TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book text, in front of the Catalog.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.] These are indicated by a dashed blue underline.

HISTORY OF THE ZULU WAR
AND ITS ORIGIN.

HISTORY OF THE ZULU WAR

AND ITS ORIGIN.

BY

FRANCES E. COLENSO.

ASSISTED IN THOSE PORTIONS OF THE WORK WHICH TOUCH UPON
MILITARY MATTERS

BY

LIEUT.-COLONEL EDWARD DURNFORD.

London:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited, 193, PICCADILLY.

1880.

All Rights reserved.

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.

PREFACE.

It is probable that the Bishop of Natal may be held responsible for the contents of a volume written partly by his daughter, and having for its subject the Zulu War; more especially if a general coincidence can be traced between what are known to be his views and those which are expressed in this history. My father’s opinions have, naturally, considerable influence over those held or expressed by his family, and I do not imagine that much will be found in these pages from which he will dissent. Nevertheless, it is desirable that my readers should understand from the first that he is in no sense responsible for their contents.

When I left Natal, in September last, the idea of writing upon the subject of the Zulu War had hardly occurred to me; it has developed since to an extent quite beyond my original intentions, and I find that its fulfilment has rather taken my father by surprise. I had no opportunity of consulting him upon the subject, nor has he yet seen a word of what I have written, for on reaching England I found that, to be of any use at all, the book should appear almost at once.

I made, indeed, ample use of the pamphlets which the Bishop of Natal has written on behalf of Langalibalele and Cetshwayo, which have saved me many hours of weary search. Consequently, while the Bishop is in no way responsible for such errors or omissions as may occur in this volume, any merit or usefulness which my portion of the book may contain is due chiefly to his labours.

The general plan of my history was laid out, and the first few chapters were written, during the voyage from Natal, and upon reaching England I obtained the assistance of my friend Lieut.-Colonel Edward Durnford in that portion of the work which deals with the military conduct of the war. While it was desirable that a record of military events should be made by one whose professional knowledge qualified him for the duty, there was an additional reason which made his help appropriate. It may easily be understood from his name that the interest taken by him in his task would be of no ordinary kind. Colonel Durnford has written the military portions of the book, but is not responsible for any expressions of opinion upon matters strictly political.

I am far from feeling that I am the best person to undertake such a work as this, which my father himself would look upon as a serious one, and which he, or even my sister, who has worked with him throughout, would do so much better than I; but they were not at hand, and I have thought it my duty to do what I could, while I could have had no better aid than that given me by Colonel Durnford.

However insufficient the result may prove, we shall at least hope that our work may give some slight assistance to that cause of justice, truth, and mercy, the maintenance of which alone can ensure the true honour of the British name.

Frances Ellen Colenso.

January 22nd, 1880.

CONTENTS.

THE ZULU WAR.

CHAPTER I.
FIRST CAUSES.

England’s collisions with the savage races bordering upon her colonies have in all probability usually been brought about by the exigencies of the moment, by border-troubles, and acts of violence and insolence on the part of the savages, and from the absolute necessity of protecting a small and trembling white population from their assaults.

No such causes as these have led up to the war of 1879. For more than twenty years the Zulus and the colonists of Natal have lived side by side in perfect peace and quietness. The tranquillity of our border had been a matter of pride as compared to the disturbed and uncertain boundaries between Zululand and the Transvaal. The mere fact of the utterly unprotected condition of the frontier farmers on our border, and the entire absence of anything like precaution, evinced by the common practice of building houses of the most combustible description, is a proof that the colonists felt no real alarm concerning the Zulus until the idea was suggested to them by those in authority over them.[1] The only interruption to this tranquil condition of the public mind about the Zulus was in the year 1861, when a scare took place in the colony, for which, as it afterwards proved, there were no grounds whatsoever. A general but unfounded belief was rife that Cetshwayo,[2] king, or rather at that time prince, ruling Zululand, was about to invade Natal, in order to obtain possession of his young brother Umkungo, a claimant of the Zulu crown, and who had escaped over the border at the time of the great civil war of which we shall presently treat. This young prince had been placed—by the Secretary for Native Affairs, Mr. Shepstone—at Bishopstowe,[3] for his education in the Native Boys’ School there; and it was not until he had been there for years that the fancy arose, suggested and fostered by the border farmers and traders in Zululand, that Cetshwayo intended to take him by force from amongst us, or at all events to make the attempt.

Under the influence of this belief the troops then stationed in Natal were ordered to the frontier, the colonial volunteers were called out, the defence of the principal towns became a matter for consideration; while outlying farmers, and residents in the country, hastened to remove their families to places of comparative safety.

Bishopstowe was supposed to be the special object of the expected attack; but the Bishop himself, having occasional opportunities of learning the state of things in Zululand, through his missionary there, could never be brought thoroughly to believe in the gravity of the danger. It is true that, as a matter of precaution, and in deference to the strongly-expressed opinion of the Lieut.-Governor of the Colony and of Mr. Shepstone, he sent away the threatened boy to some of his own people, in a more remote and safer part of the colony. But he was extremely reluctant to take the further step, strongly urged upon him, of removing his family and people to the adjacent city of Pietermaritzburg, and only consented to do so under protest. During the night following his consent, but before the project had been carried out, he had reason for a few hours to suppose that he had been mistaken in his own judgment. The family at Bishopstowe was knocked up at one o’clock in the morning by a messenger from a passing Dutch farmer, who, on his way into town with his own family, had sent word to the Bishop that Cetshwayo’s army had entered the colony, was already between him and Table Mountain—that is to say within a distance of nine miles—and was burning, killing, and destroying all upon the way to Bishopstowe. There seemed to be no doubt of the fact; so, hastily collecting their native villagers,[4] the Colensos left their homes and started for the town, which they reached, most of them on foot, about daybreak. The consequence of their being accompanied and followed by a considerable party of natives (of both sexes and all ages!) was that the townspeople immediately supposed that the “Zulus had come;” and some of them actually left their houses, and took refuge in the various places of safety—such as the fort, the principal churches, and so on—previously decided upon by the authorities in case of necessity. In common South African terms they “went into laager.”

As the day passed, and still no further tidings arrived of the approach of the Zulus or the destruction of Bishopstowe, the Bishop began to have strong suspicions that, after all, he had been right in his original opinion, and that “the killing, burning, and destroying” had been conjured up by some excited imagination. This opinion was confirmed, if not completely established, in the course of the day, by the reception of a letter from the missionary in Zululand before mentioned, in which he inquired, on the Zulu king’s behalf, what fault the latter had committed towards the English, that they should be preparing to invade his country. The missionary added that all was perfectly quiet in Zululand, until the border tribes, seeing the British troops approaching, fled inland in alarm, killing their cattle to prevent their falling into the hands of the invaders, and burying their other possessions where they could not carry them away. In point of fact the “scare” had no foundation whatsoever, and the Zulus were quite as much alarmed by the actual approach of the British troops as the Natalians had been by the imaginary Zulu army. The worst immediate consequence of the mistake was the want, almost amounting to famine, produced amongst the border Zulus by the loss of their cattle. A later and more serious result has been that general impression, which has long obtained credence at home in England, that the colonists of Natal have not only been in fear of their lives on account of the Zulus for many years, but have also had good and sufficient reason for their alarm. But for this fixed, though groundless idea, England would hardly have been in such a hurry to send out additional troops for the protection of the colony as she was in the summer of 1878; to her own great loss and to the very considerable injury of the colony itself, not to speak of its unhappy neighbours and heretofore friends the Zulus.

It is certainly true that during the year 1878 the inhabitants of Natal did honestly feel great fear of the Zulus, and of a possible invasion of the colony by them, the alarm in many cases amounting to absolute panic. But this feeling was produced by no warlike menaces from our neighbours, no sinister appearances on our borders. The panic—or “scare,” as it would popularly be called in Natal—was forced upon the people by the conduct and language of their rulers, by the preparations made for war, troops being sent for from England “for defensive purposes” (as was so repeatedly asserted by both Sir Bartle Frere and Lord Chelmsford, then Lieut.-General the Hon. F. A. Thesiger), and by the perpetual agitation of the local newspaper editors.

It is true indeed that a certain section of the colonists eagerly desired war. To some the presence of the troops was a source of actual fortune, to others the freedom and independence of so large a body of black people, whom they could neither tax nor force to work for them, was, and had long been, odious; the revenue to be derived from a hut-tax levied upon the Zulus, and the cheap labour to be obtained when their power and independence should be broken, formed one of the chief subjects for speculation when the war was first suggested. To others, again, the prospect of war was simply a source of pleasurable excitement, a hunt on a large scale, martial glory to be won, with just spice enough of danger to give zest to the affair; as had been the case in the war just concluded in Kaffraria. Naturally this feeling was commonest amongst the volunteers and their friends. Some of them looked upon the matter in a light which would meet with utter condemnation in any civilised society; but many others, especially the young lads who filled up the ranks of the volunteer corps, were simply dazzled by visions of military distinction, excited by the popular phrases in perpetual use about “fighting for their country, and doing their duty as soldiers,” to the extent of losing sight altogether of the question as to whether or no their country really required any defence at all.

Natal cannot honestly claim to be guiltless in bringing about the war with the Zulus, and will hardly deny that in 1878 the prospect was a most popular one amongst her sons. Perhaps Sir Bartle Frere could not so easily have produced a war out of the materials which he had at hand but for the assistance given him by the popular cry in the colony, and the general fear of the Zulus, which called forth England’s ready sympathy and assistance. But it must be remembered that the panic was not a genuine one, nor even one like that of 1861, produced by the folly of the people themselves. It was distinctly imposed upon them by those in authority, whose policy was to bring about a collision with the Zulus, and who then made use of the very fears which they had themselves aroused for the furtherance of their own purpose.

The subjugation of the Zulus and the annexation of their country, formed part of a policy which has occupied the minds of certain British statesmen for many years. The ambition of creating a South African Empire, to be another jewel in Victoria’s crown, which, if no rival, should at least be a worthy pendant to the great Indian Empire, was a dazzling one, and towards that object all Government action in South Africa has apparently tended since the year 1873. When the idea was first conceived those only know who formed it, but it took practical and visible form in 1873. In that year by crowning the Zulu king we assumed a right to interfere in the internal management of the country, thereby establishing a possible future cause of offence, which, as the Zulus obstinately refused to put themselves in the wrong by any sort of interference with us, was necessary in order to bring about a state of things which should eventually give us a sufficient excuse for taking possession of the country altogether.

The origin of this performance was as follows. In the year 1856 a great revolution took place in Zululand, and a civil war broke out between two claimants to the heirship of the throne (then filled by Umpande), namely, the present king, Cetshwayo, and his brother Umbulazi. Cetshwayo was quite young at the time, and appears to have been put forward by some ambitious warriors, who intended to rule in his name, and did not expect the remarkable power and talent which he afterwards developed.

Umbulazi’s party was beaten, he himself being killed in battle, great carnage ensuing, and many fugitives escaping into Natal.

Amidst all the bloodshed and horror which naturally attends such a warfare as this between savages, there stands out the singular, perhaps unprecedented, fact that Cetshwayo, although victorious to the extent of carrying the nation with him, not only never made any attempt upon the old king, his father’s, life, but did not even depose him or seize his throne. The old man lived and—nominally, at all events—reigned for many years, though, owing to his age and obesity, which was so great as to prevent his walking, he seems to have been willing enough to leave the real authority in the hands of his son, while retaining the semblance of it himself. He was treated with all due respect by Cetshwayo and his followers until he died a natural death in the year 1872, when Cetshwayo ascended the throne which had long been virtually his own, and was proclaimed king of Zululand. This was looked upon as a fitting time for a little display of authority by ourselves, hence the friendly expedition to Zululand of 1873, when we gave Cetshwayo to understand that, however it might appear to him, he held his power from us, and was no true king till we made him such. It was also rightly thought to be an opportunity for suggesting to the Zulu king such reforms in the government of his country as would naturally commend themselves to English ideas. We considered, and with some reason, that capital punishment was an over-frequent occurrence in Zululand, and that, on the other hand, judicial trials before sentence should be the universal rule. It was also desirable, if possible, to decrease the belief in witchcraft, by which so much power was left in the hands of the witch-doctors or priests;[5] and finally it was thought necessary to provide for the safety of the missionaries resident in the land.[6] How far this was a desirable step depends entirely on whether the men themselves were earnest, self-sacrificing, peace-loving teachers of the gospel of Christ, or mere traders for their own benefit, under the cloak of a divine mission, ready to hail a bloody war. “Only the utter destruction of the Zulus can secure future peace in South Africa ... we have the approbation of God, our Queen, and our own conscience.” (See letter from a missionary clergyman to Sir Bartle Frere,[7] dated December 17th, 1878. (P. P. [C. 2316] p. 3.))

It was frequently asserted at the time in Natal that this coronation ceremony (1st September, 1873) was nothing better than a farce, and the way in which it was carried out seems hardly to have been understood by the king himself. The Natalians were puzzled as to what could be the meaning or intention of what seemed to them a hollow show, and were on the whole rather inclined to put it down to Mr. Shepstone’s supposed habit of “petting the natives,” and to “Exeter Hall influences,” resulting in a ridiculous fuss on their behalf.

From Mr. Shepstone’s despatch on the subject of the coronation of Cetshwayo (P. P. [C. 1137]), and from messages brought from the latter to the Government of Natal after his father’s death, there appears to have been a strong desire on the part, not only of the people, but of the king himself, that his formal succession to the throne should be unattended by bloodshed and disorder, such as had ushered in the rule of his predecessors for several generations. How greatly the character of the Zulu rule had improved in a comparatively short period may be judged by a comparison of the fact [p. 5, ibid.] (mentioned by Mr. Shepstone), that during the reigns of Chaka and Dingana (grandfather and great-uncle to Cetshwayo), all the royal wives were put to death either before the birth of their children, or with their infants afterwards, with the behaviour of Cetshwayo, both to his father and to his father’s wives.[8] And Mr. Shepstone himself speaks of Cetshwayo on the occasion of this visit in the following manner:—“Cetywayo is a man of considerable ability, much force of character, and has a dignified manner; in all my conversations with him,” the Secretary for Native Affairs continues, “he was remarkably frank and straightforward, and he ranks in every respect far above any native chief I have ever had to do with.” Throughout the despatch, indeed, Mr. Shepstone repeatedly speaks of the king’s “frankness” and “sagacity,” in direct opposition to the charges of craft and duplicity so recklessly brought against the latter of late.

King Umpande died in October, 1872, having reigned nearly thirty-three years, and on the 26th February, 1873, messengers from Cetshwayo brought the news of his father’s death to the Governor of Natal, requesting at the same time that Mr. Shepstone might be sent to instal Cetshwayo as his successor,[9] in order that the Zulu nation should be “more one with the government of Natal,” and be “covered by the same mantle.” The message ended with the request which Cetshwayo never lost an opportunity of making, that we would protect his country from Boer aggressions.[10] “We are also commissioned,” say the messengers, “to urge, what has already been urged so frequently, that the government of Natal be extended so as to intervene between the Zulus and the territory of the Transvaal Republic.”

The mere fact that this proposition was frequently and earnestly pressed upon the Natal Government by the Zulus, is in itself a proof positive that the aggressions were not on their side. They desired to place what they looked upon as an impassable barrier between the two countries, and could therefore have had no wish themselves to encroach.

Further messages passed between Cetshwayo and the Natal Government upon the subject, until it was finally arranged that the coronation should be performed by Mr. Shepstone, in Zululand, and, with a party of volunteers as escort, he crossed the Tugela on the 8th August, 1873, accompanied by Major Durnford, R.E., Captain Boyes, 75th Regiment, and several other officers and gentlemen.

Mr. Shepstone’s long despatch, already quoted from, and in which he describes, with true native minuteness, the most trivial circumstances of the journey, and subsequent proceedings, gives the impression that he looked upon his mission as a service of danger to all concerned. It was, however, carried out without any break in the friendly relations between the Zulus and his party, who returned to Pietermaritzburg “without unpleasant incident” on the 19th September.

The coronation mission was carried out—how far successfully entirely depends upon the results expected or desired by those in command. The king himself, while looking upon the fact of his recognition as sovereign of Zululand by the English as important, is quite keen enough to have detected certain elements of absurdity in the proceedings by which they invested him with his dignity. There was perhaps a little good-humoured scorn in his reception of the somewhat oddly-chosen presents and marks of honour offered him. Without losing that respect for and faith in the English which has always characterised his dealings with them, he felt impatiently that they were rather making a fool of him; especially when they put upon his shoulders a little scarlet mantle—formerly a lady’s opera-cloak—the curtailed dimensions of which made him ridiculous in his own eyes; and upon his head a pasteboard, cloth, and tinsel crown, whose worthlessness he was perfectly capable of comprehending. Mr. Shepstone’s despatch represents him as greatly impressed by the ceremony, etc.; but the impression on the minds of many observers was that he put up with much which both seemed and was trifling and ridiculous, for the sake of the solid benefits which he hoped he and his people would derive from a closer connection with the English.

The portion of Mr. Shepstone’s despatch, however, which it is important that we should study with attention is that which refers to the “coronation promises” (so called) of Cetshwayo, and treats of the political subjects discussed between king and kingmaker.

Sir Bartle Frere repeatedly speaks of the transaction as “a solemn act by the king, undertaken as the price of British support and recognition;” of Cetshwayo as having “openly violated his coronation promises;” of his “undoubted promises;” while Sir Garnet Wolseley, in his speech to the assembled chiefs and people of the Zulu nation, speaks of the coronation promises as though the want of attention to them had been the chief, if not the only, cause of the king’s misfortunes; and the same tone is taken in all late despatches on the subject.

