Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O., Capt. 25th Royal Fusiliers

by John Guille Millais

All through the autumn and winter of 1895 life passed quietly at Essexvale. The new house arrived, and was erected just before the rains set in on a high position eighty feet above the Ingnaima river. The Company bought 1200 head of cattle which were distributed amongst the natives. Five thousand gum-trees were raised from seed and planted on some forty acres of ploughed land, the other products including maize and fruit trees of various kinds.

All this time the natives appeared to be happy and contented, whilst Umlugula, a relation of Lobengula, and a great chief under his rule, now living some eighteen miles away, constantly visited Selous and seemed as quiet as the rest, although he was actively plotting the rebellion which was shortly to break out. Selous afterwards thought that the cause of the insurrection was the withdrawal of the Matabeleland Police Force and their munitions of war, and its subsequent capture by the Boers in the ill-starred "Jameson Raid."

The first cloud of trouble appeared in February, 1896, when news was spread that the "Umlimo," or god of the Makalakas, who lived in a cave in the Matoppo hills, had said that the white man's blood was about to be spilt. It was also rumoured that Lobengula was not dead, as previously reported, but was coming with a large army from the north-east and west. Umlimo also claimed to have sent the rinderpest which at this date had already reached Northern Matabeleland.

So far, however, there were merely rumours, and old residents in the country, with the single exception of Mr. Usher, believed that nothing was to be feared. Mr. Jackson, a native commissioner, thought that if the natives rose a certain danger was to be expected from the Matabele Police, who had been armed with Winchesters and were kept for the purposes of law and order, and in this he was right, for half of this body revolted and attacked their former employers.

The "Umlimo" was a kind of native hereditary priest whose family are supposed to inherit supernatural powers. His family are known as the children of the god and all are supposed to commune with the unseen deity. He lived in the Matoppo Hills, where the people visited their "god" and consulted him. He was supposed to speak all languages, and could moreover roar like a lion, bark like a dog, and do other wonderful things. There seemed to have been other Umlimos in other tribes, and it is somewhat strange that this "deity" of the despised Makalakas should have been possessed of such influence over the powerful Matabele. Lobengula at any rate constantly visited and even feared this man, and there is no doubt that Lobengula and his chiefs made full use of him in the present instance to excite the natives.

In the middle of March Selous was appointed to inspect the Umsingwani and Insiza district and try and stop the spread of the rinderpest to the south, and in this he was powerless, as trek-oxen further carried the infection. At Dawson's store on March 22nd he heard that a native policeman had been killed and that the murderers with their women and children had fled to the Matoppo hills. This was the first overt act of the rebellion.

Immediately after this two attacks were made on the native police, and Selous found when he arrived home that some Matabele had borrowed axes from Mrs. Selous, and had left with them ostensibly to repair their cattle-kraals, but in reality to attack the settlers. The following night three miners, Messrs. Foster, Eagleson and Anderson, carrying on work at Essexvale, were attacked and murdered as well as several other Europeans in the neighbourhood. Next day most of the Essexvale cattle were driven off by the natives, so that there was now no doubt that a rising was imminent. Selous therefore took his wife into Bulawayo for safety, and returned at once with an armed force of thirty-eight men, intending if possible to recover his cattle; but by this time the flame of rebellion had spread to the whole of the north, and numerous white men, women and children had been brutally murdered.

At least nine-tenths of the Matabele natives were now in arms against the whites, who were very badly equipped and in sore straits for arms, ammunition, cattle and horses. Their position was somewhat desperate, but, as ever before and since, the settlers nobly responded to the call to arms, although there was really no organized force worth speaking of. However, about five hundred good men and true assembled at Bulawayo, from which it was almost impossible to move owing to the absence of horses. This force only had some 580 rifles, but a good supply of ammunition—1,500,000 rounds. There was also a ·303 Maxim and an old gun or two. This is all they had with which to resist some 10,000 Matabele, of which at least one-fifth had breechloading rifles and plenty of ammunition. The tactics of the Matabele, however, were indifferent, and it is somewhat incomprehensible that they never blocked the main road to the south or attacked waggons or coaches moving along it.

Of the 1000 white men in Bulawayo only about 300 were available for active operations, as 400 had always to be kept for the defence of the women and children in the town: but in addition to this force a regiment of native boys, mostly Zulus, was organized by Colonel Johan Colenbrander,[48] and did excellent scouting work. This little force of white and black eventually drove the Matabele from the neighbourhood of Bulawayo and rescued many small isolated detachments, whilst keeping the enemy at bay until the arrival of Sir Frederick Carrington, who eventually completed their rout.

But to return to the movements of Selous after he revisited his farm. He was not long in finding part of his stolen cattle and burning the kraal where they were found. Then he searched for the rebels and found them in the act of driving off more cattle. These he attacked and recovered some 150 cattle belonging to Colenbrander. Selous then returned to Essexvale on March 26th, and left the herd of cattle there in charge of loyal natives because he feared they would be attacked by rinderpest if he drove them into Bulawayo. This, however, may have been a mistake, since Inxnozan, a native Matabele warrior, and some three hundred of his men came in a few days and burnt the farm and carried off all the cattle.