Baron Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell Baden-Powell of Gilwell

“ But now and again men would come up to advise me, with the comforting assurance that we were going wrong, and would endeavour to put me on the right line,—one, indeed, had his advice prevailed, would have taken us directly into a camp of the enemy.
Nothing is more distracting than such interruption, and nothing is more calculated to make one really lose one’s bearings.
The maxim, “Do not speak to the man at the wheel,” should ever be borne in mind, and acted up to, by those with a column who think they know better than the guide. ”

“ From our position on the top of the ridge we had a splendid view of jumbled mountain–tops and rocky, bush–grown gorges stretching in every direction,—a brutal country for military operations, but a splendid one from a rebel’s point of view. The ridge itself forms a kind of backbone or watershed through the mountains, and is passable throughout its length for troops and mule–guns.
Passing round the scene of the fight of the 5th, we came to the mountain which formed Mnyakavula’s stronghold, a place covered with huts among the bush and boulders, and evidently full of caves. ”

“ The back of the valley was formed by a single high ridge of smooth granite, and from it five offshoots ran down into the valley like fingers from the ridge of knuckles. At the tip of each of these fingers rose rocky peaks among the bush and jungle of the lower valley; these peaks and the fingers themselves form the strongholds of the individual impis. ”

“ It’s etiquette to move and talk as softly as we are able, and even harsh–voiced sentries drop their challenge to a whisper when there is no doubt of one’s identity. We give our horses a few handfuls of mealies, while we dip our pannikins into the great black ‘billy,’ where there’s always cocoa on the simmer for the guard. And presently we saddle up, the six of us, and lead our horses out; and close behind us follow, in a huddled, shivering file, the four native scouts, guarding among them two Matabele prisoners, handcuffed wrist to wrist, who are to be our guides. ”

“ He was taken out to an open place in the centre of his stronghold, where all his people who were still holding out could see what was being done, and he was there shot by a firing party from the troops.
I have great hopes that the moral effect of this will be particularly good among the rebels, as he was the head and centre of revolution in these parts, and had come to be looked upon by them as a god. No doubt, when they have realised that he is after all but a mortal, that he has succumbed to our power, and that they have no other head to take his place, they won’t delay long to surrender. ”

“ We press through thorny bush, and clamber up the slippery granite path, some men working up the right and others up the left. Behind some rocks we come upon a few huts, all empty but for some calabashes of water and some fetish rags. Then a nasty slit between the rocks has to be approached with care, or others stepped across in haste—these are the caves in which Mashonas love to lie when danger visits their kraal. The caves are labyrinths of little passages between the rocks below the ground; and a few men with guns, well posted, can hope with ease to stop a host of enemies. ”

“ On arrival there, the excitement among the boys was very great, for, as we rode into camp, we pretended we had merely shot a buck; but when Diamond turned out to take my horse from me, he suddenly recognised the skin, and his eyes almost started from his head as he put his hand over his mouth and ejaculated, “Ow! Ingonyama!” (“Great Scott! a lion!”) Then, grinning with excitement, he asked leave to go and get some more of it. In vain I told him that it was eight miles away, and close under the enemy’s stronghold. He seized up an assegai and started off at a steady trot along our back–spoor. ”

“ In 1893 inevitable conflict between the rival powers north of the Limpopo came to a head, with the inevitable result—the power of Lobengula, King of the Matabele, went down before the white pioneers of civilisation.
And while the white power of South Africa was thus spreading its far–reaching arms to enfold these enormous possessions, its heart was gaining strength and power in Kimberley and Johannesburg. Enterprise, backed by gold, is a life–current in the veins of a developing country whose value cannot be denied. ”

“ During the day I went over the koppie that had formed Uwini’s main stronghold. It is a wonderfully strong mass of boulders about half a mile long and six hundred feet high. The approaches to it were strengthened by breastworks of stone and timber, and the mountain itself is honeycombed with caves. The cave in which Uwini was captured runs all through the mountain with innumerable ramifications. It is so narrow that in many places we had to crawl, now and then climbing up on our hands and knees, and sometimes having to creep down rough ladders made of tree–trunks. ”