And now let us turn to Mr. Shepstone’s own report, prepared at the time, and see whether we gather from it the impression that the conditions of his treaty with Cetshwayo were thought of, or intended by him, to stand as solemn and binding promises, of which the infraction, or delay in carrying out, would render the king and his people liable to punishment at our hands. After giving his reasons for objecting to “formal or written” treaties with savages,[11] Mr. Shepstone himself remarks, “Ours is an elastic arrangement.” This is a singularly candid confession, of the truth of which there can be little doubt. Whether such a term should be applicable to the treaties made by an English Government is quite another question, to which we will leave the English public to find an answer. We have, however, but to quote from Mr. Shepstone’s own despatch to prove the convenient “elasticity” of his propositions, and how greatly they have been magnified of late in seeking a quarrel against the Zulu king. At p. 16 of the report, after enumerating the “arrangements and laws” proposed by him, and heartily approved by the Zulus, Mr. Shepstone remarks: “Although all this was fully, and even vehemently, assented to, it cannot be expected that the amelioration described will immediately take effect. To have got such principles admitted and declared to be what a Zulu may plead when oppressed, was but sowing the seed, which will still take many years to grow and mature.” And at p. 17 he says: “I told the king that I well knew the difficulties of his position, and that he could overcome them only by moderation and prudence and justice, but without these they would certainly overcome him.” And again (p. 18, par. 82) he explains that when he left Natal he had looked upon the “charge” which he knew that he would be expected to deliver to Cetshwayo on his installation, as something in the nature of an ordination sermon, or bishop’s charge to candidates for confirmation, likely to influence only in so far as the consciences of those addressed might respond, etc.; but that, on entering Zululand, he found that the people thought so much of this part of the duty he had undertaken that he felt himself to have “become clothed with the power of fundamental legislation,” and thought it right to take advantage of the opportunity for introducing improvements in the government of the people. “I have already described my success,” he continues, “and I attribute it to the sagacity of Cetywayo.”

But in all this there is no mention of “solemn promises,” to break which would be an insult to the majesty of England, and an excuse for war; nor is there, from beginning to end of the despatch, any token that Mr. Shepstone looked upon them in that light, or had any immediate expectation of proving the usefulness of his “elastic” arrangement.

In describing his interviews and political discussions with the Zulu king, Mr. Shepstone speaks repeatedly in high praise of the ability and behaviour of the former. He says in one place: “Cetywayo received us cordially as before.... Major Durnford and my son, with the Natal Native Indunas, sat down with me to an interview with Cetywayo and the councillors, that lasted for five hours without intermission. It was of the most interesting and earnest kind, and was conducted with great ability and frankness by Cetywayo. Theoretically, my business was with the councillors who represented the nation; but, had it not been for the straightforward manner in which Cetywayo insisted upon their going direct to the point, it would have been impossible to have got through the serious subjects we were bound to decide in the time we did.”

Of the points discussed in this way the most important was that which, a little later, led directly up to the Zulu War—namely, the aggressions of the Transvaal Boers and the disputed boundary between them and the Zulus. “The whole of the afternoon,” says Mr. Shepstone, “was occupied with this subject, about which he occasionally grew very earnest, and declared that he and every Zulu would die rather than submit to them—viz. the Boer encroachments. He reproached the Government of Natal for not having taken up the Zulu cause, and for not even having troubled themselves to examine whether their statements were true or not, while they treated them as if without foundation.”

In fact, on this, as on every other occasion, the Zulu king lost no opportunity of protesting against the encroachments of the Boers, lest his peaceable conduct towards these latter, maintained in deference to the wishes of the Natal Government, should be brought up against him later as a proof of their rights. Whatever may have been the intentions and opinions of Mr. Shepstone on the subject of the “coronation promises,” he left Cetshwayo unfettered in his own opinion, having merely received certain advice as to the government of his people from his respected friends the English, to whose wishes he should certainly give full attention, and whose counsel he would carry out as far as was, in his opinion, wise or feasible. As already stated, the principal item of the English advice related to capital punishment, which we, with some justice, considered a too frequent occurrence in Zululand, especially in cases of supposed witchcraft, this superstition being undoubtedly the bane of the country.

But in judging of the king’s acts in this respect, it should be remembered that, to rule a nation without any assistance in the form of gaols or fetters, capital punishment must needs be resorted to rather more frequently than in our own country, where, indeed, it is not so long since we hung a man for stealing a sheep, and for other acts far short of murder. And as to the superstition concerning witches, it can hardly have led to more cruelty and injustice in Zululand than in civilised European countries, where at Trèves 7000 victims were burned alive for witchcraft; 500 at Geneva in three months; 1000 in the province of Como; 400, at once, at Toulouse; with many other like cases on official record.[12] The practice of smelling out a witch, as it is called, is one to be put a stop to as soon as possible by gradual and gentle means, and Cetshwayo himself had arrived at that conclusion without our assistance, as shown in his conversation with the native printer Magema, whose account of a visit paid to the Zulu king appeared in “Macmillan’s Magazine” for March, 1878.

But the custom of a people—the law of a land—is not to be done away with or altered in an hour; nor could we English reasonably expect such radical changes in the administration of a country to follow our orders as immediately and naturally as we should expect a new ordinance to be received by the natives of Natal living under our own rule. Neither could we justly consider the non-fulfilment of our wishes and commands a sufficient cause for attacking Zululand, although such supposed non-fulfilment was the first, and for a long time the only casus belli which could be found against the Zulu king.

The first occasion on which the solemnity of these “coronation promises” was made of importance was in 1875, when Bishop Schreuder undertook to pay Cetshwayo a visit for the purpose of presenting him with a printed and bound copy of Mr. Shepstone’s Report upon the coronation in 1873, and impressing him fully with the wishes of the English Government. Even then, judging from Bishop Schreuder’s account of his interview, neither king nor councillors were thoroughly satisfied with the result.[13] Cetshwayo, while admiring the exact report given of what took place during Mr. Shepstone’s visit, objected that he had reserved his own royal prerogatives and the right of putting criminals to death for certain serious crimes, and pointed out that Mr. Shepstone had neglected to inform the Queen of this fact.

Bishop Schreuder, from his own account, appears to have overruled all objections with a very high hand, and almost forced the “book,” with his own interpretation of it, upon the seemingly reluctant king, who, he says, “evidently felt himself out of his depth.”

CHAPTER II.
LANGALIBALELE.

Meanwhile in Natal mischief was brewing. A certain chief in the north of the colony was supposed to be in a very rebellious frame of mind, and it was rumoured that force of arms would prove necessary in order to bring him to his senses.

This chief was one Langalibalele, who, with his tribe, the Ama-Hlubi, had been driven out of Zululand by Umpande in the year 1848, and had taken refuge in Natal. He was located by the English Government in the country below the Draakensberg Mountains, with the duty imposed upon him of defending Natal against the attacks of the predatory hordes of Bushmen who, in the early days of the colony, made perpetual and destructive raids over the mountains. From this point of view it would seem reasonable that the Hlubi tribe should be permitted the use of firearms, prohibited, except under certain restrictions, to the natives of Natal; inattention to which prohibition was the ground upon which the original suspicions concerning Langalibalele’s loyalty were based. The law, however, by which this prohibition and these restrictions were made was one of those enactments which, even when theoretically wise, are often practically impossible, and to which new communities are so prone.

Theoretically no native can possess a gun in Natal which has not been registered before a magistrate. Practically, in every kraal, in every part of the colony, there were, and doubtless still are, many unregistered guns, bought by natives, or given to them in lieu of wages by their masters (a common practice at the Diamond Fields), with very vague comprehension or total ignorance on the part of the native that any unlawful act had been committed. This would be more especially natural when the masters who thus furnished their men with the forbidden weapon were themselves in some way connected with the government of the country (Natal), whose sanction would therefore be looked upon by the natives as an equivalent to the permission of Government itself. But in point of fact the law had always been enforced in such an extremely lax way, the evasions of it were so easy and numerous, and so many white men of position and respectability in the colony were party to the infraction of it, that it is no wonder that its reality and importance was but lightly engraved upon the native mind.

The special accusation, however, brought against Langalibalele to prove his rebellious tendencies was that young men of his tribe were in possession of unregistered guns, which, in addition, had not been brought in to the magistrate, when demanded, for registration. The reason for this unwillingness (on the part of the young men) to comply with the above demands, appeared afterwards in the fact that other guns which had been properly produced for registration, had, after considerable delay, been returned to their owners in an injured condition, rendering them unfit for use.

As these guns were the well-earned reward of hard labour, and greatly valued by their possessors, it is little to be wondered at that there should be considerable reluctance on the part of others to risk the same loss. A little forbearance and consideration on the part of those in authority might, however, easily have overcome the difficulty. But in this case, as in others, the mistake was committed of requiring prompt and unquestioning obedience, without sufficient care being taken to protect the rights of those who rendered it. As usual we would not stop to reason or deal justly with the savage. Carelessness of the property of the natives, the overbearing impatience of a magistrate, the want of tact and good feeling on the part of a commonplace subordinate—all these led to an indefinitely uneasy state of things, which soon produced considerable anxiety in the colonial mind. This feeling prevailed during Mr. Shepstone’s absence in Zululand, and it was generally understood that the Secretary for Native Affairs’ next piece of work after crowning Cetshwayo would be that of “settling Langalibalele.”

But beyond the reluctance to produce their guns for registration, there was nothing in the behaviour of the Hlubi tribe to give the colonists cause for apprehension. No lawless acts were committed, no cattle stolen, no farmhouse fired, and the vague fears which existed amongst the white inhabitants as to what might happen were rather the result of the way in which “Government” shook its head over the matter as a serious one, than justified by any real cause for alarm. It was in fact one of those “Government scares” which occasionally were produced from causes or for reasons not apparent on the surface.

On Mr. Shepstone’s return from the coronation of Cetshwayo, Government native messengers were sent to Langalibalele, requiring the latter to come down in person to Pietermaritzburg, the capital of Natal, to answer for the conduct of his tribe concerning their guns. The message produced a great—and to those who were ignorant of the cause of it—a most unreasonable panic in the tribe, in which the chief himself shared considerably. The Ama-Hlubi appeared exceedingly suspicious, even of the designs of the Government messengers, who were made to take off their great-coats, and were searched for concealed weapons before being admitted into the presence of Langalibalele. Such distrust of British good faith was held in itself to be a crime, the insolence of which could not be overlooked. Furthermore it was soon evident that the tribe would not trust their chief, nor he his person, in the hands of the Government, now that he was in disfavour. Without actually refusing to obey the orders he had received and proceed to Pietermaritzburg, Langalibalele sent excuses and apologies, chiefly turning upon his own ill-health, which made travelling difficult to him. This answer was the signal for the military expedition of 1873, which was entered upon without any further attempts to bring about a peaceful settlement of the affair, or to find out the real grounds for the evident fear and distrust of the Hlubi tribe. In October, 1873, the force, partly of regulars, partly colonial, a few Basuto horse, with an entirely unorganised and useless addition of untrained Natal natives, started from Pietermaritzburg, with all the pomp and circumstance of war; and much to the delight of the young colonial blood on the look-out for martial distinction. The tribe, however, far from having the least wish to fight, or intention of opposing the British force, deserted their location as soon as the news reached them that the army had started, and fled with their chief over the Draakensberg Mountains. Our force, commanded by Colonel Milles of the 75th Regiment, and accompanied by the Lieut.-Governor Sir B. C. C. Pine and Mr. Shepstone, reached a place called Meshlyn, situated on the confines of the district to be subdued, on October 31st; but the “enemy” had vanished, and were reported to be making the best of their way out of the colony, without, however, committing ravages of any description on their way, even to the extent of carrying off any of their neighbours’ cattle. In fact they were frightened, and simply ran away. Our object now was to arrest the tribe in its flight; and a plan was formed for enclosing it in a network of troops, seizing all the passes over the mountains, and thus reducing it to submission.

Positions were assigned to the different officers in command, and the scheme looked extremely well on paper, and to men who were not acquainted with the district and the exceeding difficulty of travelling through it. Unfortunately, with the same lamentable failure in the Intelligence Department which has characterised the more important proceedings of 1879, very little was known, by those in command, of the country, or of what was going on in it. Mr. Shepstone himself, whose supposed knowledge of the people, their land, and all concerning them was so greatly and naturally relied upon, proved totally ignorant of the distances which lay between one point and another, or of the difficulties to be overcome in reaching them.

In consequence of this singular ignorance a little force was sent out on the evening of November 2nd, under command of Major Durnford, R.E., chief of the staff, with orders to seize and hold a certain pass known as the Bushman’s River Pass, over which Langalibalele was expected to escape; the distance having been miscalculated by about two-thirds, and the difficulties of the way immensely underrated.

Major Durnford was himself a new-comer in the colony at that time, and had therefore no personal knowledge of the country; but he was supplied with full, though, as it soon appeared, unreliable information by those under whose command he served, and who were in possession of a plan or diagram of the district which turned out to be altogether incorrect. He did, indeed, reach his assigned post, though four-and-twenty hours after the time by which he expected to be there; while those sent out to take up other positions never reached them at all, owing to the same incorrect information concerning locality.

Major Durnford was in command of a party composed of 2 officers, 6 non-commissioned officers, and 47 rank and file of the Natal and Karkloof Carbineers, 24 mounted Basutos,[14] and a native interpreter. His orders were[15] to seize and hold the Bushman’s River Pass, “with a view to preventing the entrance in or out of the colony of any natives until the expedition is ready to cross over.” Special orders were also given to him that he was on no account to fire the first shot.

There was one excellent reason, not generally taken into consideration, for this order, in the fact that the three days given by Government to the tribe in which to surrender would not be over until midday on the 3rd of November.

Starting at 8.30 P.M. on the 2nd November, Major Durnford’s force only reached its destination at 6.30 A.M. on the 4th, having traversed a most difficult country, broken, pathless, and well-nigh inaccessible. On the line of march many men fell out, utterly unable to keep up; pack-horses with provisions and spare ammunition were lost; and Major Durnford had his left shoulder dislocated, and other severe injuries, by his horse falling with him over a precipice on the 3rd. He pressed on for some hours, but became quite exhausted at the foot of the Giant’s Castle Pass, where he lay some time; he was then dragged up with the aid of a blanket, reaching the top of the pass at 2 A.M. At 4 A.M. Major Durnford was lifted on his horse, and with his force—reduced to 1 officer, 1 non-commissioned officer, 33 troopers, and the Basutos—pushed on to the Bushman’s River Pass, and occupied it at 6.30 A.M., finding Langalibalele’s men already in the pass.

Major Durnford posted his men, and went forward with the interpreter to parley with the chiefs, and induce them to return to their allegiance. This was a service of danger, for the young warriors were very excited. Seeing that the enemy were getting behind rocks, etc., commanding the mouth of the pass, he made every preparation for hostilities, though restricted by the order not to fire the first shot. Finding that, although the natives drew back when he bade them, they pressed on again when his back was turned, and that the volunteers were wavering, he at last reluctantly directed an orderly retreat to higher ground, from whence he could still command the pass. Upon a shot being fired by the natives, the retreat became a stampede, and a heavy fire being opened, three of the Carbineers and one Basuto fell. The horse of the interpreter was killed, and, while Major Durnford was endeavouring to reach the man and lift him on his own horse, the interpreter was killed by his side, and Major Durnford was surrounded and left alone. Dropping the reins, he drew his revolver, and shot his immediate assailants, who had seized his horse’s bridle, and, after running the gauntlet of a numerous enemy at close quarters, escaped with one serious wound, an assegai-stab in the left arm, whereby it was permanently disabled. He received one or two trifling cuts besides, and his patrol-jacket was pierced in many places. Getting clear of the enemy, Major Durnford rallied a few Carbineers and the Basutos, and covered the retreat.

The head-quarters camp was reached about 1 A.M. on the 5th. At 11 P.M. on that day, Major Durnford led out a volunteer party—artillery with rockets, 50 men of the 75th Regiment, 7 Carbineers, and 30 Basutos—to the rescue of Captain Boyes, 75th Regiment, who had been sent out with a support on the 3rd, and was believed to be in great danger. Major Durnford had received such serious injuries that the doctor endeavoured to dissuade him from further exertion, but as those sent to his support were in danger and he knew the country, he determined to go. He was lifted on his horse, and left amid the cheers of the troops in camp. Having marched all night—resting only from 3 to 5 A.M.—they met Captain Boyes’ party about midday; they had lost their way, and thus did not find the Giant’s Castle Pass.

After this, Major Durnford, with a considerable force, occupied Bushman’s River Pass, recovered and buried the bodies of his comrades, and held the pass. He afterwards patrolled the disturbed districts. The Lieut.-Governor, Sir B. C. C. Pine, in a despatch dated 13th November, 1873, accepted the responsibility of the orders not to fire the first shot, and said of Major Durnford: “He behaved, by testimony of all present, in the most gallant manner, using his utmost exertions to rally his little force, till, left absolutely alone, he was reluctantly compelled to follow them—wounded.”

Colonel Milles, commanding the field force, published the following order:

“Camp Meshlyn, 7th November, 1873.

“The Commandant, with deep regret, announces to the field force under his command the loss of three Carbineers, viz.: Mr. Erskine, Mr. Potterill, and Mr. Bond, and of one native interpreter, Elijah, who formed part of the small force sent up with Major Durnford, R.E., to secure the passes, and who were killed during the retreat of that party from the passes, which, although they had gallantly seized, they were unable to hold, the orders being for ‘the forces not to fire the first shot,’ and so having to wait till they were placed at a great disadvantage. The brave conduct of those killed is testified to by all their comrades, and there is consolation alone in the thought that they died nobly fighting for their country. The Commandant must, however, publicly render his thanks to Major Durnford for the way in which he commanded the party, for his courage and coolness, and especially for the noble way in which, after his return from the passes, being almost exhausted, he mustered a volunteer party and marched to the relief of Captain Boyes, who was considered in great danger.

“By command,
“A. E. Arengo Cross
“(For Chief of the Staff).”

Although the main body of the fighting-men of the tribe had left Natal, most of the women and children, the sick and infirm, with a few able-bodied men to watch over them, had taken refuge in holes and caves, of which there are a considerable number in that mountainous part of the colony. The men of the tribe, indeed, were in disgrace with the Government, and thought it best to be out of the way when the British force paid their homes a visit, but it was not for a moment imagined that the soldiers would make war upon women and children. The latter, in any case, could not have taken that tremendous and hurried journey across the great mountains; and, with what soon proved a very mistaken confidence on the part of the people, all who could neither fight nor travel were left in these hiding-places, from which they expected to emerge in safety as soon as the troops, finding no one to oppose them, should have left the district. “The English soldiers will not touch the children,”[16] was the expression used. So far, however, was this idea from being realised, that the remainder of the expedition consisted of a series of attempts, more or less successful, to hunt the unfortunate “children” out of their hiding-places and take them prisoners.

During these proceedings many acts were committed under Government sanction which can only be characterised by the word “atrocities,” and which were as useless and unnecessary as they were cruel.[17]

Poor frightened creatures were smoked to death or killed by rockets in caves which they dared not leave for fear of a worse fate at the hands of their captors; women and children were killed, men were tortured, and prisoners put to death. On one occasion a white commander of native forces is said to have given the significant information to his men that he did not wish to see the faces of any prisoners; and it is reported that a prisoner was made over to the native force to be put to death as the latter chose. The colonial newspapers apologised at the time for some of these acts, on the score that they were the result of the youthful enthusiasm of “Young Natal” fleshing his maiden sword.

