Impressions of South Africa

by Viscount James Bryce Bryce

BASUTOLAND

Basutoland is a comparatively small territory (10,300 square miles) somewhat larger than Wales or Massachusetts. It is nearly all mountainous, and contains the highest summits in South Africa, some of them reaching 11,000 feet. Few European travellers visit it, for it lies quite away from the main routes; it has no commercial importance, and its white population is extremely small, the land being reserved for the natives alone. We were attracted to it by what we had heard of the scenery; but found when we came to traverse it, that the social conditions were no less interesting than the landscapes.

The easiest approach is from Bloemfontein. Starting from that pleasant little town one bright November morning on the top of the Ladybrand coach, we drove over wide and nearly level stretches of pasture-land, which now, after the first rains, were vividly green, and beginning to be dotted with flowers. The road was only a track, rough and full of ruts, and the coach, drawn by eight horses, was an old one, whose springs had lost whatever elasticity they might once have possessed, so that it was only by holding tight on to the little rail at the back of the seat that we could keep our places. The incessant pitching and jolting would have been intolerable on an ordinary drive; but here the beauty of the vast landscape, the keen freshness of the air, and the brilliance of the light made one forget every physical discomfort. About noon, after crossing the muddy flood of the Modder River, whose channel, almost dry a month before, had now been filled by the rains, we entered a more hilly region, and came soon after noon to the village of Thaba 'Ntshu, called from the bold rocky peak of that name, which is a landmark for all the country round, and is famous in history as the rallying-point of the various parties of emigrant Boers who quitted Cape Colony in the Great Trek of 1836-37. Near it is a large native reservation, where thousands of Barolong Kafirs live, tilling the better bits of soil and grazing their cattle all over the rolling pastures. Some ten or fifteen miles farther the track reaches the top of a long ascent, and a magnificent prospect is revealed to the south-east of the noble range of the Maluti Mountains, standing out in the dazzling clearness of this dry African air, yet mellowed by distance to tints of delicate beauty. We were reminded of the view of the Pyrenees from Pau, where, however, the mountains are both nearer and higher than here, and of the view of the Rocky Mountains from Calgary, on the Canadian Pacific Railway. From this point onward the road mounts successive ridges, between which lie rich hollows of agricultural land, and from the tops of which nearer and nearer views of the Maluti range are gained. There was hardly a tree visible, save those which Europeans have planted round the farmhouses that one finds every seven or eight miles; and I dare say the country would be dreary in the dry season or in dull grey weather. But as we saw it, the wealth of sunlight, the blue of the sky above, the boundless stretches of verdure beneath, made the drive a dream of delight. When the sun sank the constellations came out in this pure, dry African air with a brilliance unknown to Europe; and we tired our eyes in gazing on the Centaur and the Argo and those two Magellanic clouds by which one finds the position of the southern pole. Soon after dark we came to the top of the last high hill, and saw what seemed an abyss opening beneath. The descent was steep, but a beaten track led down it, reputed the most dangerous piece of road in the Free State; and the driver regaled us with narratives of the accidents that had taken place on the frequent occasions when the coach had been upset, adding, however, that nobody ever had been or would be killed while he held the reins. He proved as good as his word, and brought us safely to Ladybrand at 9 P.M., after more than twelve hours of a drive so fatiguing that only the marvellously bracing air enabled us to feel none the worse for it.

Ladybrand is a pretty little hamlet lying at the foot of the great flat-topped hill, called the Plaat Berg, which the perilous road crosses, and looking out from groves of Australian gum-trees, across fertile corn-fields and meadows, to the Caledon River and the ranges of Basutoland. A ride of eight miles brings one to the ferry (which in the dry season becomes a shallow ford) across this stream, and on the farther shore one is again under the British flag at Maseru, the residence of the Imperial Commissioner who supervises the administration of the country, under the direction of the High Commissioner for South Africa. Here are some sixty Europeans—officials, police, and store-keepers—and more than two thousand natives. Neither here nor anywhere else in Basutoland is there an inn; those few persons who visit the country find quarters in the stores which several whites have been permitted to establish, unless they have, as we had, the good fortune to be the guests of the Commissioner.

Basutoland is the Switzerland of South Africa and, very appropriately, is the part of South Africa where the old inhabitants, defended by their hills, have retained the largest measure of freedom. Although most of it is covered with lofty mountains, it has, like Switzerland, one comparatively level and fertile tract—that which lies along the left bank of the Caledon River. Morija, the oldest French mission station, lies in a pretty hollow between five and six thousand feet above the sea,—nearly all Basutoland is above 5000 feet,—some sixteen miles south-east from Maseru. Groves of trees and luxuriant gardens give softness and verdure to the landscape, and among them the mission houses and schools, and printing-house whence Basuto books are issued, lie scattered about, up and down the slopes of the hill. Though there are plenty of streams in Basutoland, there is hardly any swampy ground, and consequently little or no fever, so the missionaries invalided from the Zambesi frequently come here to recruit. The station of Morija has been for many years past directed by French-Swiss pastors, but the schools have been under the charge of Scottish Presbyterian clergymen, of course in the service of the Paris Society, and they gave us a hearty welcome. They have large and flourishing schools, from which a considerable number of young Kafirs go out every year among their countrymen and become an effective civilizing influence. There is among the Bantu tribes so little religion, in the European sense of the word, that the natives seem never to have felt the impulse to persecute, and hardly ever to obstruct the preaching of Christianity. When opposition comes, it comes from the witch-doctor or medicine-man, who feels his craft in danger, seldom from the chief. Here most of the leading men have been and still are on good terms with the missionaries. The Paramount Chief of the whole country lives three miles from Morija, at Matsieng, where he has established, as the wont of the Kafirs is, a new kraal on the top of a breezy hill, forsaking the residence of his father in the valley beneath. Here we visited him.

