Nowhere has the gospel made such progress among the Kafirs as in Basutoland. The missionaries,—French, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and English Episcopalian,—working not only independently but on very different lines, have brought nearly fifty thousand natives under Christian influences, as members or adherents. Not all of these are baptised converts—the Franco-Swiss missionaries, by whom far the largest part of the work has been done, tell me that baptisms do not increase fast; and they are wise in not measuring the worth of their work by the number of baptisms. Education is spreading. At the last public examinations at the Cape, the French Protestant missionaries sent up twenty Basuto boys, of whom ten passed in honours, and ten in high classes, the standard being the same for whites and blacks. There are now one hundred and fifty schools in the country, all but two of which are conducted by the missionaries.
Strange waves of sentiment pass over the people, at one time carrying them back to paganism, at another inclining them to Christianity—the first sign of the latter tendency being discernible in an increase of attendance at the mission schools. The women are more backward than the men, because they have been kept in subjection, and their intelligence has remained only half developed. But their condition is improving; men now work with them in the fields, and they demand clothes instead of so much oil, wherewith to smear their bodies. As education becomes more diffused, old heathen customs lose their hold, and will probably in thirty years have disappeared. The belief in ghosts and magic is, of course, still strong. On the top of Thaba Bosiyo we were shown the graves of Moshesh and several of his brothers and sons, marked by rude stones, with the name of each chief on his stone. But we were told that in reality the bodies of Moshesh and of several of the others are not here at all, having been dug up and reinterred more than a mile away near the foot of the hill. Were the body under the stone, the ghost, which usually dwells near the body, would be liable to be called up by necromancers, and might be compelled to work mischief to the tribe—mischief which would be serious in proportion to the power the spirit possessed during life. Considering, however, that nearly all the ancient world held similar beliefs, and that a large part of the modern world, even in Europe, still clings to them, the persistence of these interesting superstitions need excite no surprise, nor are they productive of much practical ill, now that the witch-doctor is no longer permitted to denounce men to death.
The material progress of the people has been aided by the enactment of stringent laws against the sale of white men's intoxicating liquors, though some of the chiefs show but a poor example of obedience to these laws, the enforcement of which is rendered difficult by the illicit sale which goes on along the frontiers where Basutoland touches the Free State and the eastern part of Cape Colony. The old native arts and industries decline as European goods become cheaper, and industrial training has now become one of the needs of the people. It is an encouraging sign that, under the auspices of Lerothodi, a sum of £3,184 sterling was collected from the tribe in 1895-6, for the foundation of an institution to give such training. The receipts from import duties have so much increased that the contribution of £18,000 paid by Cape Colony is now annually reduced by nearly £12,000, and the hut tax, of ten shillings per hut, now easily and promptly collected, amounts to £23,000 a year, leaving a surplus, out of which £1,300 is paid to the Cape. Basutoland is within the South African Customs Union.
These facts are encouraging. They show that, so far, the experiment of leaving a native race to advance in their own way, under their own chiefs, but carefully supervised by imperial officers, has proved successful. A warlike, unstable, and turbulent, although intelligent people, while increasing fast in wealth and material comfort, has also become more peaceful and orderly, and by the abandonment of its more repulsive customs is passing from savagery to a state of semi-civilization. Still the situation has its anxieties. The very prosperity of the country has drawn into it a larger population than the arable and pastoral land may prove able to support. The Free State people are not friendly to it, and many politicians in Cape Colony would like to recover it for the Colony, while many white adventurers would like to prospect for mines, or to oust the natives from the best lands. The natives themselves are armed, and being liable, like all natives, to sudden fits of unreason, may conceivably be led into disorders which would involve a war and the regular conquest of the country. The firmness as well as the conciliatory tactfulness which the first Commissioner, Sir Marshal Clarke, and his successor, the present Acting Commissioner, have shown, has hitherto averted these dangers, and has inspired the people with a belief in the good will of the British Government. If the progress of recent years can be maintained for thirty years more, the risk of trouble will have almost disappeared, for by that time a new generation, unused to war, will have grown up. Whoever feels for the native and cares for his future must wish a fair chance for the experiment that is now being tried in Basutoland, of letting him develop in his own way, shielded from the rude pressure of the whites.