[47] The original inhabitants of the country, belonging to the tribes which we, following the Portuguese, call Makalanga or Makalaka, are called by the Matabili (themselves Zulus) Masweni. The name Maholi, often also applied to them, is said to mean "outsiders," i.e., non-Zulus. Though many had been drafted as boys into the Matabili regiments, and others were used as slaves, many more dwelt in the country west and north-west of Bulawayo. Mashonaland, to the east, is peopled by cognate tribes.
[48] A hut is usually allotted to each wife, and thus this impost falls heavily on the polygamist chief, being, in fact, a tax upon luxuries. I was told that in the Transvaal some of the richer natives were trying to escape it by putting two wives in the same hut.
[49] See his book, published in the end of 1896, entitled Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia. I do not gather from it how far, in his opinion, what went on was known to the higher officials.
In a Report presented to Parliament in 1897, Sir Richard Martin states that although there was no regulation allowing forced labour, force was, in fact, used to bring the natives from their kraals to work, and that the irritation thus caused did much to provoke the outbreak. The Company in a reply which they have published do not admit this. I have no data, other than the Report, for pronouncing an opinion on the responsibility of the officials; but there seems to be no doubt that, both in this and in other respects, many of the native police behaved badly, and that the experiment of employing them, which seemed to have much to recommend it, did in fact fail.
[50] The Shangani is here a very small stream. It was far away to the north, on the lower course of the same stream, that Major Wilson and his party perished later in the war.
[51] These ruins have been described in [Chapter IX].
[52] This chief was the restive chief mentioned on the last preceding page. He joined in the rising of 1896, and was, I believe, taken prisoner and shot.
[53] It was here only, on the banks of a stream, that I observed the extremely handsome arboraceous St.-John's-wort (Hypericum Schimperi), mentioned in [Chapter IV].
[54] It is in the midst of this scenery that new Mtali has been built.
[55] Law Reports for 1893, A. C., p. 602.