Lerothodi, the Paramount Chief, is the son of Letsie and grandson of Moshesh, and now ranks with Khama as the most important native potentate south of the Zambesi. He is a strong, thickset man, who looks about fifty years of age, and is not wanting either in intelligence or in firmness. He was dressed in a grey shooting-coat and trousers of grey cloth, with a neat new black, low-crowned hat, and received the Deputy Acting Commissioner and ourselves in a stone house which he has recently built as a sort of council-chamber and reception-room for white visitors. Hard by, another house, also of stone, was being erected to lodge such visitors, and over its doorway a native sculptor had carved the figure of a crocodile, the totem of the Basutos. When a chief sits to administer justice among the tribesmen, as he does on most mornings, he always sits in the open air, a little way from his sleeping-huts. We found a crowd of natives gathered at the levee, whom Lerothodi quitted to lead us into the reception-room. He was accompanied by six or seven magnates and counsellors,—one of the most trusted counsellors (a Christian) was not a person of rank, but owed his influence to his character and talents,—and among these one spoke English and interpreted to us the compliments which Lerothodi delivered, together with his assurances of friendship and respect for the Protecting Power, while we responded with phrases of similar friendliness. The counsellors, listening with profound and impressive gravity, echoed the sentences of the chief with a chorus of "ehs," a sound which it is hard to reproduce by letters, for it is a long, slow, deep expiration of the breath in a sort of singing tune. The Kafirs constantly use it to express assent and appreciation, and manage to throw a great deal of apparent feeling into it. Presently some of them spoke, one in pretty good English, dilating on the wish of the Basuto[67] tribe to be guided in the path of prosperity by the British Government. Then Lerothodi led us out and showed us, with some pride, the new guest-house he was building, and the huts inhabited by his wives, all scrupulously neat. Each hut stands in an enclosure surrounded by a tall fence of reeds, and the floors of red clay were perfectly hard, smooth, and spotlessly clean. The news of the reception accorded shortly before (in London) to Khama had kindled in him a desire to visit England, but his hints thrown out to that effect were met by the Commissioner's remark that Khama's total abstinence and general hostility to the use of intoxicants had been a main cause for the welcome given him, and that if other chiefs desired like treatment in England they had better emulate Khama. This shot went home.

From the chief's kraal we had a delightful ride of some twenty miles to a spot near the foot of the high mountains, where we camped for the night. The track leads along the base of the Maluti range, sometimes over a rolling table-land, sometimes over hills and down through valleys, all either cultivated or covered with fresh close grass. The Malutis consist of beds of sandstone and shale, overlaid by an outflow of igneous rock from two to five thousand feet thick. They rise very steeply, sometimes breaking into long lines of dark brown precipice, and the crest seldom sinks lower than 7000 feet. Behind them to the south-east are the waterfalls, one of which, 630 feet high, is described as the grandest cascade in Africa south of the Zambesi. It was only two days' journey away, but unfortunately we had not time to visit it.

The country we were traversing beneath the mountains was full of beauty, so graceful were the slopes and rolls of the hills, so bright the green of the pastures; while the sky, this being the rainy season, had a soft tone like that of England, and was flecked with white clouds sailing across the blue. It was also a prosperous-looking country, for the rich soil supported many villages, and many natives, men as well as women, were to be seen at work in the fields as we rode by. Except where streams have cut deeply into the soft earth, one gets about easily on horseback, for there are no woods save a little scrub clinging to the sides of the steeper glens. We were told that the goats eat off the young trees, and that the natives have used the older ones for fuel. In the afternoon we passed St. Michael's, the seat of a flourishing Roman Catholic mission, and took our way up the steep and stony track of a kloof (ravine) which led to a plateau some 6000 feet or more above sea-level. The soil of this plateau is a deep red loam, formed by the decomposition of the trap rock, and is of exceptional fertility, like the decomposed traps of Oregon and the Deccan. Here we pitched our tent, and found our liberal supply of blankets none too liberal, for the air was keen, and the difference between day and night temperature is great in these latitudes. Next morning, starting soon after dawn, we rode across the deep-cut beds of streams and over breezy pastures for some six or seven miles, to the base of the main Maluti range, and after a second breakfast prepared for the ascent of the great summit, which we had been admiring for two days as it towered over the long line of peaks or peered alone from the mists which often enveloped the rest of the range. It is called Machacha, and is a conspicuous object from Ladybrand and the Free State uplands nearly as far as Thaba 'Ntshu. Our route lay up a grassy hollow so steep that we had thought our friend, the Commissioner, must be jesting when he pointed up it and told us that was the way we had to ride. For a pedestrian it was a piece of hand and foot climbing, and seemed quite impracticable for horses. But up the horses went. They are a wonderful breed, these little Basuto nags. This region is the part of South Africa where the horse seems most thoroughly at home and happy, and is almost the only part where the natives breed and ride him. Sixty years ago there was not a horse in the country—the animal, it need hardly be said, is not a native of South Africa. But in 1852, the Basutos had plenty of ponies, and used them in the short campaign of that year with extraordinary effect. They are small, seldom exceeding twelve hands in height, a little larger than the ponies of Iceland, very hardy, and wonderfully clever on hills, able not only to mount a slope whose angle is 30° to 35°, but to keep their footing when ridden horizontally along it. A rider new to the country finds it hard not to slip off over the tail when the animal is ascending, or over the head when he is descending.