These acts were chiefly committed by the irregular (white) troops and native levies, and are a signal proof of how great a crime it is to turn undisciplined or savage troops, over whom no responsible person has any real control, loose upon a defenceless people. The excuse made by those in authority in such cases is always “We did not intend these things to take place, but horrors are always attendant on savage warfare.” But such excuses are of small value when, in campaign after campaign, it has been proved that the use of colonial troops under their own officers, and of disorganised masses of armed “friendly natives,” is invariably productive of scenes disgraceful to the name of England, without any attempt being made to introduce a better system. Certainly if “horrors” beyond the fair fortune of war are necessarily attendant upon savage warfare, they should not be those inflicted by British troops and their allies upon unarmed or solitary men, women, and children.

So many women were injured in dislodging them from the caves that Major Durnford, on his second return from the mountains, instituted a hospital-tent where they might be attended to; but such humanity was by no means the general rule.

If acts of barbarity were for the most part committed by the irregular troops, there is one instance to the contrary which can never be forgotten in connection with this affair—so flagrant a case that the friends of the officer in command, when the story first appeared in the colonial papers, refused to believe in it until it was authenticated beyond a doubt.

A body of troops—infantry, irregular cavalry, and undisciplined natives—upon one occasion during this expedition were engaged for some hours in trying to dislodge a solitary native from a cave in which he had taken refuge. The force had discovered the hiding-place by the assistance of a little boy, whom they captured and induced to betray his friends.

The “rebel” (in this case there was but one) refused to surrender, and for a long while defended himself gallantly against the attacks of the whole force. Shots were fired through the apertures of the cave, rockets (a new and horrible experience to the poor creature) were discharged upon him. At last, after holding out for some hours, the man gave up the struggle, and coming out from his insufficient shelter, begged for mercy at the hands of his numerous foe. He had a good many wounds upon him, but none sufficiently severe to prevent his walking out amongst his captors, and asking them to spare his life. After a short consultation amongst the officers, a decision was arrived at as to the proper treatment of this man, who had proved himself a brave soldier and was now a helpless captive.

By order of the officer commanding, a trooper named Moodie put his pistol to the prisoner’s head and blew out his brains. A court-martial sat upon this officer in the course of the following year, and he was acquitted of all blame. The defence was that the man was so seriously injured that it was an act of humanity to put an end to him, and that the officer dared not trust him in the hands of the natives belonging to the English force, who were exasperated by the long defence he had made. But the prisoner was not mortally nor even dangerously wounded. He was able to walk and to speak, and had no wound upon him which need necessarily have caused his death. And as to the savage temper of the native force, there was no reason why the prisoner should be left in their charge at all, as there was a considerable white force present at the time.[18]

The result of the expedition against the Hlubi tribe was so little satisfactory that those in authority felt themselves obliged to look about for something else to do before taking the troops back to Pietermaritzburg. They found what they wanted ready to their hand. Next to Langalibalele’s location lay that of the well-to-do and quiet little tribe of Putini. “Government” had as yet found no fault with these people, and, secure in their own innocence, they had made no attempt to get out of the way of the force which had come to destroy their neighbours, but remained at home, herded their cattle, and planted their crops as usual. Unfortunately, however, some marriages had taken place between members of the two tribes, and when that of Langalibalele fled, the wives of several of his men took refuge in their fathers’ kraals in the next location. No further proof was required of the complicity of Putini with Langalibalele, or of the rebellious condition of the smaller tribe. Consequently it was at once, as the natives term it, “eaten up,” falling an easy prey owing to its unsuspecting state. The whole tribe—men, women, and children—were taken prisoners and carried down to Pietermaritzburg, their cattle and goods were confiscated, and their homes destroyed. Several of the Putini men were killed, but there was very little resistance, as they were wholly taken by surprise. The colony was charmed with this success, and the spoils of the Putini people were generally looked to to pay some of the expenses of the campaign. Whatever may have been the gain to the Government, by orders of which the cattle (the chief wealth of the tribe) were sold, it was not long shared by the individual colonists who purchased the animals. The pasture in that part of the country from which they had come is of a very different description from any to be found in the environs of Pietermaritzburg, and, in consequence of the change, the captured cattle died off rapidly almost as soon as they changed hands. But this was not all, for they had time, before they died, to spread amongst the original cattle of their new owners two terrible scourges, in the shape of “lung-sickness” and “red-water,” from which the midland districts had long been free. One practical result of the expedition of 1873 seems to be that neither meat, milk, nor butter have ever again been so cheap in the colony as they were before that date, the two latter articles being often unobtainable to this day.

The unhappy prisoners of both tribes were driven down like beasts to Pietermaritzburg, many of the weaker dying from want and exposure on the way. Although summer-time, it happened to be very wet, and therefore cold; our native force had been allowed to strip the unfortunates of all their possessions, even to their blankets and the leather petticoats of the women. The sufferings of these poor creatures—many of them with infants a few days old, or born on the march down—were very great. A scheme was at first laid, by those in authority, for “giving the women and children out” as servants for a term of years—that is to say, for making temporary slaves of them to the white colonists. This additional enormity was vetoed by the home Government, but the fact remains that its perpetration was actually contemplated by those entrusted with the government of the colony, and especially of the natives, and was hailed by the colonists as one of the advantages to accrue to them from the expedition of 1873. Several children were actually given out in the way referred to before the order to the contrary arrived from England, and a considerable time elapsed before they were all recovered by their relatives.

The unhappy women and children of the Langalibalele tribe were mere emaciated skeletons when they reached the various places where they were to live under surveillance. They seemed crushed with misery, utterly ignorant of the cause of their misfortunes, but silent and uncomplaining. Many of the women had lost children—few knew whether their male relatives were yet alive. On being questioned, they knew nothing of Mr. Shepstone, not even his name, which was always supposed to command the love and fear of natives throughout the length and breadth of the land. They did not know what the tribe had done to get into such trouble; they only knew that the soldiers had come, and that they had run away and hidden themselves; that some of them were dead, and the rest were ready to die too and have it all over. A considerable number of these poor creatures were permitted by Government to remain upon the Bishop’s land, where most of them gradually regained health and spirits, but retained always the longing for their own homes and people and their lost chief which characterises them still.[19]

CHAPTER III.
TRIAL OF LANGALIBALELE.

Meanwhile the fugitive chief had at last been captured by the treachery of a Basuto chief named Molappo, who enticed him into his hands, and then delivered him up to Mr. Griffiths, resident magistrate in that part of British Basutoland. When he and his party were first captured they had with them a horse laden with all the coin which the tribe had been able to get together during the last few days before the expedition started from Pietermaritzburg, and which they had collected to send down as a ransom for their chief. Their purpose was arrested by the news that the soldiers had actually started to attack them; when, feeling that all was lost, they fled, carrying the chief and his ransom with them. What became of the money, whether it became Molappo’s perquisite, or whether it formed part of the English spoil, has never been publicly known. But it can hardly be denied that the readiness of the people to pay away in ransom for their chief the whole wealth of the tribe earned by years of labour on the part of the working members, is in itself a proof that their tendencies were by no means rebellious.

Langalibalele, with seven of his sons and many indunas (captains) and headmen, was brought down to Pietermaritzburg for trial, reaching the town on the 21st December.

So strong was the unreasoning hatred of the colonists against him on account of the death of the three Carbineers which had resulted from the expedition, that the unhappy man, a helpless captive, was insulted and pelted by the populace as he was conveyed in irons to the capital; and again, after sentence had been passed upon him, upon his way to Durban.

It was at this stage of affairs that the Bishop of Natal first came upon the scene, and interfered on behalf of the oppressed. Until 1873, while earnestly endeavouring to do his best as teacher and pastor amongst the natives as well as amongst their white fellow-colonists, he had not found it to be his duty to go deeply into political matters concerning them. He had great confidence at that time in the justice and humanity of their government as carried on by Mr. Shepstone, for whom he had a warm personal regard, based on the apparent uprightness of his conduct; and he had therefore contented himself with accepting Mr. Shepstone’s word in all that concerned them.

That so many years should have passed without the Bishop’s having discovered how greatly his views and those of his friend differed in first principles as to the government of the people, is due partly to the fact that the two met but seldom, and then at regular expected intervals, and partly because no great crisis had previously taken place to prove the principles of either in that respect. Their regular interviews were upon Sundays, when the Bishop, going into Pietermaritzburg for the cathedral service, invariably spent a couple of hours with his friend. During these comparatively short meetings doubtless Mr. Shepstone’s real personal regard for the Bishop caused him temporarily to feel somewhat as he did, and, where he could not do so, to refrain from entering upon political discussion. The sympathy with Mr. Shepstone which existed in the Bishop’s mind prevented the latter from looking more closely for himself into matters which he believed to be in good hands, and which did not naturally fall within the sphere of his duties; while the comparatively trivial character of the cases with which the native department had hitherto dealt, was not such as to force their details before a mind otherwise and fully employed.

The Langalibalele expedition, however, opened the Bishop’s eyes. While it lasted, although deeply deploring the loss of life on either side, and feeling great indignation at the atrocities perpetrated on ours, he did not doubt that Mr. Shepstone had done all he could to avert the necessity of bloodshed, and expected to find him, upon his return to Pietermaritzburg, much grieved and indignant at the needless amount of suffering inflicted upon his people, the greater portion of whom must be entirely innocent, even although the charges against their chief should be proved.

The discovery that Mr. Shepstone entirely ratified what had been done[20] was the first blow to his friend’s reliance on him. The mockery of justice termed a trial, granted to Langalibalele, was the next; and the discovery of how completely he had misconceived Mr. Shepstone’s policy closed the intimacy of their friendship.

It soon became apparent that the trial of the chief was indeed to be a farce—a pretence, meant to satisfy inquiring minds at home that justice had been done, but which could have but one result, the condemnation of the prisoner, already prejudged by a Government which, having declared him to be a rebel and having treated him as such, was hardly likely to stultify itself by allowing him to be proved innocent of the charges brought against him.

That there might be no doubt at all upon the subject, the prisoner was denied the help of counsel, white or black, in the hearing of his case, even to watch the proceedings on his behalf, or to cross-examine the witnesses; consequently the official record of the trial can only be looked upon as an ex parte statement of the case, derived from witnesses selected by the Supreme Chief,[21] examined by the Crown Prosecutor, and not cross-examined at all on the prisoner’s behalf, although the assistance of counsel was recognised by the Crown Prosecutor himself as being in accordance with Kafir law.[22]

But the formation of the court and its whole proceedings were palpably absurd, except for the purpose of securing a conviction; and that this was the case was generally understood in Natal, Even those colonists who were most violent against the so-called “rebel,” and would have had him hanged without mercy, asserting that he had been “taken red-handed,” saw that the authorities had put themselves in the wrong by granting the prisoner a trial against the justice of which so much could be alleged.

In point of fact, the Lieut.-Governor had no power to form a court such as that by which Langalibalele was tried, consisting of his excellency himself as Supreme Chief, the Secretary for Native Affairs, certain administrators of native law, and certain native chiefs and indunas. Besides which the Lieut.-Governor was not only debarred by an ordinance of the colony[23] from sitting as judge in such a court, from which he would be the sole judge in a court of appeal, but had already committed himself to a decision adverse to the prisoner by having issued the proclamation of November 11th, 1873, declaring that the chief and his tribe had “set themselves in open revolt and rebellion against Her Majesty’s Government in this colony,” and “proclaiming and making known that they were in rebellion, and were hereby declared to be outlaws,” and that “the said tribe was broken up, and from that day forth had ceased to exist,” and by further seizing and confiscating all the cattle and property of the said tribe within reach, deposing Langalibalele from his chieftainship, and otherwise treating him and his tribe as rebels.

His Excellency, therefore, could not possibly be looked upon as an unprejudiced judge of the first instance in the prisoner’s case; nor could the Secretary for Native Affairs, Mr. Shepstone, by whose advice and with whose approval the expedition had been undertaken. As to the minor members of the court, they could hardly be expected to have an independent opinion in the matter, especially the “native chiefs and indunas,” who knew very well that they would be liable to the accusation of disaffection themselves if they ventured to show any bearing towards the prisoner, or to do otherwise than blindly follow the lead of their white “brother-judges” (!) and masters.

The native names gave a satisfactory air of justice to the proceedings of the court in English eyes, but in point of fact they were but dummy judges after all.

Not only, however, was the court wrongly constituted, but its proceedings were irregular and illegal. It was called, and considered to be, a native court, but in point of fact it was a nondescript assembly, such usages of either native or supreme court as could possibly tell on the prisoner’s side (notably the use of counsel) being omitted, and only those which would insure his conviction admitted.

It was not the practice of the colony for serious crimes to be tried before a native court. But in this case they were obliged to run counter to custom for the reason given in a previous note, that most of the separate charges against the chief could not be recognised as crimes at all in an English court of law. At the same time the sentence finally given was one quite beyond the power of the court to pronounce. Clause 4 of the ordinance limits the power of the Supreme Chief to “appointing or removing the subordinate chiefs or other authorities” among the natives, but gives him no power to sentence to death, or to “banishment or transportation for life to such place as the Supreme Chief or Lieut.-Governor may appoint.” When Langalibalele had been “removed” from his chieftainship, and himself and the bulk of his tribe “driven over the mountain out of the colony” by the Government force, as announced in the bulletin of November 13th, 1873, the cattle within the colony seized, and many of the tribe killed in resisting the attempt to seize them, the Supreme Chief, under native law, had expended his power; while banishment is a punishment wholly unknown to Kafir law, as is plainly stated in “Kafir Laws and Customs,” p. 39.

Again, throughout the trial, the prisoner was assumed to have pleaded guilty, although in point of fact he had merely admitted that he had done certain acts, but desired witnesses to be called whose “evidence would justify or extenuate what he had done,” a plea which in any ordinary court would be recorded as a plea of “Not guilty.”

The native members of the court, also, were made to sign a judgment, the contents of which had been “interpreted” to them, and their signatures “witnessed,” by which the prisoner is declared to have been “convicted, on clear evidence, of several acts, for some of which he would be liable to forfeit his life under the law of every civilised country in the world.” The absurdity of this is palpable, since it was impossible that these men should know anything of the law of any civilised land; it is plain, therefore, that in pretending to agree with assertions, of the meaning of which they were totally ignorant, they were under some strong influence, such as prejudice against the prisoner, undue fear of the Supreme Chief, or desire to please him—one of them being “Head Induna of the Natal Government,” and another the “Induna to the Secretary for Native Affairs.”

To turn to these crimes, “for some of which he would be liable to forfeit his life under the law of every civilised country in the world”—to which statement His Excellency the Supreme Chief, the Secretary for Native Affairs, and the Administrators of Native Law have also signed their names—we find that the charges run as follows:

1. “Setting at naught the authority of the magistrate in a manner[24] not indeed sufficiently palpable to warrant the use of forcible coercion to our (civilised) laws and customs.” Which charge we may at once dismiss as absurd.

2. “Permitting, or probably encouraging, his tribe to possess fire-arms, and retain them contrary to law.”

3. “With reference to these fire-arms, defying the authority of the magistrate, and once insulting the messenger.”

4. “Refusing to appear before” the Supreme Chief when summoned, “excusing his refusal by evasion and falsehood,” and “insulting his messenger.”

5. “Directing his cattle and other effects to be taken out of the colony under an armed escort.”

6. Causing the death of Her Majesty’s subjects at the Bushman’s River Pass.

It is plain to the most casual observation that none of the first five accusations, even if fully proved, refer to crimes punishable by death in any civilised land; and it is difficult to see how the Chief could reasonably be considered responsible for the sixth and last, seeing that the action took place in his absence, against his express commands, and to his great regret.

Returning to the five first-named offences, we find that the statements contained in the second and third charges are the only proofs alleged of the truth of the first—to which therefore we need give no further attention—the magistrate himself stating that “this was the first time the prisoner ever refused to appear before him when ordered to do so;” and this was the first time for more than twenty years that he had been reported for any fault whatever.

Proceeding to charge No. 2, we find that the prisoner entirely denied having encouraged his young men to possess themselves of guns; nor could he justly be said to have even “permitted” them to do so merely because he did not actively exert himself to prevent it. The men went away from home, worked, were paid for their services in guns, or purchased them with their earnings, without consulting him. He had never considered it to be part of his duty to search the huts of his people for unregistered guns, but had simply left them to suffer the consequences of breaking the laws of the colony, if discovered. It is also to be observed that amongst the seven sons captured with him only one had a gun at a time when certainly, if ever, they would have carried them; which does not look as though he had greatly encouraged them to possess themselves of firearms.

But if the second charge, in a very modified form, might be considered a true one, yet Langalibalele had done no worse in that respect than most of the other chiefs in the colony. In proof of this assertion may be brought “Perrin’s Register” for the years 1871-2-3—the years during which a large number of natives received payment for their services at the diamond-fields in guns. From this register it appears that the total number of guns registered in eight of the principal northern tribes of the colony—the two first-named chiefs being indunas to the very magistrate who complained of Langalibalele—was as follows:

Furthermore, any fault with respect to the guns was not an offence under Kafir Law, and could only have been tried in the Colonial Court under the ordinary law of the colony.

The third and fourth charges were those which, when first reported in Natal, produced considerable alarm and indignation in the minds of the colonists. A defiance of the authority, both of magistrate and Supreme Chief, and insult offered to their messengers, looked indeed like actual rebellion. The charges, however, dwindled down to very little when properly examined. The “defiance” in question consisted only in an answer made to the magistrate to the effect that he could not send in as desired five young men—in possession of unregistered guns—because they had run away, he knew not whither, being frightened by the course pursued by the magistrate’s messenger; and that he could not find eight others, said to have come into the colony with guns, and to belong to his tribe, upon such insufficient data, and unless their names were given to him. The sincerity of which reasoning was shortly proved by the fact that, as soon as their names were notified to him, he did send in three of those very lads, with their guns, and two more belonging to other members of their party, besides sending in with their guns those who had worked for Mr. W. E. Shepstone, and who probably thought that the name of their master was a sufficient guarantee for their right to possess firearms.

The charge of insulting the native messengers from Government, of which a great deal was made at first, proved to be of very little consequence when investigated, but it is one to which special attention should be given because, indirectly, it is connected with the Zulu War.

