sad indeed would Bishop Colenso have been had he lived to see the restoration of Cetywayo for which he worked so earnestly. It was poor “justice” that left the king, having destroyed his power, to the mercy of his enemies, and to die very shortly from poison or a broken heart! No one could have expected Cetywayo to resume his old footing among his people through any love they bore him. What does any native chief ever do to make himself beloved? The Zulus possess a dog-like fidelity toward their chiefs, and they may be proud of their conquests, but when we consider that Cetywayo could hold his position by the utmost severity only, ruling by fear rather than love, we cannot be surprised that his restoration without support was an utter failure. Even upon Cetywayo’s death it would not have been too late for England to annex the Zulus and accept a noble mission. With the natural fidelity of the Zulus, how easy a matter, with firm, kind rule, to gain their love as well!
What a field for civilization and Christianity! Supposing a governor had been appointed, laws made to keep the Zulu country for the Zulus, and laws also for their moral good, such as no spirituous liquors allowed, etc., what might not have been made of them? What is the consequence of this shirking of responsibility? As Cetywayo received no material support from England his son and successor was foolish enough to appeal for help to his father’s old enemies, the covetous Boers, who true to their nature have managed to gain possession of the better half of Zululand, and nothing has been done for the improvement or benefit of that grand Zulu nation—the war has brought them ruin only, when it might so easily have resulted in good. England in shirking this responsibility appears to me in the same cruel, sinful light as a mother who leaves her helpless, illegitimate babe on the door-step of a stranger.[[82]]
CHAPTER XXV.
VISIT TO BASUTOLAND.—PITSO AT MASERU.—INTERVIEW WITH MASUPHA.—GENERAL GORDON’S APPOINTMENT.—PITSO AT LERIBE.—ROMA.—THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT MISSIONS.—MAFETING.—EAST LONDON.—SIR DAVID WEDDERBURN.—ARRIVAL IN CAPETOWN.—CAPE ASSEMBLY RESIGNATION.
Some time before the opening of the fourth session of parliament in 1882, in course of correspondence with the Hon. Colonel Schermbrucker, M. L. C. for King William’s Town, I proposed to him that before parliament met we should make a tour through Basutoland, and see for ourselves the real position of affairs and the condition of the country, especially as so many conflicting statements were afloat. We agreed to meet at Maseru on March 1st, 1882. Determined that this appointment should be kept to the day, I left Kimberley at noon on Feb. 26th for Bloemfontein, en route to Basutoland.
Arriving at Boshof, a rising Free State town, in about six hours, we changed horses, and proceeding on our journey spent the whole of a delightful summer night, which a brilliant moon lit up as light as day, in speeding over the plains of the Free State. But what torture we suffered between this place and Bloemfontein! The wagonette in which we rode was sadly out of repair, and I thought myself lucky in getting the back seat, but, alas! being also the lid of a box, the hinges of which were broken, it was misplaced by any sudden jolt, so I found myself as often in the box as out of it.
I had not seen the neat little town of Bloemfontein for ten years, but I found it had not developed much during this interim. My previous errand had been of a very different kind. Then the whole of the state was in painful suspense on account of the critical state in which their president, Mr. (now Sir John) Brand, was lying. The executive, fearing the worst, determined to obtain further medical opinion upon his case, and sent to Kimberley for Dr. Dyer, a leading practitioner there, and myself, to post over with all speed. Our consultation with the president’s physicians was not hopeful, and we left, expecting the worst; however, some days after our return we learned that the disease had taken a favorable turn, and we had the satisfaction in a few mails to hear of the president’s gradual restoration to health.
During the few hours that I rested at Bloemfontein I had the pleasure of meeting his honor again, older and greyer certainly than he was ten years before, but looking full of health and vigor, “his age like a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.” He was sitting in his private room in the magnificent block of government buildings erected lately by the state. On introduction, he recognized me at once, spoke feelingly of the past when last we met, and asked me to dinner, an invitation which I was unable to accept, owing to my previous appointment with Colonel Schermbrucker on the first of March, which I had barely time enough to keep. I started the same afternoon in a special cart for Ladybrand, and traveled again the whole of the night. After “moving accidents by flood and field,” overturning the cart, losing the mules, getting wet through and nearly drowned in the Modder River, I at last outspanned for a couple of hours at Modderpoort, ten miles from Ladybrand, a mission station conducted by members of the Anglican brotherhood, who had been settled there since 1870. Father Douglas, the present head of the community, kindly showed me round the mission station. I saw the pretty stone church with its stained glass windows and solemn aisles, and the substantial mission house for the priests, but that which interested me most was the sight of the cave at the bottom of the garden in which during the early years of the mission Father Beckett, the founder, used to live. This good old priest, after years of arduous work, was called to his rest last year (in 1884), regretted by the whole country side.