The hollow brought us to a col fully 7500 feet above the sea, from which we descended some way into a valley behind, and then rode for three or four miles along the steep sides, gradually mounting, and having below us on the right a deep glen, covered everywhere with rich grass, and from the depths of which the murmur of a rushing stream, a sound rare in South Africa, rose up softly through the still, clear air. At length we reached the mountain crest, followed it for a space, and then, to avoid the crags along the crest, guided our horses across the extremely steep declivities by which it sinks to the east, till we came to a pass between precipices, with a sharp rock towering up in the middle of the pass and a glen falling abruptly to the west. Beyond this point—8500 feet or so above sea-level—the slopes were too steep even for the Basuto horses, and we therefore left them in charge of one of our Kafir attendants. A more rich and varied alpine flora than that which clothed the pastures all round I have seldom seen. The flowers had those brilliant hues that belong to the plants of our high European mountains, and they grew in marvellous profusion. They were mostly of the same genera as one finds in the Alps or the Pyrenees, but all or nearly all of different species; and among those I found several, particularly two beautiful Gerania, which the authorities at Kew have since told me are new to science. It was interesting to come here upon two kinds of heath—the first we had seen since quitting the Cape peninsula, for, rich as that peninsula is in heaths, there are very few to be found in other parts of South Africa, and those only, I think, upon high mountains.

After a short rest we started for the final climb, first up a steep acclivity, covered with low shrubs and stones, and then across a wide hollow, where several springs of deliciously cold water break out. Less than an hour's easy work brought us to the highest point of a ridge which fell northward in a precipice, and our Kafirs declared that this was the summit of Machacha. But right in front of us, not half a mile away, on the other side of a deep semi-circular gulf,—what is called in Scotland a corrie,—a huge black cliff reared its head 400 feet above us, and above everything else in sight. This was evidently the true top and must be ascended. The Kafirs, perhaps thinking they had done enough for one day, protested that it was inaccessible. "Nonsense," we answered; "that is where we are going;" and when we started off at full speed they followed. Keeping along the crest for about half a mile to the eastward—it is an arëte which breaks down to the corrie in tremendous precipices, but slopes more gently to the south—we came to the base of the black cliff, and presently discovered a way by which, climbing hither and thither through the crags, we reached the summit, and saw an immense landscape unroll itself before us. It was one of those views which have the charm, so often absent from mountain panoramas, of combining a wide stretch of plain in one direction with a tossing sea of mountain-peaks in another. To the north-east and east and south-east, one saw nothing but mountains, some of them, especially in the far north-east, toward Natal, apparently as lofty as that on which we stood, and many of them built on bold and noble lines. To the south-east, where are the great waterfalls which are one of the glories of Basutoland, the general height was less, but a few peaks seemed to reach 10,000 feet. At our feet, to the west and south-west, lay the smiling corn-fields and pastures we had traversed the day before, and beyond them the rich and populous valley of the Caledon River, and beyond it, again, the rolling uplands of the Orange Free State, with the peak of Thaba 'Ntshu just visible, and still farther a blue ridge, faint in the extreme distance, that seemed to lie on the other side of Bloemfontein, nearly one hundred miles away. The sky was bright above us, but thunderstorms hung over the plains of the Free State behind Ladybrand, and now and then one caught a forked tongue of light flashing from among them. It was a magnificent landscape, whose bareness—for there is scarcely a tree upon these slopes—was more than compensated by the brilliance of the light and the clearness of the air, which made the contrast between the sunlit valley of the Caledon and the solemn shadows under the thunder-clouds more striking, and the tone of the distant ranges more deep and rich in colour, than in any similar prospect one could recall from the mountain watch-towers of Europe. Nor was the element of historical interest wanting. Fifteen miles away, but seeming to lie almost at our feet, was the flat-topped hill of Thaba Bosiyo, the oft-besieged stronghold of Moshesh, and beyond it the broad table-land of Berea, where the Basutos fought, and almost overcame, the forces of Sir George Cathcart in that war of 1852 which was so fateful both to Basutoland and to the Free State.