The facts are as follows: One of the chief witnesses for the prosecution, Mawiza, a messenger of the Government, stated in his evidence-in-chief on the second day of the trial, that on the occasion of his carrying a message from Government, the prisoner’s people had “taken all his things from him,” and had “stripped, and taken him naked” into the Chiefs presence. But on the fourth day, in answer to a question from His Excellency, he said “that they had intended to strip him but had allowed him to retain his trousers and boots,” thereby contradicting himself flatly. Nevertheless the court being asked by His Excellency whether it required further evidence on this point, replied in the negative. They did not even ask a question, on the subject, of Mawiza’s two companion messengers, Mnyembe and Gayede, though both these were examined; Mnyembe’s evidence-in-chief being cut short before he came to that part of the story, and Gayede’s taken up just after it.

The chief was kept in solitary confinement from the day when he was brought down to Pietermaritzburg, December 31st, till the day when his sons were sentenced, February 27th; not being allowed to converse with any of his sons, or with any members of his tribe, or with any friend or adviser, white or black. It was therefore quite out of his power to find witnesses who would have shown, as Mnyembe and Gayede would have done, that Mawiza’s statements about the “stripping” were false; that he still wore his waistcoat, shirt, trousers, boots, and gaiters, when he was taken to the chief; and that the “stripping” in question only amounted to this, that he himself put off his two coats, by the chiefs orders, “as a matter of precaution caused by fear” and not for the purpose of insulting the messenger, or defying the Supreme Chief. They would have satisfied the court also that other acts charged against the prisoner arose from fear, and dread of the Supreme Chief, and not from a spirit of defiance.

This affair of the messenger, explained by fear and suspicion on the part of Langalibalele, by which, also, he accounted for his refusal to “appear before” the Supreme Chief (which is to say that, being desired to give himself up into the hands of the Government, he was afraid to do so, and ran away), was the turning-point of the whole trial. What special reason he had for that fear and distrust will be inquired into shortly. Meanwhile the court considered that such expressed distrust of the good faith of the authorities was an added offence on the part of the prisoner, who was formally condemned to death, but his sentence commuted to banishment for life to Robben Island, the abode of lunatics and lepers, in which other captive native chiefs had languished and died before him.[25]

CHAPTER IV.
THE BISHOP’S DEFENCE.

The daily accounts of the trial which appeared in the local papers were read with great interest and attention by the Bishop, who quickly discerned the injustice of the proceedings. Mawiza’s manifest contradiction of his own evidence first attracted his attention, and led to his hearing from some of his own natives what was not allowed to appear at the trial, that Mawiza’s story was entirely false. Seeing how seriously this fact bore upon the prisoner’s case, he went to Mr. Shepstone and told him what he had heard.

The Secretary for Native Affairs was at first very indignant with the Bishop’s informant, doubting the truth of his statement, and declaring that the man must be severely punished if it were proved that he had lied. The Bishop, confident in the integrity of his native,[26] assented, saying, however, that the same argument should apply to Mawiza. The matter was at once privately investigated by Mr. Shepstone—the Bishop, Mawiza, Magema, and others being present—with the result that Mr. Shepstone himself was obliged to acknowledge the untrustworthiness of Mawiza, who was reproved in the severest terms for his prevarications by the other native indunas.[27]

Singularly enough, however, this discovery made no difference whatever in the condemnation and sentence of the prisoner, although the charge thus, to a great extent, disposed of, was the most serious of those brought against him.

But this was not all. Another point struck the Bishop very forcibly, namely, the perpetual recurrence of one phrase from various witnesses. “He (Langalibalele) was afraid, remembering what was done to Matshana,” and “he was afraid that he should be treated as Matshana was, when he was summoned to appear by Government.” Such expressions, used in excuse of the Chiefs conduct, would, of course, have been inquired into had the prisoner been allowed counsel, or had any one watched the case on his behalf. But although the court judged the excuse of “fear” to be an added fault on the Chiefs part, and although perpetual allusions were made by witnesses to a specific cause for this fear, no question was asked, and no notice taken by those present of the perpetually recurring phrase. The Bishop, however, in the interests of justice and truth, made inquiries amongst his own natives as to the meaning of these allusions. He knew, of course, in common with the rest of the inhabitants of Natal, that, in the year 1858, a native chief named Matshana had got into some trouble with the Government of Natal. A commando had gone out against him, and, after a skirmish with some native troops under Mr. John Shepstone, in which Mr. Shepstone was wounded, and some men on the other side killed, he had escaped with his people into Zululand, where he had lived ever since. The Bishop had never heard the details of the affair, and knew of nothing in connection with this incident which could account for the “fear because of what was done to Matshana.”

“Can you tell me anything of the story of Matshana’s escape from Natal?” was the question put by him at different times to different natives; and everyone thus questioned gave substantially the same account, of what was plainly among them a well-known, and well-remembered incident in the history of the colony.

Matshana, they said, was accused of some offence, and being summoned before the authorities to answer for it, had refused to appear. Mr. John Shepstone, with a native force, of whom this very Langalibalele, then a young chief, with his followers formed a portion, was sent out to endeavour to reduce him to obedience. Mr. Shepstone invited him to a friendly interview, in which they might talk over matters, but to which Matshana’s men were to bring no weapons. In consequence of the reluctance of Matshana to fulfil this condition, the proposed interview fell through several times before it was finally arranged. Matshana’s people, even then, however, brought their weapons with them, but they were induced to leave them at a certain spot a short distance off. The meeting took place; Mr. Shepstone being seated in a chair with his people behind him, Matshana and his men crouched native fashion upon the ground, suspicious and alert, in a semicircle before him. Suddenly Mr. Shepstone drew a gun from beneath the rug at his feet, and fired it (he says, as a signal), whereupon his men, some of whom had already ridden between Matshana’s party and their arms, fell on, and the struggle became general, resulting in the death of many of Matshana’s people. The chief himself, who seems to have been on the look-out for a surprise, escaped unhurt. He was resting upon one knee only when the first shot was fired, and sprang over the man crouching behind him. Another man, named Deke, who was sitting close to him, was wounded in the knee, but is alive to this day.

This story, which in varied form, but substantially as given above, was generally known and believed by the natives, furnished a very complete explanation of why Langalibalele ventured to distrust the good faith and honour of the Government, having himself taken part in, and been witness of, such a disgraceful transaction; which, when it came to the knowledge of the Secretary of State, was emphatically condemned by him. Remembering this circumstance, it is not wonderful that Langalibalele should have taken the precaution of searching the Government messengers for concealed weapons.

It seemed strange that Mr. Shepstone, sitting as judge upon the bench to try a man for his life, should silently allow so great a justification of his chief offence to remain concealed. But it seemed stranger still to suppose him ignorant of any part of an affair carried out under his authority, and by his own brother.

However, the Bishop took the matter privately to him in the first instance, telling him what he had heard, and pointing out what an important bearing it had upon the unfortunate prisoner’s case. He was met by a total denial on Mr. Shepstone’s part that any such act of treachery had ever taken place, or that there were any grounds for the accusation.

Nevertheless, after careful consideration, and on thoroughly sifting the obtainable evidence, the Bishop could not avoid coming to the painful conclusion that the story was substantially true, and was a valid excuse for Langalibalele’s fear. Finding that further appeal on behalf of the prisoner to those on the spot was in vain, he now wrote and printed a pamphlet (giving the usual native version that the first shot fired was at Matshana) on the subject for private circulation, and especially for Lord Carnarvon’s information.[28]

One of the first results of the appearance of this pamphlet was a demand on the part of Mr. J. Shepstone’s solicitor for “an immediate, full, and unqualified retraction of the libel falsely and maliciously published in the pamphlet, with a claim for £1000 damages for the injury done to Mr. J. Shepstone by the same.”

Such an action would have had but a small chance of a decision upon the Bishop’s side at that time in Natal, so, to defend himself—and not, as generally supposed, out of enmity to the Shepstones—he appealed to Lord Carnarvon in the matter, on the grounds that his action had been taken for the public good, and in the interests of justice.

Meanwhile the unfortunate chief and his eldest son Malambule were sent to Robben Island, the former as a prisoner for life, the latter for five years. They were secretly conveyed away from Pietermaritzburg to the port, and every effort made to prevent the Bishop from seeing them, or interfering on their behalf. Other sons, two of them mere lads, who had as yet held no more important position in the tribe than that of herdboys to their father’s cattle, and many of the headmen and indunas, were condemned to imprisonment in the gaol at Pietermaritzburg for terms varying in length from six months to seven years. The two young sons, lads named Mazwi and Siyepu, were kept prisoners for the shortest period named, six months; but it was some little time after they left the gaol before they were really set at liberty. The family at Bishopstowe, where their mothers and many of their other relatives were located, were naturally anxious to have the two boys also, and, as soon as their term of imprisonment was up, applied for the charge of them. Somewhat to their surprise all sorts of difficulties were raised on the point—one would have thought a very simple one—and they were at last curtly informed that the boys did not wish to go to Bishopstowe, and would remain where they were, under surveillance in another district. The Bishop himself was away at the time, but his eldest daughter, acting for him, soon discovered through native sources that in point of fact the boys were extremely anxious to go to Bishopstowe, but were in too terrified a condition to express a wish. The question had been put to them in this form: “So! you have been complaining! you say you want to leave the place you have been sent to, and go to Bishopstowe?” Whereupon the frightened lads, their spirits crushed by all that had befallen them, naturally answered: “We never complained, nor asked to go anywhere”—which, was perfectly true. By dint of a little determination on the part of Miss Colenso, however, the desired permission was at last obtained, and Mazwi and Siyepu entered the Bishopstowe school, which had already been established for the boys of the scattered tribe. Under the treatment which they there received they soon began to recover from their distress, and to lose the terrified expression in the eyes which characterised them painfully at first. But the health of Mazwi, the elder, was broken by hardship and confinement, and he died of consumption a few years after.[29]

It soon became apparent that there must be something specially injurious to the prisoners in their life in gaol beyond the mere fact of confinement. Nearly all the men of the Hlubi tribe left it labouring under a dreadful complaint of a complicated form (said to be some species of elephantiasis), of which a considerable number died; others, as in Mazwi’s case, falling victims to consumption. On inquiry it appeared that the fault lay in the excessive washing to which every part of the building was habitually subjected—floors and bed-boards being perpetually scrubbed, and therefore seldom thoroughly dry. This state of things was naturally a trial to the constitutions of people accustomed to life in the warm smoke-laden atmosphere of a native hut. However beneficial it might be to the natives to instruct them in habits of cleanliness,[30] this was hardly the way to do it, and the results were disastrous. The peculiar complaint resulting from confinement in the city gaol was commonly known amongst the natives as the “gaol-disease,” but it had not attracted the same attention while the victims to it were occasional convicts, as it did when it attacked a large number of innocent prisoners of war!

After the chief had been sent to Robben Island, it was represented, by those interested in his welfare, that to leave him there for the rest of his life without any of his family or people near him—except his son Malambule, who was to be released in five years’ time—would be a great and unnecessary addition to the hardship of his position; and it was finally decided that one of his wives and a servant of his own should be sent to join him in captivity. A few days after this decision a story was circulated in the colony, causing some amusement, and a little triumph on the part of the special opponents of the chief and his cause: it was to the effect that “out of all Langalibalele’s wives not one was willing to go to him,” and many were the sarcastic comments made upon the want of family affection thus evinced by the natives. On due inquiry it turned out that the manner in which the question had been put to them was one highly calculated to produce a negative answer. Native policemen, who were sent to the kraals where they were living, to inquire which of them would be willing to go, accosted them with “Come along! come along and be killed with your chief!” which proposition was not unnaturally looked upon with considerable disfavour. When, however, the matter was properly explained to them, they all expressed their willingness to go, although a journey across the (to them) great unknown element was by no means a trifling matter in their eyes. The woman selected in the first instance was one Nokwetuka, then resident at Bishopstowe, where she was fitted out for her journey, and provided with suitable clothes.[31] She joined her husband upon the island as proposed, as also did a lad of the tribe Fife, who happened to be residing (free) at the Cape, and obtained permission to attend upon his chief. It was not until some time after, when Langalibalele had been removed to an adjoining portion of the mainland, bleak and barren indeed, but an improvement upon Robben Island, that two other women and a little son were added to the party.[32]

For the son, Malambule, however, there was no possibility of making any such arrangements during the five years of his captivity, as he was a bachelor; although when he was captured he had a bride in prospect, the separation from and probable loss of whom weighed greatly upon his mind. He could not even learn whether she was yet alive, as so many women had been killed, and others had died since from the effects of the hardships they had undergone; while it was more than probable, supposing her to be yet living, that she might be given in marriage to some other more fortunate individual, either by the authority of her relatives, or, as happened in another case, by that of the Government of Natal.[33]

Towards the end of his imprisonment, Malambule grew very restless and morose; and, when he found himself detained some time after the term of years had elapsed, he became extremely indignant and difficult to manage, being in fact in a far more “rebellious” frame of mind than he ever was before. On one occasion he showed so much temper that it was thought necessary to put him under temporary restraint in the gaol. Apparently he was very wise in giving so much trouble, for it was shortly found expedient to let him go, though it remains unexplained why he should not have been set free immediately upon the expiration of his sentence. He was sent back to Natal, but still treated as a prisoner until he reached Pietermaritzburg, where he was finally set at liberty; putting in a sudden and unexpected appearance at Bishopstowe, where he was joyfully welcomed by his own people. He did not, however, spend much time amongst them, but hurried off as soon as possible up-country to find his bride. It is pleasant to be able to record that he found her just in time to prevent another marriage being arranged for her, and that his return was as satisfactory an event to her as to himself.

CHAPTER V.
THE PUTINI TRIBE.

To assist in paying the expenses of the expedition, “Government” had “eaten up” the small tribe commonly known as the “Putini,” but properly called the “Amangwe” tribe, “Putini” being, in reality, the name of their late chief, who died shortly before the disturbances, leaving the sole custody of their infant son and heir to his young widow, who accordingly held the position and dignity of chieftainess in the tribe.

To say that the “eating up” of these people was an utter mistake is to say no more than can honestly be said concerning Langalibalele’s tribe, the Ama-Hlubi; but, in the case of the Putini people, the mistake was a more flagrant one, and, when all was said and done, there was no possibility of making out a charge against them at all. Finally the fact stared the Government (both at home and in Natal) in the face that a tribe had been attacked, members of it killed, the people taken prisoners and stripped of all their possessions, without even the shadow of a reason for such treatment being forthcoming.

Major (by this time Lieutenant-Colonel) Durnford specially took up the cause of this injured and innocent people. It was plain enough that the Government at home would never ratify the action taken against the Amangwe tribe by the Government in Natal; and that sooner or later the latter would be forced, in this instance, to undo their work as far as possible—to restore the people to their location, and to disgorge at least part of their plunder:—and it was evident to Colonel Durnford that the sooner this was done the better for all parties. The Natal Government would put itself in a more dignified position by voluntarily and speedily making full amends for the wrong done, and doing of its own accord what eventually it would be obliged to do at the command of the home Government. It was also of special importance to the people themselves that they should be allowed to return to their homes in time to plant their crops for the following year.

About May, 1874, it had been decided by the Government that Lieutenant-Colonel Durnford, in his capacity of Colonial Engineer, should take a working-party to the Draakensberg Mountains, and blow up, or otherwise destroy, all the passes by which ingress or egress could be obtained. The chief object of this demolition was that of giving confidence to the up-country districts, the inhabitants of which were in perpetual fear of inroads from the scattered members of the outlawed tribe. They had indeed certain grounds for such apprehensions, as one or two attacks had been made upon farmhouses since the expedition. Even these demonstrations were not evidence of organised resistance, but mere individual acts of vengeance committed by single men or small parties, in return for brutalities inflicted upon the women and children belonging to them. They were, however, sufficient to keep the country in perpetual alarm, which it was highly advisable should be checked.

The demolition of the passes being decided upon, Colonel Durnford applied for the services of the male Putini prisoners, some eighty in number, and induced the Government to promise the men their liberty, with that of the rest of the tribe, if, on their return, when the work should be finished, the Colonel could give them a good character.

He left Pietermaritzburg with his party of pioneers and a company of the 75th Regiment, under Captain Boyes and Lieutenant Trower, in May, and spent some months in the complete destruction of the Draakensberg passes, returning to the capital in September. The movement at first raised violent though unavailing opposition amongst the colonists, who persisted in looking upon the Putini men as bloodthirsty rebels, who might at any moment break loose upon them and ravage the country. But when the whole party returned from the mountains, without a single case of misconduct or desertion amongst them—although they had had hard work and undergone great hardships (shared to the full by Colonel Durnford, who suffered to the end of his life from the effects of intense cold upon his wounded arm)—the colonists ceased to look upon them as desperate ruffians, and soon forgot their fears. Meanwhile the Colonel found considerable difficulty in obtaining the actual freedom of the tribe, for which he and his eighty pioneers had worked so hard and suffered so much. Any less resolute spirit would have been beaten in the contest, for “Government” was determined not to give way an inch more than could possibly be helped.

However, the matter was carried through at last, and the whole tribe returned to their devastated homes—including the eighty pioneers, to whom the Colonel had paid the full wages of free labourers for the time during which they had worked—in good time to plant their crops for the coming year. Eventually they also received some small compensation for the property of which they had been robbed, though nothing even approaching to an equivalent for all that had been taken from them or destroyed by the Government force in 1873.

The same party of mounted Basutos who were with Colonel Durnford at the Bushman’s River Pass affair, accompanied him throughout this second more peaceful expedition, and remained his devoted followers for the rest of his life.

The colony was tranquil again, and gradually the immediate consequences of the expedition vanished below the surface of everyday life, except in the minds of those who had suffered by it. But one important result was obtained. England was once more convinced that the time for withdrawing her troops from the colony and leaving it to protect itself had not yet arrived. Some such project had been entertained during the previous year, and its speedy accomplishment was frequently foretold; but such a proceeding would have been fatal to the plans of the empire-making politicians. The impossibility of withdrawing the troops was clearly established by turning a mole-hill into a mountain—by proving how critical the condition of the native mind within the colony was considered to be by those who should be the best judges—so that it was thought necessary to turn out the whole available European force, regular and irregular, upon the slightest sign of disturbance; and most of all by creating such a panic in the colonial mind as had not existed since the early days of Natal.

It is doubtful how soon the Secretary of State for the Colonies himself knew the extent to which the operations of 1873-4 could be made subservient to his great confederation scheme; or rather, to speak more correctly, how seriously the latter must be injured by any attempt to set right the injustice done to the Hlubi tribe. When the Bishop went to England[34] and pleaded in person the cause of the injured people, there can be no doubt that Lord Carnarvon was fully impressed by the facts then made known to him. None of the despatches sent home could in the least justify the proceedings of his subordinates in Natal. Lord Carnarvon’s own words, expressing his disapproval of the action taken against the two tribes, and requiring that all possible restitution should be made to them, show plainly enough that at the period of the Bishop’s visit to him, with all the facts of the case before him, his judgment in the matter coincided with that of the Bishop himself. The latter returned to Natal, satisfied that substantial justice would now be done, or at all events that the suffering already inflicted upon the innocent Hlubi and Amangwe tribes, by the rash and mistaken action of the Government, would be alleviated to the utmost extent considered possible without lowering that Government in the eyes of the people.