“ Then, firing having ceased everywhere, and smoke of burning kraals being seen curling up in columns from the stronghold, we ceased from war, and sat us down in a shady glade by the running stream, and soon had breakfast under way.
Later on we got back to our laager, and found that the main body had completely surprised the rebels before they could take to the caves (they had been sleeping outside in huts) , and, altogether, twenty–six were killed; the rest had fled in different directions. Our people, well hidden in the rocks and bush, had not had a single casualty. ”

“ The river is a big sandy bed with piles and ledges of grey granite rock, low banks covered with thorn jungle, occasional pools among the rocks. Some of the hussars, fishing in these pools, have managed to catch some good–sized barbel. It is wonderful what soldiers manage to carry as part of their kit,—here is a man carrying fish–hooks with him in this wilderness, just as in India, I remember, a man had a pair of skates among his things, which, however, came in useful when he got up to Kandahar in the winter–time. The men are certainly thin, but very healthy and hungry. ”

“ A wheelbarrow made me a comfortable lounge in which to eat my frugal but rather indigestible meal of cold pig, dough, and tea. I did not live inside the house, as lurking Matabele fugitives might have watched me in, and could have nicely caught me; but in the open verandah I should be quite a match for them. I was glad next day I had acted so, for Lord Grey’s party, camping near the house, found in the rafters of the room a fine, great, green mamba snake. ”

“ We got down off the ridge just as darkness was coming on, and we bivouacked out in the open plain pretty well tired out; but I have every hope that the advice we gave Wedza, and the surprise we gave him in the unexpected presence of our little force at his doors, and the object–lesson which the burning of the kraals and the capture of cattle on the opposite ridge must have afforded him, will, at least, shake his confidence, and help to simplify our task of capturing his stronghold, for it is a nasty–looking place to tackle, indeed, almost impossible for a small force. ”

“ Looking from my lair, through the frame of great black tree–stems, our bivouac fires in the gully just below look like ragged bits of the orange–coloured sky dropped into the dark abyss of the bush, and their blue misty wreaths of smoke rise slowly on the breathless air like a circle of ghostly sentries. The men are busy at their evening meal, the murmur of their voices and the crunching of the horses, with their muzzles deep in looted corn, are only sounds that go to emphasise the stillness of the forest. ”

“ Show them fresh spoor, and they will scarcely believe that it is that of the enemy, who should be somewhere in sight if he were not hiding, and, seeing nothing to be alarmed at themselves, they are apt to mistake discretion for funk, and foolhardiness for pluck; they think that precautions, to say the least, are derogatory; to see them saunter into danger, is as it were to watch a child playing on the edge of a cliff. It is that same foolhardiness that stands in the way of many men becoming good scouts; there are plenty who are ready, if asked, to go and look into hell’s mouth ”

“ But the niggers in the hills are calling to each other, evidently suspicious, if not actually aware of our presence—and they have eyes as strong as telescopes. Now some crows fly startled from the bush a few hundred yards to our right. Some one is moving there! Up springs a plover screaming farther on—they’re on the move. We have seen all that we want to see. [114] To stay in one place for long when scouting is risky at any time; to–day it looks even dangerous. So we quietly slip away—not by the path we came—for that is the way you run into your enemy’s ambuscades. ”

“ A reconnaissance in force in these days of long–range weapons and machine–guns can have very little chance of success, and yet for the same reasons an accurate knowledge of the enemy’s position, strength, and movements is more than ever necessary to the officer commanding a force. One well–trained, capable scout can see and report on an object just as well as fifty ordinary men of a patrol looking at the same thing. But he does so with this advantage, that he avoids attracting the attention of the enemy, and they do not alter their position or tactics on account of having been observed ”

“ Then the M’limo, fearful for his own old skin, continues to issue most encouraging news and orders. He has revived with much success the story that disease is sweeping off the whites in Buluwayo, and promises that any warrior “doctored” by his charm is proof against the British bullets, which on his hide will turn to water. They only have to wait till all the whites are dead or fled, and then they will enjoy the good things of the town, and live in palaces of corrugated iron. All this they believe implicitly. ”

