Bidding the hospitable monks adieu, I left Roma next morning in a pouring rain, with the guides provided me by the chief Jonathan, having made all the arrangements to catch the Capetown steamer at East London.
Stopping at Khorokhoro to breakfast, I continued my journey through a country mountainous in the extreme.
Leaving the Morija mission station (French Protestant) on my left, I was caught in a fearful thunder-storm, the rain coming down in torrents, but I luckily found shelter in a hut in a small native village which lay in my road.
Entering, I found myself in the midst of a Basuto family, consisting of father, mother and seven little girls from four to twelve years of age. Here I had the opportunity afforded me of noting the truth of that which had often been told me concerning the rapid progress in learning, the precocity in fact, distinguishing Basuto children. If either Mr. Moody or Mr. Sankey had been with me, their hearts would have leaped with joy; here in the heart of Basutoland I found the noise of the outside storm drowned in the music of some of their popular hymns. The chief favorites, sung over and over again, were “Ntoa sa Balumeh” (Hold the Fort) and “Mali a Konyana” (The Blood of the Lamb). No sight ever impressed me more with the important position music and hymns hold as factors in the progress of evangelization.
Luther’s enemies once said that he worked more harm by his songs than his sermons, and I felt that the same might in the nineteenth century be repeated by enemies of the Christian faith concerning these two celebrated American revivalists. even in the wilds of Africa.
It would be impossible to picture or portray a more peculiar scene! Outside, the howling of the raging storm, the peals of rolling thunder, the flashes of vivid lightning and the plash of the torrents of rain; inside, the Basuto youngsters stark naked, myself and guides crouching over the fire drenched to the skin, while strains familiar in years gone by were sung with all the vigor and fervor of aboriginal youth! As soon as the storm had passed over I rode quickly to make up for lost time, and crossing the dangerous drift of the Salt River, rested at the Boleka ridge thirteen miles from Mafeting. This was as far as our forces ever advanced during the war. The road goes over a ridge which is not very steep, and is a gap in the mountain chain. At the village close to the roadside I saw many relics of the late war. Fragments of shells were lying about (this being the pass which our troops tried in vain to force), and I saw one unexploded sixty-eight-pound shell doing the peaceful duty of serving as a seat for a Kafir who in happy ignorance was sitting on it drying himself at a wood fire!
After a short rest for my horses and guides, I went over the ridge and passed by the deserted intrenchments where our troops had encamped in virtual idleness for months. A tedious ride brought me to Mafeting, which I did not reach until far into the night; when I was very fortunate in dropping upon an old friend, the late Captain Aschman, who gave me a “shake-down,” for which, as there was no inn in the village, I was sincerely thankful.
Next morning I visited the broken-down wattle huts and ragged tents where the loyals were herded together. I found them far worse off than their confrères at Maseru, and grave were their complaints against the government. The rations allowed them were not sufficient, they told me, to allay their hunger, and I personally saw some emaciated looking women collecting and eating the corn falling from the horses’ mangers. These unfortunate creatures, stung by our ingratitude, irritated by our injustice, hoping against hope, almost, despairing of relief and yet remaining loyal, were enough to excite the sympathy of any true man, and create a loathing of the cowardly panderers to expediency who were then conducting the government of the country.
Having thoroughly investigated the condition of these people, I next visited the cemetery, a short distance from the village, which is full of interest. Here many an old colonist, “sleeps the sleep that knows no waking.” Among the many monuments to men fallen in the late war is a fine stone pedestal erected in memory of the disastrous affair at Kalibani, which will ever be remembered in colonial annals as the place where, on Oct. 19th, 1880, thirty-five of the First Cape mounted yeomanry, men principally from Grahamstown and Albany, and who formed the advance guard of General Clark’s relief column, were cut to pieces. Every one of these unfortunate men, except one who was shot at a long range, were, as Surgeon Major Smith, now practicing in the Diamond Fields, who examined the bodies, told me, assegaied and hewed to pieces with the greatest brutality by the rebellious Basutos under the chief Mama.
A magnificent view of the surrounding mountainous country is obtained from this graveyard. The Kalibani mountain, the Kolo, the Boleka ridge, Tweefontein, Lerothodi’s village away in the distance, and close below Mafeting itself, pass as in a panorama before the view.