Certain steps, indeed, were immediately taken. Orders were sent out for the release of the Putini people, which order Colonel Durnford had already induced the Natal Government to anticipate; and a further order was notified that the tribe should be compensated for the losses sustained by them during the late expedition. In the case of Langalibalele and his tribe, although it was not thought advisable to reinstate them in their old position, every effort was to be made to mitigate the severity with which they had been treated. A few extracts from the Earl of Carnarvon’s despatch on the subject will best show the tone in which he wrote, and that the Bishop might reasonably feel satisfied that mercy and consideration would be shown to the oppressed people.

The Earl of Carnarvon, after reviewing the whole proceeding, comments somewhat severely upon the manner in which the trial had been conducted. On this point he says: “I feel bound to express my opinion that there are several points open to grave observation and regret.” He speaks of the “peculiar and anomalous” constitution of the court, the equally “peculiar” law by which the prisoner was tried, and of “the confusion and unsatisfactory result to which such an anomalous blending of civilised and savage terms and procedure must lead.” He remarks that it was in his judgment “a grave mistake to treat the plea of the prisoner as one of guilty;” and he says, “still more serious, because it involved practical consequences of a very grave nature to the prisoner, was the absence of counsel on his behalf.” Entering into the various charges brought against the prisoner, and the evidence produced to support them, he dismisses the magistrate’s accusation of “general indications, of which, however, it is difficult to give special instance, of impatience of control”; and the Governor and Secretary for Native Affairs comments on the same as unimportant, with the words, “I am bound to say that the evidence does not appear to me fully to support these statements.”[35]

Reviewing the circumstances and evidence concerning the unregistered guns, he says: “I am brought to the conclusion that, though there was probably negligence—it may be more or less culpable—in complying with the law, there was no sufficient justification for the charge in the indictment that Langalibalele did encourage and conspire with the people under him to procure firearms and retain them, as he and they well knew contrary to law, for the purpose and with the intention of, by means of such firearms, resisting the authority of the Supreme Chief.” Of the extent to which the chief’s disobedience, in not appearing when summoned by Government, was due to a “deliberately-planned scheme of resistance in concert with others, or the mere effect of an unfounded panic,” the Earl remarks: “Unfortunately this was not made clear.” And, finally, referring to the charge of insulting the Government messengers, he says: “I am obliged, with great regret, to conclude that this very important portion of the evidence given against the prisoner at the trial was so far untrustworthy as to leave it an open question whether the indignities of which the witness complained may not have amounted to no more than being obliged to take off his coat, which might be a precaution dictated by fear, and nothing else.”

Having thus censured the proceedings of his subordinates on every point, he says:

“That the Amahlubi tribe should be removed from its location may have been a political necessity which, after all that had occurred, was forced upon you, and I fear[36] it is out of the question to reinstate them in the position, whether of land or property, which they occupied previously. The relations of the colony with the natives, both within and without its boundaries, render this impossible. But every care should be taken to obviate the hardships and to mitigate the severities which, assuming the offence of the chief and his tribe to be even greater than I have estimated it, have far exceeded the limits of justice.[37] Not only should the terms of the amnesty of the 2nd May last be scrupulously observed, but as far as possible means should be provided by which the members of the tribe may be enabled to re-establish themselves in settled occupations.”[38] Lord Carnarvon further says: “With respect to the Putili tribe, I have in their case also expressed my opinion that no sufficient cause has been shown for removing them from their location. I can discover no indication of their conspiracy or combination with Langalibalele, beyond the vague and wholly uncorroborated apprehension of some movement on their part in connection with the supposed tendencies of his tribe; and therefore I can see no good reason for any punishment on this ground.”

The proclamation to the native population enclosed in this despatch contained the following sentences:

“Langalibalele we release from imprisonment on the island in the sea, but he shall not return to Natal. The Amahlubi may, if they choose, when that is prepared which is to be prepared, go to him, but he will not be allowed to go to the Amahlubi.”

In all that Lord Carnarvon thought fit to say on this occasion he does not express the slightest approval of any person concerned, or action taken, except of the “conduct of Colonel Durnford, whose forbearance and humanity towards the natives” (he says) “has attracted my attention.” A despatch of the same date (3rd December, 1874) recalls Sir Benjamin Pine from the government of Natal.

Anything more thoroughly condemnatory could hardly be imagined, although it may be reasonably questioned how far justice was done to Sir Benjamin Pine[39] by the whole weight of mismanagement being placed upon his shoulders, while his coadjutor and adviser, Mr. Shepstone, on whose opinion he had acted throughout, and whose word, by his supposed knowledge of native ways and character, was law throughout the affair, was promoted and rewarded.

After perusing Lord Carnarvon’s remarks and directions, my readers may imagine that some very good result would be produced on the fortunes of both tribes, but in this supposition they would be greatly mistaken. Nor, unless they had been in the habit of perusing South African despatches with attention, would it occur to them how easily the proclamation quoted from, drawn up by Mr. Shepstone, could be evaded. The proclamation itself is almost childish in its foolish way of informing the people that they had behaved very badly, and deserved all they had got, but would be relieved of their punishment by the mercy of the Queen, and must behave very well and gratefully in future. Such exhortations to people who were perfectly aware that they had been treated with the utmost injustice were rather likely to raise secret contempt than respect in the minds of an intelligent people, who would have far better understood an honest declaration that “we have punished you, under the impression that you had done what we find you did not do, and will therefore make it up to you as much as possible.”

The two important sentences of the proclamation (already quoted at p. 71), however, were capable of being adapted to an extent of which Lord Carnarvon probably did not dream. His lordship can hardly have intended the first sentence by which Langalibalele was released “from imprisonment on the island in the sea,” simply to mean that he was to be conveyed to the nearest (most dreary) mainland, and imprisoned there, within the limits of a small and barren farm, where every irritating restriction and annoying regulation were still imposed five years after. The words “he shall not return to Natal,” certainly do not imply rigid confinement to a small extent of land, where friends, white or black, are not allowed to visit him, or send the most innocent presents without tedious delay and official permission. The second sentence is an admirable specimen of South African art. The people might go to their chief if they chose, “when that is prepared which is to be prepared”—but which never has been yet.

We give Lord Carnarvon full credit for not having the slightest notion that this clause would have no result whatever, as nothing ever would be “prepared.” Year after year has dragged on—one or two women[40] and a couple of boys being allowed, as a great favour, to join the old chief during that time. But every difficulty has always been raised about it, and not the slightest attempt has been made to enable or permit the tribe or any part of it to follow.

When the chief and his son were first removed from Robben Island to Uitvlugt, a desolate and unfruitful piece of ground on the adjoining mainland, at a considerable distance from the nearest dwelling-place of any description, it was understood that the family would live in comparative liberty, being merely “under surveillance;” that is to say, that some suitable person or persons would be appointed by the Cape Government to live within reach of them, and to be answerable for their general good behaviour, for their gratification in every reasonable wish or request, and for their making no attempt to escape from the Cape Colony and return to their homes in Natal.

Strict justice would have required that the chief and his people—those that were left of them—should be restored to their location, as was done in the case of the other tribe, and that both should be repaid the full ascertainable value of the property taken from them or destroyed; but politicians in these our days place “expediency” so far above justice and truth, that men who are fighting for the latter out-of-date objects may well be thankful for the smallest concession to their side.

The Bishop accordingly was satisfied that the new arrangement proposed for the captive chief’s comfort was as good a one as he could expect from Lord Carnarvon, although not what he might have done himself had the power lain with him. But when he signified his satisfaction in the matter, it was certainly on the assumption that Langalibalele was to be made to feel his captivity as little as possible upon the mainland—in fact that it was to consist merely in his inability to leave the colony, or, without permission, the land assigned to him in it. But that such reasonable permission should be easily obtainable—that as many of his family and tribe as desired to do so should be allowed to join him there—that no galling restraints (such as still exist) should be imposed upon him, were certainly conditions proposed by Lord Carnarvon and accepted by the Bishop.

When the Bishop returned to Natal, however, he left behind him in England one who, closely following upon his steps, undid much of the work which the other had done. Mr. Shepstone could have brought no new light to bear upon the subject—he could have given Lord Carnarvon no fresh facts which had not appeared already in the despatches, through which the Natal Government had been in constant communication with him. It was not likely that Mr. Shepstone should possess information hitherto unknown to the rest of the world, including Lord Carnarvon himself, which should have the power of entirely altering the latter’s deliberately-formed judgment upon the subject under consideration. But had this been so, Lord Carnarvon would assuredly have communicated the fact to the Bishop, with whom he had parted in complete unanimity of opinion, and to whom, and through whom to the unhappy chief, promises had been made and hopes held out, destined, apparently, never to be fulfilled.

It is needless to conjecture what may have passed between Lord Carnarvon and the man who reached England somewhat under a cloud, with certain errors to answer for to a chief who was well up in facts beforehand, but who, in 1876, appears as Sir Theophilus Shepstone, K.C.M.G., with a commission as administrator of the Transvaal hidden in the depths of his pocket. The facts speak for themselves. The desire of the Secretary of State to achieve confederation in South Africa (the South African Empire!), the peculiar capabilities of Mr. Shepstone for dealing with the native and Dutch races of the country, and the considerable check which “strict justice” to the injured tribes would be to the great confederation scheme, are sufficient grounds for believing that absolution for the past, and immunity from the consequences of his acts were purchased by the engagement, on Mr. Shepstone’s part, to carry out in quiet and successful manner the first decided step towards the great project of confederation and empire, namely, the annexation of the Transvaal. In the light cast by succeeding events, it is plain that nothing would have been much more inconvenient in the scheme of South African politics than any measure which would be a censure upon Mr. Shepstone, or prevent his promotion to a higher office in the State.

That no such alteration in the opinion of the Secretary of State ever took place may be gathered from his very decided though courteous replies to the appeals made to him from the colony, to the addresses from the Legislative Council and other colonists, containing protests against Lord Carnarvon’s decisions, and professing to give additional evidence against the tribes in question which would completely justify the proceedings of the colonial Government, and the severities of their punishment.

To all that could be thus alleged Lord Carnarvon replies: “I did not form my opinion until I had received and considered the fullest explanation which the Government whose acts are questioned desired to place before me, and in considering the case I had the advantage of personal communication with an officer who was specially deputed to represent the Government of Natal before me, and who, from his knowledge, ability, and experience, was perhaps better qualified than any other to discharge the duty which was confided to him. I fail to find in the present documents the explanations which are promised in the address to Her Majesty, or indeed any evidence so specific or conclusive as to affect the opinion which, after the most anxious consideration, Her Majesty’s Government formed upon this case.”—(P. P. [C. 1342-1] p. 45.)

In another despatch of the same date (July 27, 1875, [C. 1342-1] p. 46), addressed to the officer administering the Government, Natal, he concludes: “As there is apparently no prospect of arriving at an agreement of opinion on several points, there is, perhaps, no advantage in continuing the discussion of them.” Nevertheless, although holding so clear and decided a judgment, Lord Carnarvon permitted his just and humane directions for the treatment of the injured tribes to be practically set aside by those in authority under him.[41]

CHAPTER VI.
SIR GARNET WOLSELEY.

WHAT HE CAME FOR, WHAT HE DID, AND WHAT HE DID NOT DO.

England, however, was beginning to feel that her South African possessions were in an unsettled condition, although in point of fact they were quiet enough until she meddled with them in the blundering well-meaning fashion in which she has handled them ever since. It was patent, indeed, that some interference was required, when innocent tribes were liable to such cruel injustice as that inflicted upon the Ama-Hlubi and Amangwe in 1873, and, if her interference was honestly intended on their behalf, she has at least the credit of the “well-meaning” attributed to her above. Whatever her intentions may have been, however, the result has been a progress from bad to worse, culminating at last in the late unhappy Zulu War.

It is believed by many that England possesses but one man upon whom she can place any reliance in times of difficulty and danger, and accordingly Natal shortly received notice that Sir Garnet Wolseley was coming to “settle her affairs;” and the Natalians, with feelings varying from humble and delighted respect to bitter and suspicious contempt, prepared themselves to be set straight—or not—according to their different sentiments.

The great man and his “brilliant staff,” as it was soon popularly called by the colonists—not without a touch of humour—arrived in Natal upon the last day of March, 1875, and on the 1st of April he took the oaths as Administrator of the Government at Pietermaritzburg.

He immediately commenced a series of entertainments, calculated by their unusual number and brilliancy to dazzle the eyes of young Natalian damsels. These latter, accustomed as they were to very occasional and comparatively quiet festivities, and balls at which a few of the subalterns of the small garrison at Fort Napier were their most valued partners, found themselves in a new world of a most fascinating description, all ablaze with gold and scarlet, V.C.’s, C.B.’s, titles, and clever authors. And, what was more, all these striking personages paid them the most gracious attentions—attentions which varied according to the importance of the young ladies’ male relatives to the political scheme afoot. Meanwhile dinner after dinner was given to the said relatives; Sir Garnet Wolseley entertained the whole world, great and small, and the different members of his staff had each his separate duty to perform—his list of people to be “fascinated” in one way or another. For a short time, perhaps, the popularity desired was achieved in consequence of their united and persevering efforts, although from the very first there were voices to be heard casting suspicion upon those who were “drowning the conscience of the colony in sherry and champagne;” and there were others, more far-sighted still, who grimly pointed out to the gratified and flattered recipients of this “princely hospitality” the very reasonable consideration: “You will have to pay for the sherry and champagne yourselves in the end.”

Undoubtedly the conviction that the colony would pay dear for its unwonted gaiety—that it was being “humbugged” and befooled—soon stole upon the people. While the daughters enjoyed their balls, their fathers had to buy their ball-dresses; and while the legislative councillors and all their families were perpetually and graciously entertained at Government House, the question began to arise: “What is the object of it all?”

All unusual treatment calls forth special scrutiny, and it is to be doubted whether Sir Garnet’s lavish hospitality and (almost) universally dropped honey, with all the painful labours of his brilliant staff combined, did more than awaken the suspicions which a course of proceedings involving less effort would have failed to evoke. Even the most ignorant of Dutch councillors would be wise enough to know that when a magnate of the land treated him and his family as bosom friends and equals of his own, the said magnate must want to “get something out of him”—even the most untaught and ingenuous of colonial maidens would soon rate at their true value the pretty speeches of the “men of note,” who would have had them believe that, after frequenting all the gayest and most fashionable scenes of the great world, they had come to Natal and found their true ideal upon its distant shores.

A vast amount of trouble and of energy was thrown away by all concerned, while the few whose eyes were open from the first stood by and watched to see what would come of it. The question remains unanswered to this day. That the annexation of the Transvaal by Sir Garnet Wolseley did not come of it, is to that discreet general’s great credit. And had his decision—that the work which he was specially sent out to do[42] was one for which the country was not ripe, and would not be for many years—been accepted and acted upon by England, the expense of his six months’ progress through Natal would have been well worth incurring indeed, for in that case there would have been no Zulu War. But this, unfortunately for all parties, was not the case.

The popular answer in Natal to the question, “What did Sir Garnet Wolseley do for you?” is, “He got us up an hour earlier in the morning;” an excellent thing truly, but a costly hour, the history of which is as follows: For many years the city of Pietermaritzburg, known as “Sleepy Hollow” to its rivals of another and, in its own opinion, a busier town, had set all its clocks and watches, and regulated all its business hours by the sound of a gun, fired daily from Fort Napier at nine o’clock A.M., the signal for which came from the town itself. The gun was frequently credited with being too fast or slow by a few seconds or even minutes, and on one occasion was known to have been wrong by half-an-hour; a mistake which was remedied in the most original fashion, by setting the gun back a minute and a half daily till it should have returned to the proper time; to the utter confusion of all the chronometers in the neighbourhood. But, right or wrong, the nine-o’clock gun was the regulator of city time, including that of all country places within reach of its report. The natives understood it, and “gun-fire” was their universal hour of call; the shops were opened at its sound, and but little business done before it. But during Sir Garnet Wolseley’s reign in Natal it occurred, not without reason, to the member of his staff whom he placed in temporary authority over the postal and other arrangements of the colony, that nine o’clock was too late for a struggling community to begin its day, and he therefore altered the original hour of gun-fire to that of eight A.M. How far the alteration really changed the habits of the people it is hard to say, or how many of them may now let the eight-o’clock gun wake them instead of sending them to work, but the change remains an actual public proof of the fact that in 1875 Sir Garnet Wolseley visited Natal.

A more important measure was the bill which he carried through the Legislative Assembly for the introduction of eight nominee members to be chosen by the Government, thereby throwing the balance of power into the hands of the executive, unless, indeed, nominee members should be chosen independent enough to take their own course. Whether this measure was looked upon as very important by those who proposed it, or whether the energy displayed was for the purpose of convincing the public mind that such really was Sir Garnet’s great object in Natal, it is not so easy to decide. But looking back through the events of the last few years one is strongly tempted to suspect that the whole visit to Natal, and all the display made there, was nothing but a pretence, a blind to hide our designs upon the Transvaal, for which Sir Garnet wisely considered that the country was not ripe.

But if in this instance we are bound to admire Sir Garnet Wolseley’s good sense, we must, on the other hand, greatly deprecate his behaviour towards the two unfortunate tribes whose sorrows have been recorded, and towards those who took an interest in their welfare and just treatment—more especially towards the Bishop of Natal.[43]

From the very first Sir Garnet’s tone upon native matters, and towards the Bishop, were entirely opposed to that used by Lord Carnarvon. Every attempt made by the Bishop to place matters upon a friendly footing, which would enable the new Governor to take advantage of his thorough acquaintance with the natives, was checked; nor through the whole of his governorship did he ever invite the Bishop’s confidence or meet him in the spirit in which he was himself prepared to act; a course of proceeding most unfortunately imitated by some of his successors, especially Sir Bartle Frere, who only “invited criticism of his policy”—and received it—when too late to be of any avail except to expose its fallacies.

It is impossible to rise from a perusal of the despatches written by Sir Garnet after his arrival in Natal, in answer or with reference to matters in which the Bishop was concerned, without coming to the conclusion that from the very beginning his mind was prejudiced against the Bishop’s course, and that he had no sympathy with him or the people in whom he was interested. Far from attempting to carry out Lord Carnarvon’s instructions in the spirit in which they were undoubtedly given, he set aside some, and gave an interpretation of his own to others, which considerably altered their effect; while his two despatches, dated May 12th and 17th, show plainly enough the bias of his mind.