“ An ordinary kraal, with stone and stockade defences, all abandoned. And such a glorious view of the wooded mountains of this Belingwe district, with the many blue ribbons of streams between, so different from the usual South African scenery.
We helped ourselves to all the corn that we could carry, as well as to some little bits of loot, such as a Kaffir piano and some tambourines—the piano being a small flat board on which is fixed a row of iron tongues, and these when struck give each a different note of soft, metallic sound. ”

“ At sundown we off–saddle and bivouac for the night where the gorge opens out a little. High above us towers the rocky Mount Ingona, on the top of which we see the kraal of chief Masunda. At dusk voices can be heard in all the rocks around us. It looks as though we were in for an attack—but the niggers vanish like smoke when a patrol [395] goes out to investigate. Lights are seen flitting about Masunda’s kraal, so we shout to them not to disturb themselves, that if they like to come and talk, we will not fight them. ”

“ Very little life along the line, beyond an [10] occasional waggon with its lengthy team of oxen or of donkeys, creeping at its very slowest pace along the plain.
Our own pace, however, is not much to boast about; we don’t go fast, and often stop to execute repairs.
The scenery remains much the same, except that the stony plain gives place to white grass veldt sparsely dotted with little thorn–bushes—its only beauty (and that is matchless of its kind) the wonderful colours of the distant hills, especially at dawn or sunset. ”

“ What I call a camp is hardly what the ordinary mind would picture: there are, of course, no tents or other such luxuries; the force is merely formed in an extended square with guns and Maxims at each of the corners, and where each man happens to stand in the ranks, there is his place to cook his food, to eat, and to spread his blanket for the night. ”

“ Suddenly De Moleyns, who had been scouting farther along the range, came galloping in, to tell us that a herd of cattle were being driven in from the plains towards the mountain at racing pace. Leaving one troop to keep the attention of the enemy engaged in the valley, I made a dash with the remainder of the squadron to intercept the cattle. Such a yelling from the women on the hill–tops, and counter–yelling from the men in charge of the cattle! ”

“ In the same way, one’s wits brighten in a fight: one seems to see clearly in every direction at once, to grasp what the enemy is at, and also what is wanted on one’s own side, before, around, and behind one. The mind is clear and not confused, and is buoyed with a feeling of elation and cheery excitement, but with a cruel under–current, close below the surface, which the Kaffirs so aptly describe as “seeing red.” ”

“ With my patrol we have a weary trudge—for only twenty per cent. of the men have boots still fit for walking— (and I am one of the remaining eighty per cent.; my feet are partly through the soles and on the ground; I go, like Agag, “treading delicately”) . We see no kraal; but the fresh spoor [392] of men, women, and children lies before to guide us. It turns and leads into the boulders on the mountain–side. There, just round the corner of a rock, one spies the eaves of a thatched hut, and, close beside a cave, a few dead branches show there is a cattle kraal. ”

“ Now and again we cross a transverse donga or tributary watercourse that runs into our stream, the donga sometimes rising to the dignity of a ravine with steep and broken sides. And when we have found a place, and safely crossed it, we turn and approach it from the other side, so that should we happen later on to be pursued and want to get across it in a hurry, we shall know the landmarks that should guide us to the ‘drift.’ The stars are palpitating now and striving hard to increase their gleam, which means that dawn is at hand. ”

“ All the country through which we are now passing has surrendered, and it is quite a new sensation to see natives walking across the veldt and not to go for them, to see fresh spoor and not to let your heart jump with joy. ”

“ We turn aside and clamber up among some hills just as the sun is rising, until we reach the ashes of a kraal that has been lately burned. The kraal is situated in a cup among the hills, and from the koppies round our native scouts can keep a good look–out in all directions. Here we call a halt for breakfast, and after slackening girths, we go into the cattle kraal to look for corn to give our horses. (The Kaffirs always hide their grain in pits beneath the ground of the ‘cattle kraal’ or yard in which the oxen are herded at night.) ”