The first is on the subject of the return of Langalibalele, which the Bishop had recommended, offering to receive him upon his own land at Bishopstowe, and to make himself responsible, within reasonable limits, for the chief’s good behaviour. Sir Garnet “would deprecate in the strongest terms” such return. “Langalibalele,” he says, “as I am informed by all classes here, official and non-official (a very small knot of men of extreme views excepted), is regarded by the native population at large as a chief who, having defied the authorities, and in doing so occasioned the murder of some white men, is now suffering for that conduct.” While thus avoiding the direct responsibility of sitting “in judgment upon past events,” by quoting from “all classes here,” he practically confirms their opinion by speaking of those who differ from them as “a very small knot of men of extreme views;” and he further commits himself to the very unsoldierlike expression of “murder” as applied to the death of the five men at the Bushman’s River Pass, by speaking in the same paragraph of the punishment of the chief as “a serious warning to all other Kafir chiefs ... to avoid imitating his example.” Without mentioning the Bishop by name, he makes repeated allusions to him in a tone calculated to give an utterly false impression of his action and character. “To secure these objects” (the future safety of the colony and the true interests of white and black) “it is essential that a good feeling should exist between the two races; and I am bound to say that in my opinion those who, by the line of conduct they adopt, keep alive the recollection of past events,”[44] etc. etc. “I have no wish to attribute to those who adopt this policy any interested motives. I am sure that they are actuated by feelings of high philanthropy,” (? simple justice and honesty), “and nothing is farther from my mind than a wish to cast any slur upon them. Yet I must say that from the manner in which they refuse to believe all evidence that does not coincide with their own peculiar views, and from the fact of their regarding the condition of affairs in Natal from one standpoint alone, I am forced to consider them impractical (sic), and not to be relied on as advisers by those who are responsible for the good government of all classes.” In the following paragraphs he speaks of “sensational narratives oftentimes based upon unsifted evidence,” “highly-coloured accounts,” and “one-sided, highly-coloured, and, in some instances, incorrect statements that have been made public in a sensational manner,” all which could refer to the Bishop alone. If by regarding the condition of affairs in Natal from one standpoint alone, Sir Garnet Wolseley means the standpoint of British honour and justice, and looks upon those who hold it as “impractical,” there is little more to say. But Sir Garnet can never have given his attention to the Bishop’s printed pamphlets, and could therefore have no right to an opinion as to his reception or treatment of evidence, or he would not venture to use the expressions just quoted of one who had never made an assertion without the most careful and patient sifting of the grounds for it, whose only object was to establish the truth, whatever that might be, and who was only too glad whenever his investigations threw discredit upon a tale of wrong or oppression. That principles of strict honour and justice should in these our days be characterised as “peculiar views,” is neither to the credit of the English nation nor of its “only man.”

In the second despatch mentioned Sir Garnet makes the following singular remark: “In the meantime I take the liberty of informing your lordship that the words ‘the Amahlubi may, if they choose, when that is prepared which is to be prepared, go to him,’ are interpreted, by those who have taken an active part in favour of the tribe, as binding the Government to convey all members of the Amahlubi tribe who may wish to join Langalibalele, to whatever place may be finally selected for his location. I do not conceive that any such meaning is intended, and should not recommend that such an interpretation should be recognised. I think, however, it may fairly be matter for consideration whether Langalibalele’s wives and children, who have lost all their property,[45] might not be assisted with passages by sea to join Langalibalele.”[46]

It is difficult to imagine what other interpretation can be placed on the words of the proclamation, or how, after it had once been delivered, any narrower measures could be fairly considered, or require further “instructions.”

In subsequent letters Sir Garnet scouts altogether representations made by the Bishop of the destitute condition of members of the Hlubi tribe, replying to Lord Carnarvon on the subject by enclosing letters from various magistrates in different parts of the country denying that destitution existed; saying that the people were “in sufficiently good circumstances;” and most of them suggesting that, should anything like starvation ensue, the people have only to hire themselves out as labourers to the white people. The Bishop would certainly never have made representations unsupported by facts; but in any case it is a question whether we had not some further duties towards a large number of innocent people whom we had stripped of all their possessions, and whose homes and crops we had destroyed, than that of allowing them to labour for us at a low rate of wages; or whether the mere fact of its being thus possible for all to keep body and soul together relieved us of the responsibility of having robbed and stripped them.

These facts in themselves prove how different from Lord Carnarvon’s feelings and intentions were those of his subordinate, and how real Sir Garnet’s antagonism. It is not therefore surprising that the commands of the former were not, and have never been, carried out.

CHAPTER VII.
THE MATSHANA INQUIRY AND COLONEL COLLEY.

In consequence of the threatened action for libel against the Bishop of Natal on account of statements made in his defence of Langalibalele, which Mr. John Shepstone considered to be “of a most libellous and malicious nature,” the Bishop had laid the matter before the Lieut.-Governor, Sir B. Pine, requesting him to direct an inquiry to be made into the truth of the said statements. This was refused by His Excellency through the acting Colonial Secretary in the following terms: “Your lordship has thought it right to make the most serious charges against an important and long-tried officer of this Government—charges, too, relating to a matter which occurred sixteen years ago.[47] That officer has, in His Excellency’s opinion, very properly called upon your lordship to retract those charges. Instead of doing this, you have appealed to the Lieut.-Governor to institute an inquiry as to the truth of the charges you have made. This the Lieut.-Governor has no hesitation in declining to do.” Thereby prejudging the case without inquiry.

The Bishop’s next action was an appeal to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, which he requested the Lieut.-Governor to forward with a copy of the correspondence which had already taken place on the subject, in order that His Excellency might be fully aware of what steps he was taking.

This appeal contained a short account of the facts which had led to his making the statements complained of—the trial of Langalibalele, and the “fear of treachery” perpetually pleaded by many witnesses in excuse of the chiefs conduct, but treated with contempt both by the court below and the council, each including the Secretary for Native Affairs, and presided over by His Excellency. The statements made by the Bishop—not mere “charges” unsupported by evidence, but the deposition of four eye-witnesses who might be cross-examined at will—would, if proved to be true, greatly tend to palliate the offences imputed to the chief, and should therefore not have been suppressed by the officer concerned, who had kept silence when a word from his mouth would have cleared a prisoner on trial for his life from a very serious part of the charge against him. The Bishop therefore submitted that the fact of the events in question having taken place sixteen years before was no reason why they should not be brought to light when required for the prisoner’s defence.

The correspondence which ensued—including a very curious circumstance relating to a missing despatch, recorded in the despatch-book at Pietermaritzburg, but apparently never received in Downing Street—will be found by those interested in the subject in the Bishop’s pamphlet, “The History of the Matshana Inquiry.” For our present purpose it is sufficient to remark that on the 22nd of April, 1875, Lord Carnarvon directed Sir Garnet Wolseley to institute a careful inquiry into the matter, and suggested that under all the circumstances this inquiry might be best conducted by one or more of the senior officers of Sir Garnet’s staff, who had accompanied him on special service to Natal. The correspondence which followed between the parties concerned, with arrangements for the summoning of witnesses and for the management of the trial, are also all to be found in the above-mentioned pamphlet. The inquiry was to be of a private nature, no reporters to be admitted, nor counsel on either side permitted.[48] The Bishop and Mr. Shepstone were each to be allowed the presence of one friend during the inquiry, who, however, was not to speak to the witnesses, or to address the officer holding the inquiry. In addition the Bishop asked, and received, permission to bring with him the native interpreter, through whom he was in the habit of conducting important conversations with natives, as his own Zulu, although sufficient for ordinary purposes, was not, in his opinion, equal to the requirements of the case, while Mr. J. Shepstone was familiar from childhood with colloquial Kafir.

In the Bishop’s pamphlet he points out that the course which Lord Carnarvon had thought proper to adopt in this case was wholly his own, and proceeds as follows:—a passage which we will quote entire:—

“And I apprehend that this inquiry, though of necessity directed mainly to the question whether Mr. John Shepstone fired at Matshana or not, is not chiefly concerned with the character of the act imputed to him, described by the Secretary for Native Affairs as of a treacherous murderous nature, but involves the far more serious question whether that act, if really committed, was suppressed by Mr. John Shepstone at the time in his official report, was further suppressed by him when he appeared last year as Government prosecutor against a prisoner on trial for his life—who pleaded it as a very important part of his defence, but found his plea treated by the court, through Mr. John Shepstone’s silence, as a mere impudent ‘pretext’—and has been finally denied by him to the Secretary of State himself, and is still denied down to the present moment. Such an act as that ascribed to him, if duly reported at the time, might, I am well aware, have been justified by some, or at least excused, on grounds of public policy under the circumstances; though I, for my part, should utterly dissent from such a view. In that case, however, it would have been unfair and unwarrantable to have reproached Mr. Shepstone at the present time for an act which had been brought properly under the cognizance of his superiors. But the present inquiry, as I conceive, has chiefly in view the question whether the facts really occurred as Mr. John Shepstone reported at first officially, and has since reaffirmed officially, or not.”

Colonel Colley, C.B., was the officer appointed to conduct the inquiry, the commencement of which was fixed for August 2nd, 1875.

The intervening period granted for the purpose was employed by the Bishop in summoning witnesses from all parts of the land; from Zululand, from the Free State, and distant parts of the colony. Matshana himself was summoned as a witness under an offer of safe conduct from the Government. He, however, did not find it convenient, or was afraid, to trust himself in person; but Cetshwayo sent some of his men in his place. The Bishop’s object was to summon as many “indunas,” or messengers, or otherwise prominent persons in the affair of 1858; men who were thoroughly trustworthy, and “had a backbone,” and would not be afraid to speak the truth; his desire being to get at that truth, whatever it might be. Thirty-one men responded to his call, of whom, however, only twenty were examined in court, the Bishop giving way to Colonel Colley’s wish in the matter, and to save the court’s time. Four other witnesses summoned by both the Bishop and Mr. Shepstone were examined, and nine more on Mr. Shepstone’s behalf, called by him. The Bishop had considerable difficulty in procuring the attendance of the witnesses he required. The simple order of Mr. John Shepstone would suffice, by the mere lifting up of his finger, to bring down to Pietermaritzburg at once any natives whom he desired as witnesses, invested as he was in the native mind with all the weight and all the terrors of the magisterial office; and with the additional influence derived from the fact of his having only recently filled, during his brother’s absence in England, the office of Secretary for Native Affairs, with such great—almost despotic—authority over all the natives in the colony. The Bishop, on the contrary, had no such influence. He had no power at all to insist upon the attendance of witnesses. He could only ask them to come, and if they came at his request, they would know that they were coming, as it were, with a rope around their necks; and if they were proved to have borne false witness, calumniating foully so high an official, they had every reason to fear that their punishment would be severe, from which the Bishop would have had no power—even if, in such a case, he had the will—to save them.

When, upon the 2nd August, the inquiry began, out of the many witnesses called by the Bishop, upon whom lay the onus probandi, only three were at hand; and two of these, as will be seen, were present merely through the wise forethought of the intelligent Zulu, William Ngidi. But for this last, the inquiry would have begun, and—as the Commissioner was pressed for time, having other important duties on his hands in consequence of Sir Garnet Wolseley and staff being about immediately to leave the colony—might even (as it seemed) have ended, with only a single witness being heard in support of the Bishop’s story. No others were seen or even heard of for some days, and then by accident only. The Secretary for Native Affairs, it is true, by direction of Sir Garnet Wolseley, had desired Cetshwayo to send down Matshana, and the Bishop fully expected that this intervention of the Government with a promise of safe conduct for him, would have sufficed to bring him. But Mr. John Dunn, “Immigration Agent” of the Government in Zululand, and Cetshwayo’s confidential adviser, whom the Bishop met in Durban on July 8th, told him at once that he did not think there was the least chance of Matshana’s coming, as the Secretary for Native Affairs’ words in 1873, when he went up to crown Cetshwayo (who asked very earnestly that Matshana might be forgiven and allowed to return to Natal) were so severe—“He had injured the Secretary for Native Affairs’ own body;” that is, one of his men had wounded his brother (Mr. John Shepstone) fifteen years previously, when thirty or forty of Matshana’s men had been killed—that he would be afraid to come at a mere summons like this, notwithstanding the promise of safety, the value of which he would naturally appreciate by his own experience in former days. Mr. Dunn promised to do his best to persuade him to go down, but did not expect to succeed. And, in point of fact, he never came, alleging the usual “pain in the leg;” and the discussion in Zululand about his coming had only the result of delaying for some days the starting of the other witnesses whom the Bishop had asked Cetshwayo to send. On August 4th, however, Zulu messengers arrived, reporting to the Secretary for Native Affairs the sickness of Matshana, and to the Bishop the fact that six witnesses from Zululand were on the way, and they themselves had pushed on ahead to announce their coming, as they knew they were wanted for August 2nd. Accordingly five of them arrived on August 8th, and the sixth, Maboyi, on August 5th, under somewhat singular circumstances, as will presently appear. Meanwhile most important witnesses in support of the Bishop’s story were expected by him from Matshana’s old location—Kwa’ Jobe (at the place of “Jobe”)—partly in consequence of a letter written by Magema to William Ngidi, partly in compliance with the Bishop’s request sent through Cetshwayo to Matshana himself in Zululand. William Ngidi replied to Magema, as follows: “Your letter reached me all right, and just in the very nick of time, for it came on Saturday, and the day before Mr. John arrived here (Kwa’ Jobe), and called the men to come to him on Monday, that they might talk together about Matshana’s affair. On Sunday my friend Mlingane came, and we took counsel together; for by this time it was well known that Mr. John had come to speak with the people about that matter of Matshana. So we put our heads together, and I got up very early on Monday morning and hurried off to Deke, and told him that he was called by Sobantu (the Bishop) to go before the Governor. He readily agreed to go, and went down at once, on the very day when Matshana’s people came together to Mr. John, so that he never went to him; but, when I arrived, there had just come already the messenger to call him to go to Mr. John, and another came just as he was about to set off for ’Maritzburg. I told him to call for Mpupama on his way, and take him on with him. I see that you have done well and wisely in sending that letter without delay to me.”

Accordingly these two men, Deke and Mpupuma, reached Bishopstowe safely in good time. Also Ntambama, Langalibalele’s brother, of whom the Bishop had heard as having been present on the occasion, readily came at his summons, though he was not asked to give his evidence, nor did the Bishop know what it would be before he made his statement in court. But for the prudent action of William Ngidi, Ntambama would have been the only witness whose testimony would have sustained the Bishop’s statements during the first days of the inquiry; and his evidence, unsupported, might have been suspected, as that of Langalibalele’s brother, of not being disinterested, and would have been contradicted at once (see below) by Ncamane’s.

On Saturday, July 31st, the inquiry being about to begin on the Monday, Magema received a doleful letter from William Ngidi to the effect that the ’Inkos Sobantu must take care what he was about, for that all the people were afraid, and would not venture to come forward and give evidence against a high government official. He spoke, however, of one man “whom I trust most of all the people here,” and who had the scar upon his neck of a wound received upon the day of Matshana’s arrest.

Discouraging, indeed, as it was to find on the very eve of the inquiry that all his efforts through William Ngidi had failed to procure witnesses, except the two sent down by him at the first, the Bishop was utterly at a loss to understand how his message to Cetshwayo had, to all appearance, also entirely failed with respect to those men of Matshana still living Kwa’ Jobe, as well as (it seemed) those living in Zululand.

On August 5th the mystery with respect to the witnesses Kwa’ Jobe was explained. Deke, Mpupuma, Ntambama, and Njuba, who had come from Zululand, had all been examined, as well as Ncamane, who, when called by the Bishop, had replied that he would only come if called by the Government; and when summoned through the Secretary for Native Affairs, at the Bishop’s request, withdrew or modified important parts of his printed statement. The Bishop had actually no other witness to call, and all his efforts to obtain a number of well-informed and trustworthy eye-witnesses from Zululand, Kwa’ Jobe, and Basutoland, seemed likely to end in a complete fiasco. But on the evening of Thursday, August 5th, a native came to him in the street and said that his name was Maboyi, son of Tole (Matshana’s chief induna, who was killed on the occasion in question), and that he had been sent by Matshana to Mr. Fynn, the superintendent, and Lutshungu, son of Ngoza, the present chief, of the remnant of his former tribe living Kwa’ Jobe, to ask to be allowed to take down to ’Maritzburg as witnesses those men of his who were present on the day of the attempt to seize Matshana. Mr. Fynn said that “He did not refuse the men, but wished to hear a word by a letter coming from the Secretary for Native Affairs—it was not proper that he should hear it from a man of Matshana coming from Zululand,” and sent him off under charge of a policeman to ’Maritzburg, where he was taken to the Secretary for Native Affairs, who said to him: “If Matshana himself had come, this matter might have been properly settled; it won’t be without him!” But the Secretary for Native Affairs said nothing to Maboyi about his going to call the witnesses Kwa’ Jobe; he only asked by whom he had been sent, and when informed, he told him to go home to Zululand, as he had not been summoned and had nothing to do with this affair. Maboyi had reached ’Maritzburg on Monday, August 2nd, the day on which the inquiry began. He saw the Secretary for Native Affairs on Tuesday, and on that day was dismissed as above. Not a word was said to the Bishop about his being brought down in this way under arrest, which fully explained the non-arrival of his witnesses from the location; since, first, their fear of giving witness against a government official, and now the arrest of Maboyi, had spread a kind of panic among them all, and deterred them from coming to give evidence against Mr. John Shepstone—himself a resident magistrate, only lately acting as Secretary for Native Affairs, and the brother of the Secretary for Native Affairs himself—merely in answer to the Bishop’s unofficial summons. Hearing, however, on Thursday from natives that the case was then going on at Government House, Maboyi went up to speak with the Bishop, but arrived when the court had adjourned. He found him out in town, however, just as he was on the point of leaving for Bishopstowe, and was, of course, told to wait and give his evidence. Accordingly, he went to Bishopstowe, and Magema was charged to bring him in for examination on Saturday, the next day of the inquiry. On the way into town for that purpose, Mr. Fynn’s policeman most positively refused to let him stay, and went off ultimately in great wrath, as Maboyi and Magema insisted that he must give his evidence before leaving town to return to Zululand.

On that day, Saturday, August 7th, the Bishop explained the whole affair to the Commissioner, and, having obtained a list of names from Maboyi, requested that a Government messenger might be sent for the men at once, and the Secretary for Native Affairs was instructed to summon them. On Monday, August 9th, the Secretary for Native Affairs replied that he had summoned all these men, except seven, who were already in town, having been called by Mr. John Shepstone, and having been, in fact, under his hands—in charge of his induna Nozitshina—from the very first day of the inquiry. It seemed as if William Ngidi’s statement was really to be verified, and that these men had all succumbed to their fears. On the other hand, among these seven was Matendeyeka, whom William Ngidi “trusted most of all;” and there might be amongst them some who would have the courage to speak out and to describe the facts connected with the arrest of Matshana to the best of their ability. At all events the Bishop resolved to call them, and do his best to bring the truth out of them; and Magema afterwards whispered that he had heard from one of Mr. John’s men, who was present when he spoke with the people (Kwa’ Jobe), that the men there had said: “It was of no use to discuss it beforehand; they would say nothing about what they remembered now; but before the Governor they would speak the plain truth as they knew it.” Accordingly the Bishop called four of these men—Matendeyeka, Faku (son of Tole), Magwaza, Gwazizulu—and they all confirmed the story as told by his other witnesses. He left the other three to be called by Mr. John Shepstone, but he never called them. That these witnesses should have been called by Mr. John Shepstone, as well as by the Bishop, was satisfactory, showing that they were witnesses to whom no objection could be made on the score of character or position in the tribe, or as having been in any way, directly or indirectly, influenced by the Bishop.

But the result was that, as these men were in the hands of the other side from the time they reached until they left ’Maritzburg, the Bishop had never even seen them, or had any communication with them, until they appeared to give their evidence. He was wholly ignorant beforehand of what they would say or what they could say; he knew not whether they would confirm or contradict the story told by his other witnesses; and he knew not on what particular points, if any, they could give special evidence, and was therefore unable to ask the questions which might have elicited such evidence.

By this time (August 8th) the witnesses from Zululand had arrived, from whom the Bishop learned the names of other important witnesses living Kwa’ Jobe, and at his request these also were sent for by Government messengers. Unfortunately, through Maboyi’s arrest, some of the Bishop’s witnesses summoned by the Secretary for Native Affairs arrived too late on the very day (August 21st) on which the evidence was closed, and others a day or two afterwards—twelve altogether—of whom only one could be heard, whom the Bishop had expressly named as a man whose testimony he especially desired to take. Upon the whole, Sir Garnet Wolseley, who began by “leaving entirely in the Bishop’s hands” the difficult and not inexpensive business of “obtaining his witnesses,” summoned ultimately twenty-two of them, of whom, however, four only could be heard by the Commissioner; two (Matshana and Ngijimi) did not come at all; and three, including a most important witness, were called too late to be able to arrive till all was over; while four more out of the seven who had been called by Mr. John Shepstone gave their evidence in support of the Bishop, as doubtless the three others would have done, if Mr. John Shepstone had called them.

In the despatch to the Earl of Carnarvon, already quoted from (note to p. 91), Sir B. Pine remarks: “I think it further my duty to point out to your lordship that much of the evidence adduced by the Bishop in this case has been taken in this way (ex parte, without the safety of publicity, and the opportunity of cross-examination); evidence so taken is peculiarly untrustworthy, for everyone moderately acquainted with the native character is aware that when a question is put to a native, he will intuitively perceive what answer is required, and answer accordingly.” The above is a common but insufficiently supported accusation against the natives, denied by many who are more than “moderately acquainted” with their character; although of course it is the natural tendency of a subservient race in its dealings with its masters, and possible tyrants. But granting for the nonce its truth, it would, in the case of the Matshana inquiry, tell heavily on the Bishop’s side. Sir B. Pine was not present at the private investigation made by the Bishop, to which he alludes in the above sentence, and therefore can be no judge of the “cross-examination,” which the four original witnesses underwent; and they, if they did “intuitively perceive” what answer was required, and “answer accordingly,” must merely have spoken the truth; a truth which, at that early period of his investigations, the Bishop was most reluctantly receiving, and would gladly have had disproved.

The evidence before the court, however, was given under circumstances which, if Sir B. Pine’s account of native witnesses be correct, adds enormously to the value of the fact that out of these twenty-four witnesses, summoned from various quarters, many of them without opportunity of communicating either with the Bishop or with each other, but one[49] failed when it came to the point; and he, a feeble old man, just released from prison (one of the captured tribe), was manifestly in a state of abject alarm at finding himself brought up to witness against the Government whose tender mercies he had so lately experienced, and contradicted before Colonel Colley the greater part of the story which he had originally told the Bishop. This poor creature had been intimidated and threatened by a certain man named Adam, under whose surveillance he lived after being released from gaol, and who actually turned him and his family out at night as a punishment for his having obeyed a summons to Bishopstowe. He was manifestly ready to say anything which would relieve him from the fear of the gaol, which he pleaded to Mr. Shepstone a day or two later; on which occasion he unsaid all he had previously said, having, as he afterwards confessed, been warned by Mr. Shepstone’s policeman Ratsha, who asked him for what purpose he had been summoned by the Bishop, not to speak a word about “Mr. John’s” treatment of Matshana. But, with the best intentions, the man did not succeed in making his story tally entirely with that of Mr. Shepstone’s other witnesses, nor with Mr. Shepstone’s own.

With this one exception the Bishop’s witnesses told the same story in all essential respects. They were men arriving from many different and distant parts of the colony, from Zululand, and from the Free State, who could not possibly have combined to tell the same story in all its details, which, if false, would have been torn to pieces when so many men of different ages and characters were cross-examined by one so thoroughly acquainted with all the real facts of the case as Mr. Shepstone—men who had nothing to expect from the Bishop, but had everything to dread from the Government if proved to have brought a false and foul charge against an officer so highly placed and so powerfully protected; yet not the least impression was made upon the strength of their united evidence.

The case, however, is very different when we turn to Mr. Shepstone’s witnesses. Of these, nine in number (besides the four natives called by both the Bishop and Mr. Shepstone), seven were natives; the other two being the Secretary for Native Affairs and Mr. John Taylor—a son of Mr. John Shepstone’s first wife by her former husband. Mr. Taylor was a lad of nine at the time, but, having been present with his mother and little sister on the occasion of the attack upon Matshana, was summoned as a witness by Mr. Shepstone. His evidence was chiefly important as helping to prove that Matshana’s party had not the concealed weapons which Mr. Shepstone’s chief native witness Nozitshina said were left by them in immense numbers upon the ground; as he stated that he and his sister went over the ground, after the affair was over, and picked up the assegais, “about eight or nine” in number.

But it is important to remark that the very fact of the presence at this meeting of Mrs. Shepstone with her two children, goes far to disprove the account given by Mr. Shepstone in his second “statement,” prepared by him on the occasion of this trial, but which is greatly at variance on some vital points with the narrative written by him on the day after the event, dated March 17th, 1858, for the information of His Excellency the Lieut.-Governor. It seems almost incredible that Mr. John. Shepstone should have, as he says in his second statement, “made up his mind to face almost certain” death, not only for himself and all his men, but for his wife and her two young children, on the grounds that it was “too late to withdraw at this stage” (same report), when at any time since the “day or two previous” (ibid.), when the information in question[50] reached him; according to his account he might have put off the meeting, or at all events have sent his wife and her children to a place of safety. The Secretary for Native Affairs’ evidence could of course be of a merely official character, as he was not present on the occasion. He stated that Mr. John Shepstone’s letters of February 16th and 24th, 1858, asked for by the Bishop, on the subject of the approaching interview with Matshana, could not be found, although they “must have been recently mislaid,” as he himself (the Secretary for Native Affairs) had quoted from one of them in his minute for the Secretary of State in June, 1874. Of Mr. Shepstone’s native witnesses it can only be said that, amongst the seven called by him only, six contradicted themselves and each other to so great an extent as to make their evidence of no value, while the evidence of the seventh was unimportant, and the four witnesses called by both Mr. Shepstone and the Bishop told the same story as did the witnesses of the latter, most unexpectedly to him.

Nevertheless Colonel Colley’s judgment, although convicting Mr. John Shepstone of having enticed the chief Matshana to an interview with the intention of seizing him, was received and acted upon in Natal as an acquittal of that officer. So far was this the case, that, although Lord Carnarvon directed that the Bishop’s costs should be placed upon the colonial estimates, the Legislative Council of the colony refused to pay them on the grounds that they were the costs of the losing party. In his report Colonel Colley gives his opinions as follows:

“That Matyana was enticed to an interview, as stated by the Bishop, and was induced to come unarmed, under the belief that it was a friendly meeting, such as he had already had with Mr. Shepstone, for the purpose of discussing the accusations against him and the question of his return to his location.

“That Matyana, though very suspicious and unwilling, came there in good faith; and that the accusations against him—of meditating the assassination of Mr. Shepstone and his party, of a prearranged plan and signal for the purpose, and of carrying concealed arms to the meeting—which are made in Mr. J. Shepstone’s statements, are entirely without foundation.

“That Mr. Shepstone at that time held no magisterial position, but was simply the commander of a small armed force charged with the execution of a warrant; and that the manner in which he proposed to effect the seizure, viz. at a supposed friendly meeting, was known to and sanctioned by, if not the Government, at least the immediate representative of the Government and Mr. Shepstone’s superior, Dr. Kelly, the resident magistrate of the district.

“That Mr. Shepstone did not attempt to shoot Matyana, as described by the Bishop, but fired into the air after the attempt to seize Matyana had failed, and in consequence of the attempt made almost simultaneously by some of Matyana’s men to reach the huts and seize the arms of Mr. Shepstone’s men.

“The concealment of the gun,” he continues, “and the fact that a number of Matyana’s men were killed in the pursuit, is not disputed by Mr. Shepstone.

“I confess that I have had the greatest difficulty in forming my opinion on this latter point, and especially as to whether Mr. Shepstone fired into the air as he states. The weight of direct evidence adduced at the inquiry lay altogether on the other side.”[51]

Colonel Colley then proceeds to give the considerations by which he has been influenced in coming to a conclusion directly opposed to the side on which, as he himself says, lay the weight of direct evidence. These considerations were threefold. The first is an opinion of his own, considerably at variance with most people’s experience, namely, that a story handed down by oral tradition “crystallises into an accepted form,” by which he explains away the fact that so many witnesses told the same story, and one which stood the test of cross-examination, without any important variations.

The second consideration was even more singular, namely, that allowance must be made on Mr. John Shepstone’s side for the greater ability with which the Bishop conducted his case; and the third lay in the statement that “Mr. J. W. Shepstone is a man of known courage, and a noted sportsman and shot,” and “was not likely to have missed” Matyana if he had fired at him; “and, if driven to fire into the crowd in self-defence, it is more probable that he would have shot one of the men on the right.” The Bishop’s opponents from the very first persistently put forward the notion that he had “brought a charge against Mr. J. W. Shepstone,” and this was countenanced by the Government when they threw upon him the serious task of prosecuting before a Court of Enquiry, whereas in point of fact the real question at issue was not whether or no a certain shot was actually fired, but whether, on a certain occasion, a Government official had acted in a treacherous manner towards a native chief, thereby giving reason for the excuse of fear on the part of Langalibalele, treated as a false pretence by the court, some members of which were fully aware of the facts, and the prosecutor himself the official concerned. And, further, whether the said facts had been concealed by high Government officers, and denied by them repeatedly to their superiors in England.

On the former questions Colonel Colley’s report leaves no doubt, and Lord Carnarvon’s comments upon it are of a very decided nature. After signifying his acceptance of the decision as a “sound and just conclusion,” and complimenting Colonel Colley on the “able and conscientious manner in which” he “has acquitted himself of an arduous and delicate task,” he continues: “On the other hand, I must, even after the lapse of so many years, record my disapprobation of the artifices by which it is admitted Matyana was entrapped into the meeting with a view to his forcible arrest. Such underhand manœuvres are opposed to the morality of a civilised administration; they lower English rule in the eyes of the natives; and they even defeat their own object, as is abundantly illustrated by the present case.”

Mr. J. W. Shepstone, however, was a subordinate officer, and if his mode of executing the warrant was approved by the superior authorities in the colony, the blame which may attach to the transaction must be borne by them at least in equal proportion.

The gist of Colonel Colley’s decision is altogether condemnatory of Mr. J. Shepstone, some of whose statements, he says, “are entirely without foundation,” and, by implication, also of his brother, the Secretary for Native Affairs; yet virtually, and in the eyes of the world, the decision was in their favour. To quote from The Natal Mercury of November 2nd, 1875: “It is still understood that Mr. Shepstone, in the minds of impartial judges, stands more than exonerated from the Bishop’s charges.” Mr. John Shepstone was retained in his responsible position, and received further promotion; and his brother was immediately appointed to the high office of Administrator of Government, and sent out with power to annex the Transvaal if he thought proper.

We have dwelt at some length upon the inquiry into the Matshana case; for, since the annexation of the Transvaal was one of the direct and immediate causes of the Zulu War, and since it seems improbable that any other man than Sir Theophilus Shepstone could at the moment have been found equally able to undertake the task, it becomes a serious question to what extent an inquiry which had no practical effect whatsoever upon the position of men whose conduct had been stigmatised by the Secretary of State himself as “underhand manœuvres, opposed to the morality of a civilised administration,” may not be considered chargeable with the disastrous results. And, further, we must protest against the spirit of the last sentence of Lord Carnarvon’s despatch on the subject, in which he expresses his “earnest hope that his (Colonel Colley’s) report will be received by all parties to this controversy in the spirit which is to be desired, and be accepted as a final settlement of a dispute which cannot be prolonged without serious prejudice to public interests, and without a renewal of those resentments which, for the good of the community—English as well as native—had best be put to rest.”

A dislocated joint must be replaced, or the limb cannot otherwise be pressed down into shape and “put to rest;” a thorn must be extracted, not skinned over and left in the flesh; and as, with the dislocation unreduced or the thorn unextracted, the human frame can never recover its healthful condition, so it is with the state with an unrighted wrong, an unexposed injustice.

The act of treason towards Matshana, hidden for many years, looked upon by its perpetrators as a matter past and gone, has tainted all our native policy since—unknown to most English people in Natal or at home—and has finally borne bitter fruit in the present unhappy condition of native affairs.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE ANNEXATION OF THE TRANSVAAL.

On the 5th of October, 1876, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, K.C.M.G., was appointed “to be a Special Commissioner to inquire respecting certain disturbances which have taken place in the territories adjoining the colony of Natal, and empowering him, in certain events, to exercise the power and jurisdiction of Her Majesty over such territories, or some of them.” (P. P. [C. 1776] p. 1.)

The commission stated: “Whereas grievous disturbances have broken out in the territories adjacent to our colonies in South Africa, with war between the white inhabitants and the native races, to the great peril of the peace and safety of our said colonies ... and, if the emergency should seem to you to be such as to render it necessary, in order to secure the peace and safety of our said colonies and of our subjects elsewhere, that the said territories, or any portion or portions of the same, should provisionally, and pending the announcement of our pleasure, be administered in our name and on our behalf; then, and in such case only, we do further authorise you, the said Sir Theophilus Shepstone, by proclamation under your hand, to declare that, from and after a day to be therein named, so much of any such territories as aforesaid, as to you after due consideration, shall seem fit, shall be annexed to and form part of our dominions.... Provided, first, that no such proclamation shall be issued by you with respect to any district, territory, or state unless you shall be satisfied that the inhabitants thereof, or a sufficient number of them, or the Legislature thereof, desire to become our subjects, nor if any conditions unduly limiting our power and authority therein are sought to be imposed.”

Such was the tenor of the commission which, unknown to the world at large, Sir Theophilus Shepstone brought with him when he returned to Natal in November, 1876. The sudden annexation which followed was a stroke which took all by surprise except the few already in the secret; many declaring to the last that such an action on the part of the English Government was impossible—because, they thought, unjust. It is true that the Republic had for long been going from bad to worse in the management of its own affairs; its Government had no longer the power to enforce laws or to collect taxes; and the country was generally believed to be fast approaching a condition of absolute anarchy. Nevertheless it was thought by some that, except by the request of those concerned, we had no right to intrude our authority for the better control of Transvaal affairs so long as their bad management did not affect us.

On one point, however, we undoubtedly had a right to interfere, as the stronger, the juster, and more merciful nation—namely, the attitude of the Transvaal Boers towards, and their treatment of, the native tribes who were their neighbours, or who came under their control. On behalf of the latter unfortunates (Transvaal subjects), we did not even profess to interfere; but one of the chief causes alleged by us for our taking possession of the country was a long and desultory war which was taking place between the Boers and Sikukuni, the chief of the Bapedi tribe living upon their northern borders, and in the course of which the Boers were behaving towards the unhappy natives with a treachery, and, when they fell into their power, with a brutality unsurpassed by any historical records. The sickening accounts of cruelties inflicted upon helpless men, women, and children by the Boers, which are to be found on official record in the pages of the Blue-book (C. 1776), should be ample justification in the eyes of a civilised world for English interference, and forcible protection of the sufferers; and it is rather with the manner in which the annexation was carried out, and the policy which followed it, than with the intervention of English power in itself, that an objection can be raised.

The war between the Boers and the Bapedi arose out of similar encroachments on the part of the former, which led, as we shall presently show, to their border disputes with the Zulus. Boer farmers had gradually deprived of their land the native possessors of the soil by a simple process peculiarly their own. They first rented land from the chiefs for grazing purposes, then built upon it, still paying a tax or tribute to the chief; finally, having well established themselves, they professed to have purchased the land for the sum already paid as rent, announced themselves the owners of it, and were shortly themselves levying taxes on the very men whom they had dispossessed. In this manner Sikukuni was declared by the Boers to have ceded to them the whole of his territory—that is to say, hundreds of square miles, for the paltry price of a hundred head of cattle.

An officer of the English Government, indeed (His Excellency’s Commissioner at Lydenburg, Captain Clarke, R.A.), was of opinion [C. 2316, p. 29] that, “had only the Boer element in the Lydenburg district been consulted, it is doubtful if there would have been war with Sikukuni,” as the Boers, he said, might have continued to pay taxes to the native chiefs. And the officer in question appears to censure the people who were “willing to submit to such humiliating conditions, and ambitious of the position of prime adviser to a native chief.” It is difficult to understand why there should be anything humiliating in paying rent for land, whether to white or black owners, and the position of prime adviser to a powerful native chief might be made a very honourable and useful one in the hands of a wise and Christian man.

Captain Clarke continues thus: “It was the foreign element under the late President which forced matters to a crisis. Since the annexation the farmers have, with few exceptions, ceased to pay tribute to the Chiefs; their relations with the natives are otherwise unchanged. Culture and contact with civilisation will doubtless have the effect of re-establishing the self-respect of these people, and teaching them the obligation and benefits imposed and conferred on them by their new position.” That is to say, apparently, teaching them that it is beneath their dignity to pay taxes to native landowners, but an “obligation imposed” upon them to rob the latter altogether of their land, the future possession of which is one of the “benefits conferred on them by their new position” (i.e. as subjects of the British Crown).

“The Bapedi branch of the Basuto family,” says Captain Clarke, in the same despatch, “essentially agricultural and peaceful in its habits and tastes, even now irrigate the land, and would, if possible, cultivate in excess of their food requirements. The friendly natives assure me that their great wish is to live peacefully on their lands, and provide themselves with ploughs, waggons, etc. The experience of the Berlin missionaries confirms this view. Relieved of their present anomalous position, into which they have been forced by the ambition of their rulers,[52] and distrust of the Boers, encouraged to follow their natural bent, the Basutos would become a peaceful agricultural people, capable of a certain civilisation.” How well founded was this “distrust of the Boers,” may be gathered from the accounts given in the Blue-book already mentioned.

The objects of the Boers in their attacks upon their native neighbours appear to have been twofold—the acquisition of territory, and that of children to be brought up as slaves.

The Cape Argus of December 12th, 1876, remarks: “Through the whole course of this Republic’s existence, it has acted in contravention of the Sand River Treaty;[53] and slavery has occurred not only here and there in isolated cases, but as an unbroken practice has been one of the peculiar institutions of the country, mixed up with all its social and political life. It has been at the root of most of its wars.... The Boers have not only fallen upon unsuspecting kraals simply for the purpose of obtaining the women and children and cattle, but they have carried on a traffic through natives, who have kidnapped the children of their weaker neighbours, and sold them to the white man. Again, the Boers have sold and exchanged their victims amongst themselves. Waggon-loads of slaves have been conveyed from one end of the country to the other for sale, and that with the cognizance and for the direct advantage of the highest officials of the land. The writer has himself seen in a town situated in the south of the Republic the children who had been brought down from a remote northern district.... The circumstances connected with some of these kidnapping excursions are appalling, and the barbarities practised by cruel masters upon some of these defenceless creatures during the course of their servitude are scarcely less horrible than those reported from Turkey, although they are spread over a course of years instead of being compressed within a few weeks.” This passage is taken from a letter to The Argus (enclosed in a despatch from Sir Henry Barkly to the Earl of Carnarvon, December 13th, 1876), which, with other accompanying letters from the same source, gives an account of Boer atrocities too horrible for repetition. [C. 1776]. A single instance may be mentioned which, however shocking, is less appalling than others, but perhaps shows more plainly than anything else could do what the natives knew the life of a slave in the Transvaal would be. The information is given by a Boer. “In 1864,” he says, “the Swazies accompanied the Boers against Males.[54] The Boers did nothing but stand by and witness the fearful massacre. The men and women were also murdered. One poor woman sat clutching her baby of eight days old. The Swazies stabbed her through the body; and when she found that she could not live, she wrung her baby’s neck with her own hands, to save it from future misery. On the return of that commando the children who became too weary to continue the journey were killed on the road. The survivors were sold as slaves to the farmers.”

Out of this state of things eventually proceeded the war between the Boers and Sikukuni, the result of which was a very ambiguous one indeed; for although Sikukuni was driven out of the low-lying districts of the country, he took refuge in his stronghold, which affords such an impregnable position in a thickly-populated range of mountains as hitherto to have defied all attempts, whether made by Boers or by English, to reduce it.[55]

Another important reason alleged at the time for taking possession of the Transvaal was that the border troubles between it and Zululand were becoming more serious every day; that, sooner or later, unless we interposed our authority, a war would break out between the Boers and the Zulus, into which we should inevitably be drawn. The Zulus, having continually entreated our protection, while at our desire they refrained from defending themselves by force of arms, were naturally rejoiced at an action on our part which looked like an answer to their oft-repeated prayer, and eagerly expected the reward of their long and patient waiting.

But, however strongly we may feel that it was the duty of the more powerful nation to put a stop to the doings of the Transvaal Boers, even at considerable expense to ourselves, the manner in which we have acted, and the consequences which followed, have been such as to cause many sensible people to feel that we should have done better to withdraw our prohibition from Cetshwayo, and allow him and the Boers “to fight it out between them.”[56]

We might have honestly and openly interfered and insisted upon putting a stop to the atrocities of the Boers, annexing their country if necessary to that end, but then we ourselves should have done justice to the natives on whose behalf we professed to interfere, instead of taking over with the country and carrying on those very quarrels and aggressions which we alleged as a sufficient reason for the annexation.

When Sir Theophilus Shepstone went up to Pretoria it was, ostensibly, merely to advise the President and Volksraad of the Transvaal Republic as to the best means of extricating themselves and the country from the difficulties into which they were plunged, and with the expressed intention of endeavouring to produce a peaceful settlement with Sikukuni, which should protect him and his people for the future from the tyranny of the Boers. Up to the last the notion that there was any intention of forcibly annexing the country was indignantly repudiated by the members of the expedition, although their chief meanwhile was in possession of his commission as Administrator of the British Government in the Transvaal. There were some who suspected that there was more in the movement than was confessed to by those concerned. It was argued that, were Sir Theophilus Shepstone’s visit of a purely friendly nature, no armed force would have been sent to escort him, as he was going, not into a savage country, but into one which, at all events, professed to have a civilised government and an educated class. The unsettled state of feeling amongst the Boers was pleaded in answer to this argument, but was commonly met by the suggestion that if, under the circumstances, the armed force of mounted police which accompanied the important visitor might be looked upon as a justifiable precaution, yet the possible danger to strangers from the violence of a few lawless men in a country in which the government was not strong enough to keep them in check, was not great enough to account for the fact that a regiment of British infantry was hastily moved up to Newcastle, from whence they could speedily be summoned into the Transvaal. The presence of a Zulu army upon the other border, where it lay quiet and inoffensive for weeks during Sir Theophilus Shepstone’s proceedings in the Transvaal, was naturally looked upon as a suspicious circumstance. There can be little doubt that—whether or no Cetshwayo obeyed a hint from his old friend the Secretary for Native Affairs, and sent his army to support him, and to overawe the Boers by a warlike demonstration—the Zulus were present in a spirit, however inimical to the Boers, entirely friendly to the English. The mere fact that the army lay there so long in harmless repose, and dispersed promptly and quietly immediately upon receiving orders to do so from Sir Theophilus Shepstone, proves that, at all events, they and their king thought that they were carrying out his wishes. The feeling expressed at the time by a British officer,[57] in speaking of this Zulu army, and recommending that it should be dispersed, that “it were better the little band of Englishmen (including, of course, himself) should fall by the hand of the Boers than that aught should be done by the former to bring about a war of races,” can hardly have been shared by Sir Theophilus Shepstone himself, or the message to the Zulu king to withdraw his army would have been despatched some weeks earlier.

In face of these facts it strikes one as strange that the temporary presence of this Zulu army on the Transvaal borders, manifestly in our support (whether by request or not), and which retired without giving the least offence, or even committing such acts of theft or violence as might be expected as necessary evils in the neighbourhood of a large European garrison, should have been regarded, later, as a sign of Cetshwayo’s inimical feeling towards the English.[58]

Mr. Pretorius, member of the Dutch executive council, and other influential Transvaalers, assert that Sir T. Shepstone threatened to let loose the Zulus upon them, in order to reduce them to submission; but the accusation is denied on behalf of the Administrator of the Transvaal. And Mr. Fynney (in the report of his mission to Cetshwayo from Sir T. Shepstone, upon the annexation of the Transvaal, dated July 4, 1877) gives the king’s words to him, as follows: “I am pleased that Somtseu (Sir Theophilus Shepstone) has sent you to let me know that the land of the Transvaal Boers has now become part of the lands of the Queen of England. I began to wonder why he did not tell me something of what he was doing. I received one message from him, sent by Unkabano, from Newcastle, and I heard the Boers were not treating him properly, and that they intended to put him into a corner. If they had done so, I should not have wanted for anything more. Had one shot been fired, I should have said, ‘What more do I wait for? they have touched my father.’”

But all doubt upon the subject of Sir T. Shepstone’s intention was quickly and suddenly set at rest—the silken glove of friendly counsel and disinterested advice was thrown aside, and the mailed hand beneath it seized the reins of government from the slackened fingers of the President of the Transvaal. On the 22nd January, 1877, Sir Theophilus Shepstone entered Pretoria, the capital of the country, where he was received with all kindness and attention by the president, Mr. Burgers, and other important men, to whom he spoke of his mission in general terms, as one the object of which was “to confer with the Government and people of the Transvaal, with the object of initiating a new state of things which would guarantee security for the future.”[59]

On April 9th, 1879, Sir T. Shepstone informed President Burgers that “the extension over the Transvaal of Her Majesty’s authority and rule” was imminent.

The following protest was officially read and handed in to Sir T. Shepstone on the 11th April:

“Whereas I, Thomas François Burgers, State President of the South African Republic, have received a despatch, dated the 9th instant, from Her British Majesty’s Special Commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, informing me that his Excellency has resolved, in the name of Her Majesty’s Government, to bring the South African Republic, by annexation, under the authority of the British Crown:

“And whereas I have not the power to draw the sword with good success for the defence of the independence of the State against a superior power like that of England, and in consideration of the welfare of the whole of South Africa, moreover, feel totally disinclined to involve its white inhabitants in a disastrous war, without having employed beforehand all means to secure the rights of the people in a peaceable way:

“So, I, in the name and by the authority of the Government and the people of the South African Republic, do hereby solemnly protest against the intended annexation.

“Given under my hand and under the Seal of the State at the Government Office at Pretoria, on this the 11th day of April, in the year 1877.

(Signed) “Thomas Burgers,
“State President.”

A strong protest was handed in on the same date by the Executive Council, in which it was stated “the people, by memorials or otherwise, have, by a large majority, plainly stated that they are averse to it” (annexation).

On April 17th, 1877, Sir T. Shepstone writes to Lord Carnarvon: “On Thursday last, the 12th instant, I found myself in a position to issue the proclamations necessary for annexing[60] the South African Republic, commonly known as the Transvaal, to Her Majesty’s dominions, and for assuming the administration thereof.” P. P. [C. 1776] pp. 152-56.

His intentions had been so carefully concealed, the proclamation took the people so completely by surprise; that it was received in what might be called a dead silence, which silence was taken to be of that nature which “gives consent.”

It has been amply shown since that the real feeling of the country was exceedingly averse to English interference with its liberties, and that the congratulatory addresses presented, and demonstrations made in favour of what had been done, were but expressions of feeling from the foreign element in the Transvaal, and got up by a few people personally interested on the side of English authority. But at the time they were made to appear as genuine expressions of Boer opinions favourable to the annexation, which was looked upon as a master-stroke of policy and a singular success.

It was some time before the Transvaalers recovered from the stunning effects of the blow by which they had been deprived of their liberties, and meanwhile the new Government made rapid advances, and vigorous attempts at winning popularity amongst the people. Sir T. Shepstone hastened to fill up every office under him with his own men, although there were great flourishes of trumpets concerning preserving the rights of the people to the greatest extent possible, and keeping the original men in office wherever practicable. The first stroke by which popularity was aimed at was that of remitting the war taxes levied upon the white population (though unpaid) to meet the expenses of the war with Sikukuni. It became apparent at this point what an empty sham was our proposed protection of Sikukuni, and how little the oppression under which he and his people suffered had really called forth our interference. Sir T. Shepstone, while remitting, as stated, the tax upon the Boers, insisted upon the payment in full of the fine in cattle levied by them upon Sikukuni’s people. So sternly did he carry out the very oppressions which he came to put an end to, that a portion of the cattle paid towards the fine (two thousand head, a large number, in the reduced and impoverished state of the people) were sent back, by his orders, on the grounds that they were too small and in poor condition, with the accompanying message that better ones must be sent in their place. A commission (composed of Captain Clarke, R.A., and Mr. Osborne) was sent, before the annexation, by Sir T. Shepstone, to inquire into a treaty pressed by the Boers upon Sikukuni, and rejected by him, as it contained a condition by which he was to pay taxes, and thereby come under the Transvaal Government.[61] To these gentlemen “Sikukuni stated that the English were great and he was little [C. 1776, p. 147], that he wanted them to save him from the Boers, who hunted him to and fro, and shot his people down like wild game. He had lost two thousand men” (this included those who submitted to the Boers) “by the war, ten brothers, and four sons.... He could not trust the Boers as they were always deceiving him.” After saying that “he wished to be like Moshesh” (a British subject), and be “happy and at peace,” he “asked whether he ought to pay the two thousand head of cattle, seeing that the war was not of his making.”

“To this we replied,” say the Commissioners, “that it was the custom of us English, when we made an engagement, to fulfil it, cost what it might; that our word was our word.”

Small wonder if the oppressed and persecuted people and their chief at last resented such treatment, or that some of them should have shown that resentment in a manner decided enough to call for military proceedings on the part of the new Government of the Transvaal. In point of fact, however, it was not Sikukuni, but his sister—a chieftainess herself—whose people, by a quarrel with and raid upon natives living under our protection, brought on the second or English “Sikukuni war.”

Turning to the other chief pretext for the annexation of the Transvaal, the disturbed condition of the Zulu border, we find precisely the same policy carried out. When it was first announced that the English had taken possession of the country of their enemies, the Zulus, figuratively speaking, threw up their caps, and rejoiced greatly. They thought that now at last, after years of patient waiting, and painful repression of angry feelings at the desire of the Natal Government, they were to receive their reward in a just acknowledgment of the claims which Sir T. Shepstone had so long supported, and which he was now in a position to confirm.

But the quiet submission of the Boers would not have lasted, even upon the surface, had their new Governor shown the slightest sign of leaning to the Zulu side on the bitter boundary question; and as Sir T. Shepstone fancied that the power of his word was great enough with the Zulus to make them submit, however unwillingly, there was small chance of their receiving a rood of land at his hands. He had lost sight of, or never comprehended the fact, that that power was built upon the strong belief which existed in the minds of the Zulu king and people with regard to the justice and honesty of the English Government. This feeling is amply illustrated by the messages from the Zulu king, quoted in our chapter upon the Disputed Territory, and elsewhere in this volume, and need therefore only be alluded to here.

But this belief, so far as Sir T. Shepstone is concerned, was destroyed when the Zulus found that, far from acting according to his often-repeated words, their quondam friend had turned against them, and espoused the cause of their enemies, whom, at his desire, they had refrained these many years from attacking, when they could have done so without coming into collision with the English.

The Zulus, indeed, still believed in the English, and in the Natal Government; but they considered that Sir T. Shepstone, in undertaking the government of the Boers, had become a Boer himself, or, as Cetshwayo himself said, his old friend and father’s back, which had carried him so long, had become too rough for him—if he could carry him no longer he would get down, and go to a man his equal in Pietermaritzburg (meaning Sir Henry Bulwer, Lieut.-Governor of Natal), who would be willing and able to take him up.

It is a curious fact, and one worthy of note, that Sir T. Shepstone, who for so many years had held and expressed an opinion favourable to the Zulus on this most important boundary question, should yet have studied it so little that, when he had been for six months Administrator of the Transvaal, with all evidence, written or oral, official or otherwise, at his command, he could say, speaking of a conversation which he held with some Dutch farmers at Utrecht—Parl. p. (2079, p. 51-4): “I then learned for the first time, what has since been proved by evidence the most incontrovertible, overwhelming, and clear, that this boundary line[62] had been formally and mutually agreed upon, and had been formally ratified by the giving and receiving of tokens of thanks, and that the beacons had been built up in the presence of the President and members of the Executive Council of the Republic, in presence of Commissioners from both Panda and Cetshwayo, and that the spot on which every beacon was to stand was indicated by the Zulu Commissioners themselves placing the first stones on it.

“I shall shortly transmit to your Lordship” (the Secretary of State for the Colonies) “the further evidence on the subject that has been furnished to me.” This “further evidence,” if forwarded, does not appear in the Blue-books. It is plain that the Border Commissioners of 1878 found both the “evidence the most incontrovertible, overwhelming, and clear,” and the “further evidence” promised, utterly worthless for the purpose of proving the case of the Boers; but, even had it been otherwise, Sir T. Shepstone’s confession of ignorance up to so late a date on this most vital question is singularly self-condemnatory.

“When I approached the question,”[63] he says, “I did so supposing that the rights of the Transvaal to land on the Zulu border had very slender foundation. I believed, from the representations which had been systematically made by the Zulus to the Natal Government on the subject, of which I was fully aware from the position I held in Natal, that the beacons along the boundary line had been erected by the Republican Government, in opposition to the wishes, and in spite of the protests, of the Zulu authorities.[64]

“I, therefore, made no claims or demand whatever for land. I invited Cetshwayo to give me his views regarding a boundary, when I informed him from Pretoria that I should visit Utrecht on the tour I then contemplated making. When I met the Zulu prime minister and the indunas on the 18th October last” (six weeks before he discovered, in conversation with some Boers, the “evidence incontrovertible, overwhelming, and clear”), “on the Blood River, I was fully prepared, if it should be insisted on by the Zulus, as I then thought it might justly be, to give up a tract of country which had from thirteen to sixteen years been occupied by Transvaal farmers, and to whose farms title-deeds had been issued by the late Government; and I contemplated making compensation to those farmers in some way or another for their loss. I intended, however, first to offer to purchase at a fair price from the Zulu king all his claims to land which had for so many years been occupied and built upon by the subjects of the Transvaal, to whom the Government of the country was distinctly liable.”[65]

Sir T. Shepstone, when he met the Zulu indunas at the Blood River, was prepared to abandon the line of 1861 (claimed by the Boers), for that of the Blood River and the Old Hunting Road (“if it should be insisted on by the Zulus,” as he “then thought it might justly be”), which, in point of fact, would have satisfied neither party; but he does not say by what right he proposed to stop short of the old line of 1856-7—viz. the Blood River—and insist upon the “Old Hunting Road.” If the half-concession were just, so was the whole—or neither.

To these half-measures, however, the Zulus would not submit, and the conference failed of its object.

“Fortunately, therefore, for the interests of the Transvaal,” says Sir T. Shepstone, “I was prevented by the conduct of the Zulus themselves from surrendering to them at that meeting what my information on the subject then had led me to think was after all due to them, and this I was prepared to do at any sacrifice to the Transvaal, seeing, as it then appeared to me, that justice to the Zulus demanded it.”